Three shows set to blow onto Chicago stages in March

As the saying goes, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” Of course, trying to predict Chicago’s weather can be a pretty futile game, but what invariably can be predicted is that there will be stormy weather on stages throughout this month. Here is a look at just three productions blowing through town:

Iconic Russian-Jewish writer the inspiration for ‘Describe the Night’ at Steppenwolf 

When I first learned that Rajiv Joseph’s play, Describe the Night , was to have its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre (March 2 – April 9), I was intrigued by the fact that this Ohio-born writer, of Euro-American and Indian parentage–whose best-known play, Bengal Tigerat the Baghdad Zoo , was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010–had written a work in which Isaac Babel, the Russian-Jewish writer, was an essential character. 

In fact, Rajiv’s time-traveling play–a mix of storytelling and history that spans the years 1920 to 2010–moves through those many decades in Poland, Russia, and East Germany. And it begins as the young Babel, who is working as a journalist, wanders through the countryside with the Red Cavalry and documents the horrors of the military campaign of the Polish-Soviet war of 1920. 

Asked about his fascination with Babel, Joseph explained: “I first read Isaac Babel in college, at Miami University, and I liked his work. But my interest in him grew when, years later in New York, I came across his 1920 Diary at a bookseller on the street. It’s a fragmented, poetic work that contains sketches of his more popular stories that he would publish in his famous collection, Red Cavalry. And I felt a kinship with Babel–this younger writer, forcing himself to write, giving himself prompts. For example, he would write, ‘describe the kitchen,’ and then he would do it. This is a motif in his diary–a command to himself. ‘Describe the …[blank].’ And it’s how I named my play. That Babel struck up a real-life friendship with Nikolai Yezhov, the head of Stalin’s secret police, and later carried on an affair with Yezhov’s wife, Yevgenia, made my interest in him (and other members of that triangle) even more intense.” 

As it turned out, Babel was arrested by the Soviet secret police in 1939, and murdered by a firing squad early in 1940. And at one point Joseph’s play shifts to 2010 when Babel’s journal is found in the wreckage of a suspicious plane crash and raises this question: What did Babel write, and why does it matter? 

Describe the Night runs March 2 – April 9 at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted. For tickets visit steppenwolf.org or phone 312-335-1650. 

The scars imprinted on social media 

Have you ever made a mistake on the internet that couldn’t be erased, and becomes a permanent, deeply damaging scar on your character? That is the question that drives Right to Be Forgotten , currently having its Chicago premiere at Raven Theatre. 

As playwright Sharyn Rothstein explains the story: “Derril Lark was a socially awkward 17-year-old boy who now, 10 years later, is a doctoral student in comparative literature who fears that his future as a teacher is in jeopardy unless a youthful mistake relating to a female classmate can be expunged. After she has posted about him online, Lark realizes how, out of sheer innocence and naivete, he affected her at the time. And the question is this: Can we forgive and forget? Did he film her nude without her knowledge? And will he be thwarted by the Freedom of Information Act principle, or will he be able to recover his reputation by being de-listed from search engines?”

“I didn’t write the play with any particular social class or religious or ethnic background in mind,” said Rothstein. “What really intrigued me was a law created in 2014 by the European Union called ‘The Right to Be Forgotten,’ and it became the title of my play.” 

Sarah Gitenstein directs the Chicago production. “I found Sharyn’s play really scary and dangerous as well as informative and protective,” said Gitenstein, who, like Rothstein, grew up in a Jewish family. “The whole notion of freedom of speech, and the slippery slope regarding who gets to change the search engine, is particularly controversial in the U.S. And this play, which takes place when Facebook is at its peak, walks a fine line as it asks: How long must a person live with their mistake?” 

Right To Be Forgotten runs through March 26 at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark. For tickets, visit raventheatre.com or phone 773-338-2177. 

A ‘Threepenny Opera’ revival

To celebrate Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre’s 25th anniversary season–as well as its working relationship with the Kurt Weill Foundation–Fred Anzevino, the company’s Artistic Director, will mount a production of The Threepenny Opera, the work with a fabled score by Kurt Weill and a book and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht. Weill, who grew up in an observant Jewish family in Germany (his father was a cantor), fled the Nazi regime in 1933, and moved to New York where, two years later, Threepenny opened on Broadway. 

“Mack the Knife,” the biting satirical ballad covered by Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and countless others, is the show’s most famous song, but don’t miss this chance to see a full production.

The Threepenny Opera runs March 10 – April 30 at Theo Ubique, 721 Howard St., Evanston. For tickets visit theo-u.com or call 773-939-4101. 

Hedy Weiss, a longtime Chicago arts critic, was the Theater and Dance Critic for the  Chicago Sun-Times , and currently writes for WTTW-TV’ s website and contributes to the  Chicago Tonight program.