Good Posture
UCB returns home
It’s been more than a decade since the Upright Citizens Brigade—better known as UCB—decamped for greener pastures in New York, and subsequently Los Angeles. But no one has forgotten their Chicago roots. On Tuesday, founding members Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Horatio Sanz and Matt Walsh bring "ASSSSCAT," UCB’s signature "fuck-around" show, to the Lakeshore Theater.
Similar to the Armando Diaz Experience (Monday nights at i.O.), an audience suggestion sparks a monologue, which inspires a succession of scenes. I recently spoke with Matt Besser, now based in L.A., who told me the long and sordid story behind the show’s name—a tale of beer and belligerence.
"We were doing a show at the Elbo Room once with some of UCB buddies, and we ended up bringing in our own beer (which was very uncool to the Elbo Room) and getting really drunk before the show started. And then we started improvising and it was going terribly. They were hating us. And at some point I was just on stage by myself, ‘cause the other guys were sick of stepping on stage on and bombing. And I was making my igloo, or some scene like that, and Horatio Sanz just started yelling, ‘ASS CAT!’ And then someone on the other side of the stage started yelling, ‘ASS CAT!’ And I was like, fuck this, and I walked off stage. Now there’s an empty stage with all the improvisers drinking beer and screaming ‘ASS CAT’ across the stage to each other while the audience was going, ‘What the fuck did I pay for? What the hell’s going on here?’"
Ever since "that became the term we used any time we were improvising or doing any kind of show where we were disregarding the audience completely. So it became known as a show where we would just fuck around. And when we started in New York, that was kind of our fuck-around show," when they weren’t working on episodes of "Upright Citizens Brigade," the sketch comedy series that ran on Comedy Central from 1998-2000. (September 18 marks the DVD release of season two.)
The Lakeshore hopes to take advantage of UCB’s name recognition and talent pool. Starting this month, Tuesdays are given over to UCB acts, including Besser himself, who returns on October 9 with his one-man show, "Matt Besser's Magical Sack of Dump." In it, he plays various characters, including a Nazi Pope who you can find on a Funny or Die segment called "Ask the Pope" telling a porn star: "You are just a dick with a man on the end of it." (Nina Metz)
The Upright Citizens Brigade performs throughout the fall at the Lakeshore Theater, 3175 North Broadway, (773)472-3492.
STAGE EVENTS
A Season of Labute
Profiles Theater presents four Midwest premieres of the acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute. Directed by various members of the company, Labute's ability to penetrate the most disturbing parts of human relationships will be on display in "Some Girls," "This is How it Goes," "Things We Said" and his newest play, which is yet to be announced.
Opens September 10, Profiles Theater
The Princess Club
Redmoon's re-imagining of classic fairy tales asks how way these myths have saturated our culture and our understanding of the feminine. Humorous, thought-provoking, and decidedly "physical," the production delights in absurdity to unravel the "logic" of the damsel in distress.
Opens September 11, Redmoon Central
The Crucible
Steppenwolf ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro directs Arthur Miller's classic response to McCarthyism. Using the Salem witch trials as an all-too-apt setting, Miller's play confronts themes of truth and justice that resonate within the current political landscape.
September 11-November 13, Steppenwolf Theater
Passion Play
Three communities stage the "Passion" play in the tumultuous settings of Elizabethan England, Germany between the wars, and post-Vietnam America. With a sense of humor and theatricality, writer Sarah Ruhl explores the relationship between religion and politics in this three-act work.
September 14-October 21, Goodman Theatre
Phantom
Not to be confused with Andrew Llyod Weber's "Phantom of the Opera," "Phantom" is the work of Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston and never appeared on Broadway. Although it is also a musical telling of the Gaston Leroux novel, "Phantom" focuses more closely than its counterparts on the relationship between Erik, the phantom and Christine.
September 16-November 11, Theatre Building Chicago
A Steady Rain
Themes of loyalty and power are interwoven into this gripping tragedy by local playwright Keith Huff. Two Chicago policemen struggle with their friendship, their families, and their unknowing participation in the plans of a cannibalistic serial killer.
September 20-October 28, Chicago Dramatists
Thyestes
Reviving the work of Roman playwright and philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, director JoAnne Akalaitis tackles the brutal killings in a classic Greek myth that pits brother against brother. The Court Theatre will emphasize the tragedy of vengeance and arrogance in its bold production.
Opens September 29, Court Theatre
Passion
Artistic Director Gary Griffin, whose work includes Broadway's "The Color Purple," takes on another of Stephen Sondheim's pieces for the Chicago Shakespeare theater. Set in nineteenth-century Italy, the work's characters face the obsessive power and tragedy of desire.
Opens October, Chicago Shakespeare Theater
No Child
Nilaja Sun not only wrote this popular work, she portrays its multiple characters, embodying with equal force an elderly custodian, a besieged Latina Mother, or her own experiences as a teaching artist. After a long run of sold-out shows in New York, Hal Brooks directs this critique of the public school system for a Chicago audience.
October-November, Lookingglass Theater
Jersey Boys
A classic rags-to-riches tale following the career of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The 2006 Tony Award winner for Best Musical includes the hits "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Oh, What a Night."
LaSalle Bank Theatre, opens October 6
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
The work of perhaps the most inventive and influential figure in modern dance is honored in two programs spanning five decades of Merce Cunningham's career (one of which includes the audience choosing the score from iPod shuffles).
Dance Center, October 12
8th Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival
"A Fierce Presence," this year's theme for the Women's Performance Art Festival, promises to tackle various female perspectives on excelling in a male-dominated society. Always with a sense of humor, the festival uses improv, standup, dance and performance art to investigate the year's theme.
October 26, Links Hall
Tesla's Letters
Although practically unknown because of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla is credited with giving the world electricity as it is used today. Jeffrey Stanley's play interweaves the Balkan conflict, political action and the role of science as it follows an American student researching Tesla's life in the former Yugoslavia.
November 10-December 23, Timeline Theater
Kristen Schaal
A cult favorite, Kristen Schaal has gained mainstream attention with her performances on Comedy Central and HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Projecting a persona of awkward naiveté, Schaal's observations are acute and often dark.
November 30, Lakeshore Theater
