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The Balcony
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Anne DeAcetis and Ric Walker
as Horse and General. |
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Windy City Times, August 29,
1996
New City, August 22, 1996
Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1996
Playbill Online, July 26,
1996 (preview)
Windy City Times,
August 29, 1996
The production by the Thirteenth Tribe, currently
playing in the bunker-like depths of the Chopin Theatre,
rejects this facile interpretation wholly. Far from glossing
over Genet’s arguments, director Joanna settle emphasizes
them by keeping her actors clothed at all times, albeit in
fetishistically provocative garments, and allowing the eroticism
to arise out of the ideas articulated by a cast displaying
an attention to verbal detail rarely found in actors as young
as these.
This show is not a simple talking-heads symposium–Settle
keeps the play’s action kinetic (and frequently humorous)
with some punctuative staging as intricate and agile as dance
(the scene with Irma and her sidekick, Carmen, literally
rolling in a pitful of money is a production number by itself).
And the 21-member ensemble pace themselves with marathon-runner
efficiency so that even in the final scenes, when Genet’s
philosophy becomes somewhat opaque, the action remains visually
and vocally riveting.
- Mary Shen Barnidge -
New City, August 22, 1996
Panels open to reveal a hellish yet titillating
atmosphere of paradox and groveling paranoia. Director Joanna
Settle has guided her vinyl-bedecked cast methodically through
Genet’s proclivity for combining the microscopically
subtle with the grossly overblown. They succeed in tottering
between obscene displays and tantalizingly suggestive posturing.
- Lucia Mauro -
Chicago Tribune,
August 23, 1996
Imaginatively using the deep space of the theatre’s
basement playing area, director Joanna Settle has created
a chambered fun house of mirrors, windows, shadows and sliding
doors–a shifting scene of illusion and reality.
- Richard Christiansen -
Playbill Online,
July 26, 1996
Preview: The
Balcony
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