PAST PRODUCTIONS

• CAMINO REAL
• WARD 6
• THE WAY OF THE WORLD
• THE ANTIGONE
• THE QUEENS BLACK NIGHTMARE
• THREE SISTERS
• MACBETH
• THE VILE GOVERNESS AND OTHER PSYCHODRAMAS
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
• SCARED O' THAT MESSIAH!
• TWO ROOMS
• SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW
• THE STRONGER
• THE WHITE WHORE AND THE BIT PLAYER
• ANIMAL DREAMS
• THE NORMAL HEART

CAMINO REAL, Tip of the Week ~Athenaeum Theatre – His agent advised him against ever publishing the thing. His longtime directorial collaborator, the late Elia Kazan, nailed it when he called it "an imperfect play." And yet, playwright Tennessee Williams’ "Camino Real," a critical and commercial dud when first produced in 1953, should not be dismissed. Indeed, as is often the case, here is an example of lesser-known and under-par work from a great dramatist that nonetheless remains more than a fascinating footnote of failure from the same writer of "The Glass Menagerie" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"; it’s a kaleidoscope of expressionism, lyricism and despair receiving a rare and overdue Chicago revival courtesy of Mom and Dad Productions. "Camino Real" takes place in an unnamed Latin American country in which a coterie of historical and fictional figures from different eras have converged: Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Dumas’ Lady of the Camellias Marguerite Gautier; Lord Byron; Casanova. There’s also an American boxer with a heart of gold, literally, a Laurel and Hardy-like pair of harmonica-playing street cleaners who periodically exhume dead bodies from this inescapable no-man’s land and a cynical hotel proprietor cum narrator who introduces the play’s sixteen vignettes, each of which occur on sixteen blocks around the Camino Real square. Does it all make sense? Not always. Does that matter? Not really. Subverting plot and fully developed characters for mood and entertaining archetype, the play is one big allegory for the nightmarish idea that real life, like the imagined Camino Real, is an inescapable prison ready to crush the lonely, desperate and romantic individual, a theme that the playwright would continue to explore throughout the rest of his life. Thankfully, the overriding attitude of director Joe Feliciano’s carnival-like production is one of hopefulness, humor—albeit macabre—and steely determination that gently mocks and stands in ironic counterpoint to most of Williams’ text. In addition, there are memorable performances, especially from Casey Freund as the laid-back Kilroy, Petrucia Finkler as the sympathetic Marguerite and Bato Prostran as the oily hotel proprietor. Like the play, this revival of "Camino Real" is far from perfect. But it’s a ballsy decision on the part of Mom and Dad to stage it in the first place and, luckily, one that pays off.
– Fabrizio O. Almeida, New City top^

WARD 6, Anton Chekhov invented the modern short story, which reveals characters’s lives through discrete but telling episodes. In the masterful 1892 “Ward 6," he turned his gaze on the well meaning but criminally negligent director of a mental hospital, Dr. Ragin. Convinced that truth lies only in the mind and that physical suffering is illusory, the doctor devotes himself to a brainy paranoid, Gromov, thereby putting his career in jeopardy. Adapter-director Joe Feliciano’s somber, methodical staging for Mom and Dad Productions is aptly formal and restrained, and a poignant Chekhovian humanity emerges whenever Feliciano holds court as Gromov. top^

THE WAY OF THE WORLD, Mom and Dad Productions, at the Heartland Studio Theater. The worldwide craze for all things 80s marches on, with ever odder results. Take this foray into Restoration comedy. It's common knowledge that the 80s were kind of the 50s (skinny ties, etc) and kind of 18th century (Les liaisons dangereuses, etc). But who knew they were the 17th century? Mom and Dad Productions has transposed Congreve's sparkling work of 1700 to 1980s London and recast the roles. Roguish Mirabell is a Don Johnson type, vivacious Millamant is gowned a la Like a Virgin Madonna, and blocking characters Marwood and Fainall suggest Siouxsie Sioux and Spandau ballet respectively. Mrs. Fainall is a bizarrely attractive Tammy Faye Baker, Foible a Cramps-esque Satanette, Waitwell a Brian Setzer-like rocker and queeny Witwoud a smashingly over-the-top Adam Ant in full Prince Charming drag.

Beyond the highly affected gesture and trashy hedonism common to both periods and the canny mainstream take on the fresh faced leads, this update is pretty arbitrary. But Restoration comedy, the prototype of the modern sitcom, doesn't have substance anyway, so a lofty allegory would have been beside the point. And the company's handling of the lightning quick wordplay, dainty crosscutting, emblematic dress, and high/low British accents is close to perfect credit director Joe Feliciano, costume designer Michelle Zee and dialect coach Jamie Mayhew. The sound track bounces, the cast attacks the material with giddy cheer, and Megan Pitsios (Mrs. Fainall), Ryan Smith (Witwoud), and Sean Ewert (Fainall) are hilariously, devastatingly good. --Brian Nemtusak --Chicago Reader

William Congreve wrote his play in 1700, but no periwigs or panniers figure in Mom and Dad director Joe Feliciano's concept for this production. The stage is decorated to resemble a Monopoly board, the locale is 1980s London, and the motifs reflect the fashions of that period. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll proclaims the playbill. Business as usual.

The difficulty of fitting this intricate text to the undersized Heartland Studio space take its toll on the production...But any flaws are redeemed in full by earnest performances from a hard-working company led by the fearless Jamie Mayhew, a diva with the presence of a parade float, as the hot to trot Lady Wishfort. --Mary Shen Barnidge --Windy City Times--top^

THE ANTIGONE, Mom and Dad Productions, at the Heartland Studio Theater. No play packs more themes or admits more interpretations than Sophocles' Antigone--not even prequel Oedipus Rex. There's no simple solution to the clash Antigone experiences between familial and political loyalties, and the play's myriad subconflicts--rationality vs. religion, state vs. individual, public vs. personal obligation--echo the issues of the emergent European nation-state. Often the work's knotted ambiguities get reduced to a battle between virtuous sister and villainous king, but this evenhanded production avoids that trap. As Antigone, Jill Sheridan registers both nobility and self-involvement; as Kreon, Joe Feliciano elucidates the troublingy sensible underpinnings of his character's protofascism. Both are destroyed by the same madness: despite consciously placing their principles above life itself, somehow neither can comprehend anyone else doing the same.

Some credit is due to director Gerald T. Murray's minimalist mounting, and even more to the unfussy colloquial translation (uncredited). In the time-honored manner of fledgling companies, this one gives its classical approach some abstract modern touches; the result feels vaguely beatnik or hippie (an impression strengthened by the Heartland environs). The supporting cast are pretty rough around the edges but for the most part get the job done. Of course nothing can change the fact that Greek tragedy, with its incessant "I'm talking about what I'm going to talk about" dithering, is generally more fun to consider than watch; that said, this ain't half bad. --Brian Nemtusak --Chicago Reader top^

THE QUEEN'S BLACK NIGHTMARE, Mom and Dad Productions, at the Viaduct Theater. In all three one acts on this program, the worst thing that can happen to a character inevitable does. In Peter Shaffer's 1965 Black Comedy, a struggling sculptor steals the furniture of his finicky gay neighbor in order to impress his fiancee's father and a potential patron. Not only does the apartment building have a blackout-- represented by a brightly lit stage (when the lights are on, the stage is dark)--but the sculptor must secretly return the furniture in the dark. In ensemble member Michelle Zee's Kleptopatra: Queen of the shoplifters, a fashionista who regularly shoplifts items worth thousands of dollars is wrongfully arrested for stealing a $7 pair of underwear. And Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare, an accountant is trapped onstage and must perform crucial roles in several classics without knowing any of his lines.

Though fun, these quirky plays aren't intriguing enough to sustain a two-hour-and-40-minute production; the company would benefit by dropping one. The best of the bunch turns out to be Kleptopatra: swiftly directed by S. Wilson Lee, Zee's tale skewers pop culture and is so funny that audience members were bent over laughing. But all three pieces show off the comic versatility of the actors, especially Joe Feliciano, Jamie Mayhew, and Zee. --Jennifer Vanasco top^

TWO ROOMS, "...the Playwright's eye is penetrating...Mr. Blessing...reaffirms his authority with timely political questions." - NY Times

"...a compact and powerful exploration of the hostage-taking of Beirut." -Drama-Logue top^

SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW, Mom and Dad Production, at Cafe Voltaire. With its strong characters, economical story telling, and mastery of the language, Conrad Aiken's moody minor masterpiece "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," about a teenage boy who slips into his own little world, is a great story for introducing adolescents to literature. Those qualities also make it a fine choice for stage adaptation, especially when the adapter is Frank Walters, who isn't afraid of words, and the director is Joe Feliciano: despite a tendency to indulge in gratuitous dance sequences, he gives Aiken's playful, poetic languages lots of room to live and breath and sucks us in.

From the first lines of the tale-"Listen! We will tell you the last, the most beautiful and secret story"- Feliciano, Walters, and Aiken have got us hooked. Of course, it helps that much of the beautiful narration is spoken here with haunting seductiveness by Laura Berry. And that the rest of the Feliciano's intelligent, well-tempered cast gives just enough to make their characters live, but not so much that they seem too large in Cafe Voltaire's intimate space. Stan Lee's performance as the troubled Paul is the very model of well-crafted restraint; with a few subtle gestures-the movement of a hand, a slightly altered facial expression-he communicates altered facial expression-he communicates volumes about his character's descent into snow-blind madness. --Jack Helbig--Chicago Reader top^