Fool's Gold Coast

Shows Worth Seeing 12

Life Is a Dream (The Building Stage). Blake Montgomery gives Calderon's masterpiece about fate, free will, and illusion a loose, DIY staging that's both laugh- and thought-provoking. Plus, there's a bar. Through June 30.

Rent (American Theater Company). Director David Cromer once again skims off a layer of cheese that had settled on an American classic. And for once, Maureen isn't annoying. Through July 1.

The Cripple of Inishmaan (Redtwist Theatre). Martin McDonagh's least disturbing play at once satirizes and celebrates the grand Irish tradition of making shit up. Kimberly Senior's cast capture the script's dry humor and unpredictability. Through June 24.

Sexy Baby (Hell in a Handbag Productions). The funniest kiddie pageant-related thing to come along since Honey Boo Boo (who's getting her own show, by the way). David Cerda and Scott Lamberty's musical is appropriately horrifying and hilarious. Through June 23.

ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of The Hypocrites' Romeo Juliet and The Side Project's The Promise are in this week's Chicago Reader.

Target Demographic

On at least four occasions in the last month, I have been walking down the street with Kito when a passerby has felt compelled to tell him he's cute. These complimentary pedestrians have ranged in age from young to old, but they have all been women and they have all been black.

Naturally, I am burning with envy. All that any gay man really craves in this world is the approval of black women, for in his heart of hearts, every gay man wishes he were Chaka Khan (admit it: you do). The fact that Kito has gotten this long-sought validation and I have not makes me so jealous I could spit.

Trashy

What amazes/disgusts me about moving is the amount of stuff I end up throwing away. When the whole thing's finally over, I'll think, wait, so I was living among 23 garbage bags' worth of trash and this was fine with me? I mean, the level of detritus a life accumulates is just staggering. I assume this has something to do with entropy or inertia or something. I'm not really a science guy.

"Detritus," by the way, is one of those words I encountered in print well before I heard it said, resulting in a comically inaccurate pronunciation of my own devising (DET-ruh-tus). Other words in this category (and my misinformed pronunciations): "biopic" (bye-AH-pic), "archipelago" (ark-uh-puh-LAY-go), and "Chabon" (KAY-bun).

Condo

Sorry to bore you with so many entries about my new apartment lately, but that's the subject that's been occupying my mind. The other day I was watching a porno and I actually found myself thinking, "That's a nice wall color. I wonder if we're going too light with ours. Maybe I should stare at color strips some more."

You'll notice I usually say "apartment" instead of "condo," even though the latter term is usually employed to refer to an apartment you own. This is because for me "condo" will always mean "summer vacation rental"--specifically, a summer vacation rental at Edgewater Beach Condominium in Destin, Florida, where my family spent a week every June while I was growing up.

It's a beachfront property with a stair-step silhouette. I always wanted to stay on one of the higher floors because I was a hick whose chances of seeing the world from an elevation above four stories or so were few and far between. My parents always rented a unit on the second floor, however--#205 was their favorite--because each of those had a sliding glass door in the back for easier beach access (where was the first floor? underground?). You just had to walk across a little lawn, past the pool and the suspiciously ever-warm kiddie pool, then down a short boardwalk and voila: the Gulf of Mexico.

In my mind's eye, the interior design of #205 was remarkably similar to that of Blanche Devereaux's living room on The Golden Girls. After a day at the beach (which was always deadly dull after the first 20 minutes), we'd go to dinner at a seafood restaurant or my Uncle Tommy would make peel 'em and eat 'em shrimp, which I would be sure to strip of the last vestiges of shell because one time I asked my mom what would happen if you ate it and she said, "You'd die."

Sometimes after dinner, we'd play putt-putt or go to this place that had go-karts and bumper boats, which were these inner tubes equipped with a motor and a steering thing that I could never get the hang of, so I'd just be spinning around and around inches from the dock, amid the smell of gasoline from the motor which was hot to the touch by the way and now that I think of it was that even safe?

Sorry, I fell down a nostalgia hole back there. What were we talking about?

ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of Wishbone Theatre Collective's Incendiary and The Building Stage's Life Is a Dream are in this week's Chicago Reader.

All That Glitters 148

A look at how I've been diverting myself lately.

Books
READ: King Lear by William Shakespeare, ed. by RA Foakes [I think Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres has forever altered my understanding of the play].
COMING UP: Ben Jonson, Alastair Brotchie.

Movies
SAW: Children of Paradise [a gorgeous new print].
THIS WEEK'S MOVIE NIGHT PICKS:
MINE: Being Elmo [about Muppeteer Kevin Clash].
KITO'S: The Grey [so I guess Liam Neeson is done being a serious actor?].
NEXT WEEK'S THEME: Radio.

Television
WATCHING: The Simpsons (Fox), Bob's Burgers (Fox), Glee (Fox), Awake (NBC) [I really hope next week's finale ties up all the loose ends 'cause the network decided not to bring it back next season].
ON DEMANDING: Game of Thrones.

Current Interests
Television, Mitt Romney, the death penalty, theater, the Palins, US history, gay marriage, NPR, Uptown, my new apartment, camp, my family, photography, music, race, Kito, the BFF, comedy, movies, books, AIDS, the Internet, my dog Lucy.

Fool's Four
FOUR INTERIOR PAINT COLORS YOU WILL NEVER FIND:
1. White.
2. Brown.
3. Red.
4. Gray.

Flashbacks
TWO YEARS AGO: "Tomorrow is my last day at the soul-crushing office job I've held for more than six purgatorial years (don't worry: it only felt like 60)."
THREE YEARS AGO: "The First People I Came Out To."
&
"Rue McClanahan wants to premiere her new one-woman show in Chicago."
FOUR YEARS AGO: "How can he be all that irresistible without a chin?"

Glitter

Shows Worth Seeing 11

The Cripple of Inishmaan (Redtwist Theatre). Martin McDonagh balances sentiment and cruelty in his surprising Irish-gothic folktale about "Cripple Billy" Clavin and his dreams of stardom. Director Kimberly Senior avoids the Darby O'Gill route, yielding a production simultaneously stark and cozy. Through June 24.

Sexy Baby (Hell in a Handbag Productions). A biting, hysterical musical about child beauty pageants. The parents are all Mama Roses and most of the contestants are dudes in drag. My personal favorite: Alex Grelle's demented Beyansay Riddle, who has a prosthetic forehead and several untreated behavioral disorders. Through June 16.

When the Rain Stops Falling (Circle Theatre). Andrew Bovell's multigenerational family drama resembles a villanelle in its use of recurring phrases and images whose meanings deepen with each repetition. John Gawlik's production is sensitive, layered, and performed with quiet honesty by an ensemble cast. Through June 17.

The Iceman Cometh (Goodman Theatre). Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy head a uniformly excellent cast in Eugene O'Neill's merciless masterpiece about dreams going poof. Robert Falls's restrained yet monumental staging manages to evoke both Edward Hopper and Caravaggio. Through June 10.

Color Me Bored

Today Kito made me help him select paint colors for our new apartment. We went with Harvest Brown in the living room, Smoky Blue in the guest bathroom, Fresh Cement in the bedroom (for that homey, concrete-bunker look), and Blue Tundra in the master bath.

Take my word for it: you haven't really grasped the extent to which you've become a boring person until you find yourself in an argument with your significant other about whether the color of your walls should be Butternut Wood or Storm.

I used to think about art.

Closed

Yesterday Kito and I closed on our condo. It involved borrowing his sister's car and driving to some godforsaken suburb to meet with attorneys, realtors, and administrative types in an office strongly reminiscent of the set design for Steep Theatre Company's The Receptionist (haven't seen the show? just picture despair and add Muzak).

We were led to a room filled with paper, each handed a pen, and told we had to sign our way out. I'm telling you: we did more signing yesterday than Marlee Matlin.

To make matters worse, an official-looking woman told me that my signature had to match my name exactly as it appeared on the documents, meaning that instead of scrawling my usual "ZK[abstract scribble]," I had to write out "Zachary K. Thompson" every single time. I was like, this settles it: if Kito and I ever have a child, we're going to name it Cher. No last name. Just Cher. If he ever applies for a mortgage--perhaps with some nice girl he met in group therapy--little Cher will thank us.

But anyway, I am now a homeowner. Did you ever think you'd live to see the day?

ELSEWHERE:
My reviews of Northlight Theatre's [Title of Show] and Redtwist Theatre's The Cripple of Inishmaan are in this week's Chicago Reader.

Closing Time

Tomorrow afternoon Kito and I will attend the closing for our new condo. I've never been to a closing, but I assume it'll be a lot like the ceremonies that conclude the Olympic games. I hope we weren't the ones who were supposed to hire the Chinese acrobats and rent the 2,012 white doves symbolizing world peace.

In any case, our time in Uptown grows short. Target, I think I'll miss you most of all.

All That Glitters 147

A look at how I've been diverting myself lately.

Books
READ: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon [I've been acting like such an expert on comic books lately].
COMING UP: Don DeLillo, Evelyn Waugh, Zoe Heller.

Movies
SAW: We Have a Pope.
THIS WEEK'S MOVIE NIGHT PICKS:
THEME: Based on TV Shows.
KITO'S SELECTION: The Addams Family (dir. Sonnenfeld, 1991).
MINE: The Fugitive (Davis, 1993) [gets my vote for best use of Chicago as a setting].

Music
LISTENED TO: Leonard Cohen, The Complete Studio Albums Collection [he's really good at lyrics and really good at spoiling a cheerful mood].

Current Interests
Obama's support for same-sex marriage, pop music, Kito, comedy, the BFF, books, movies, show tunes, AIDS, the 2012 election, the Goodman, the Internet, art, my dog Lucy, inter-species animal friendships, my family, television, anti-gay bullying, sleep, Arkansas, Christianity, race.

Fool's Four
MY FAVORITE PLAYWRIGHTS:
1. William Shakespeare.
2. Anton Chekhov.
3. Tennessee Williams.
4. Samuel Beckett.

Glitter
And now, a friendly reminder that Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 13.