PicksInSix Review: Miss Julie - Court Theatre

Trapped, Strindberg Style: Aristocratic Summer Solstice
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Sarah Frances Fiorello

It’s been a long, hard winter here in Chicago, but on the south side at Court Theatre it is currently the longest day of the year. August Strindberg's “Miss Julie” is encapsulated night after night at the turn of the 20th century and in the warmth of midsummer’s eve, for audiences to experience now through March 8th.

The play drops in on Julie’s servants, Jean and Kristine, discussing her wildish, reckless behavior during an otherwise garish (offstage) aristocratic summer solstice. Kristine respectfully heads to bed giving way for Julie and Jean to spend an evening jockeying for position, using status, sex, and social standing as levers to pull on each other to get what they want. The situation grows more dire and claustrophobic, as we slowly become privy to the inner workings of these characters—what haunts them, what moves them, and what traps them despite their agency and overwhelming desire to escape.

Mounting Strindberg in 2026 is an academic undertaking, one that requires care and attention to not only the spirit in which he created the work, but the implications that the piece—alongside Strindberg’s Naturalist theatre movement as a whole—had in the late 1800’s. Ironically, I was put at ease with this production's EDM overture, signaling an earnest understanding that Strindberg was allergic to a comfortable night at the theatre. It says, “Welcome to our psychological experiment, we hope you brought your thinking cap.”

Our three actors carry this play with poise and certainty. Kelvin Roston Jr. shines and makes it look easy as Jean, maneuvering between emotional heavy lifting and thinly veiled subtext, all while serving as a near constant presence on stage during this one hour and 40-minute one act.  Mi Kang as Miss Julie rises to the occasion without giving way to what could easily become a two-dimensional, misogynistic, overbaked fever pitch portrayal. She moves with nuance, allowing us to feel both sorry for her and disgusted by her, often at the same time. Rebecca Spence as Kristine delivers each line with surgical precision and dripping with intentionality, offering a master class in theatrical interpretation.

The creative team equally shines here. John Culbert’s stunning scenic design is as beautiful as it is claustrophobic, echoing the emotional notes of Strindberg’s writing. Raquel Adorno’s costume design is delicate and thoughtful while Abhi Shrestha’s dramaturgical work is a cornerstone to the foundation of “Miss Julie’s” resonance. All of this under the expert direction of Dr. Gabrielle Randle-Bent, whose fingerprint is over every inch of this production. No stranger to Court Theatre (directing “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Antigone,” and “The Island”), her scholarly understanding of the work and arresting theatrical storytelling style can be felt, transmuting as one within Culbert’s earthy, organic space.

Harry G. Carlson’s translation of “Miss Julie” does more than hold up at Court Theatre. You’ll be entertained, but that is hardly the point. The actors and creative team make this undertaking look effortless, doing all the requisite work to ensure that the 130-year-old play lands squarely in your lap, offering you a chance to think critically about the themes that are as relevant today as they were at the end of the 19th century.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | SARAH FRANCES FIORELLO is a graduate of Shenandoah Conservatory with a BFA in Music Theatre and a Chicago-based poet, writer, and performer. 
Instagram: @writtenbysarahfrances

PHOTO | Michael Brosilow

Court Theatre
presents
Miss Julie
Abelson Auditorium
5535 S. Ellis Ave
through March 8, 2026

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PicksInSix Review: You Will Get Sick - Steppenwolf Theatre Company

Electric performances, Impressive Illusions, Frustrating Script. 
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Catey Sullivan

The irrevocable breakdown of the human body comes for all of us sooner or later, the inevitable manifestation of the most primal fear. Coping when you can no longer deny your end is nigh is a treacherous obstacle course of grieving, profundity, surrealism and gallows humor. Or so it is in Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Noah Diaz’ “You Will Get Sick,” directed by Steppenwolf Co-Artistic Director, Audrey Francis. But for all its undeniable humor and electric performances, “You Will Get Sick” ultimately delivers a confused web of references that are more baffling than meaningful. 

The plot magically moves through time and space (terrific magic and illusion design by Skylar Fox) as a something-like-friendship develops between Callan (Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton) and an unnamed man suffering from a  mysterious illness (Steppenwolf Ensemble Member Namir Smallwood). Smallwood makes the man rich, layered, and just cryptic enough to add a dash of mystery to the proceedings. His illness is never named, but his symptoms are horrific. His legs give way from under him. His smile has gone lopsided. He bleeds and vomits hay. To deal with telling his family, he plans a rehearsal. He’ll pay a stranger to call him, and to listen to him divulge his illness. Callan answers the flier he puts on a phone pole.

As Smallwood’s garish symptoms become more debilitating, Callan and the sick man form a singular bond. But this is no “Beaches.” Their relationship is as contractual as it is emotional. Callan charges every time she wipes the sick man’s brow. 

Diaz wraps a layer of magical realism around the bleak plot. Dinosaur-like birds are plucking humans up for dinner. A latter day snake oil salesman (Steppenwolf Ensemble member Cliff Chamberlain, quadruple cast and displaying comic brilliance as an overly earnest acting student) peddles “bird insurance.” Set designer Andrew Boyce pays a striking homage to Hitchcock’s 1963 masterpiece, “The Birds” (specifically the jungle gym scene where a playground is overtaken by winged predators). There are also repeated references to “The Wizard of Oz.” Late in the 85-minute drama, we see a replica of Dorothy’s costume in the 1939 movie, Raquel Adorno’s recreation detailed down to the bows on those iconic ruby slippers.

In addition to Royce’s towering web of a set (complete with massive reveal), “You Will Get Sick” is bolstered by Jen Shriever ’s lighting which veers from golden to blackout, all of it deployed with cinematic verve.

None of the above can stop the script from spiraling into whimsy. The final moments feel abrupt and incomplete. “You Will Get Sick” brings up a universally relatable existential crisis – but in the end, it is more nonsensical than not.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | CATEY SULLIVAN has been covering Chicago theater for more than 30 years. Her work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, Playbill, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune and New City, among others. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Illinois. 

PHOTO|Michael Brosilow

Steppenwolf Theatre Company
presents
You Will Be Sick
Downstairs Theater
1650 N. Halsted St.
through July 20, 2025

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BOX OFFICE: (312) 335-1650

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PicksInSix Review: A Raisin in the Sun - Court Theatre

What Happens To A Dream Deferred?
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

Lorraine Hansberry’s arresting triumph “A Raisin in the Sun” is playing now in a brilliant production at Court Theatre. Directed by Senior Artistic Producer Gabrielle Randle-Bent, the 1957 play—penned by the 27-year-old Hansberry and largely based on her own experiences growing up on the South Side of Chicago—has been lauded since for its defining influence on American theatre, the sheer poetry of the text and its stirring depiction of an urban Black family and their individual dreams for a better life.

Randle-Bent has amassed a powerhouse company, led by the remarkable performances of Shanésia Davis as Lena ‘Mama’ Younger, the matriarch of the family; her impulsive son Walter Lee, played on an emotional edge by Brian Keys; a moving and truly sentient turn by Kierra Bunch as Walter’s pregnant wife, Ruth; Martasia Jones as the progressive daughter Beneatha; and, Jeremias Darville (who alternates with Di'Aire Wilson) as Travis, the youngest son and hope for the next generation in the family.

Set in a cramped South Side tenement in the late 1950s amid the segregation and racially restrictive covenants of the era that fueled the redlining of neighborhoods, Mama and the Younger family are expecting a $10,000 death benefit payment, the legacy of her late husband’s lifetime of service and sacrifice for the family. There is debate about how the money should be spent, but not about who is the decision maker.

On one side, Walter pleads with Ruth to join him in convincing Mama to invest the sum in a liquor store that he hopes will both raise his stature from the service job he has been trapped in and provide a better life for everyone. Ruth and Beneatha, who is studying to be a doctor, both agree that it is Mama’s decision, leaving Walter to make a direct appeal that Mama rejects in favor of her own dream: a home of their own. Once that decision sinks in, Walter embarks on a three-day bender that threatens his employment and alienates everyone in the family. In a true act of trust and love, Mama makes a concession that leads to trouble ahead for the Younger family.

Along the way, we watch Beneatha evolve from a bobby socks college student to free-spirit, influenced by the scholarly atmosphere she inhabits during the day and the attention of George Murchison (Charles Andrew Gardner), a relationship she is far less attracted to than the new ideals of Joseph Asagai (Eliott Johnson), a charming Nigerian suitor who introduces her to a culture that awakens a passion within her. Julian Parker (Bobo), Vincent Teninty (Karl Lindner) and J. Nicole Brooks (Mrs. Johnson) round out the superb cast.

Andrew Boyce’s robust scenic design—an elevated, angular stage framed in a series of large-scale urban-themed panels behind the detailed close quarters of the Younger’s meager row house flat—provides multiple obscure and semi-obstructed interior views while serving as a fascinating template for cast movement in, out and within the space. Maximo Grano De Oro evocative lighting, Willow James’s subtle sound design and superb costumes by Raquel Adorno with Jeanette Rodriguez elevate Court Theatre’s production of “A Raisin in the Sun” to a new artistic standard for this enduring American classic and the show to see now in Chicago.

PHOTO | Michael Brosilow

Court Theatre
presents
A Raisin in the Sun
5535 S Ellis Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637

Extended through March 23, 2025

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TICKETS
(773) 753-4472

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