Steadstyle Chicago
	March 2010 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
	Beautiful City Tony Raft has a beautiful dream for the city and all the people in it with enough money to make it come to life.  The sleazy real estate developer envisions an enormous mall linking high priced condos with tunnels under a great glass dome so its well-heeled residents need never be exposed to the ugliness of poverty.  He's master-minded a slick marketing campaign too that will make people feel good about spending 1.5 million dollars for "four bare goddamn walls".  He calls it "Living Space Technology" because it sounded good so they put it in the brochure.  Yes, Tony's a pretty sleazy guy and his mother is concerned that his little "Lego under glass" project is bringing down the family business.  You see, the Raft "Family" are mobsters who are likely to make you a deal you cannot refuse. As Tony lays out his grand plans in the opening scene, his award-winning architect Paul Gallagher is writhing around in pain from some mysterious disease.  Is it anxiety, gas, heart attack?  Has Paul been the victim of years of "poisoning" under the Raft Family?  These are the first of nine characters we meet in Canadian playwright George F. Walker's "Beautiful City," which is making its Chicago professional theatre debut in a Theatre Mir production at the DCA Storefront Theater.  Unfortunately, Walker's contrived and highly erratic dark comedy nearly crumbles under the weight of its own ambition.  There isn't a single character in the play that is recognizably human.  Director Rob Chambers tries to compensate by turning up the energy level to an almost fevered pace to no avail.  At its best, this dramatically unbelievable and inconsequential work reminds me of a third-rate knock-off of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross" with a little bit of "The Sopranos" thrown in. Nearly every character here is a reprobate.  The big dreamer and schemer Tony is little more than a well dressed hustler.  He fears his mother Mary, the cold-hearted "Godmother" if you will who could easily cut out someone's vocal chords if she didn't care for the sound of their voice.  Her directive is simple: make lots of money for the "operation" with as little resistance, noise and publicity as possible.  Paul is a sell-out to the family's pressures and his brother Michael is a gutless wimp.  Young Stevie Moore is a brainless punk who quickly rats out his own father, Rolly for stealing pornography.  Rolly claims to be "just doing business" and wants his sister, a witch named Gina Mae, to help reform him.  Gina Mae has certain powers which have nothing to do with faith, but "the simple ugly truth".  Gina Mae has "a talent for the obvious" and a survivor's instincts.  She works in a discount store and scavenges garbage bags for bits of wasted food.  "One person's garbage is another person's meal," she tells Paul. Of the cast, the best work is turned in by Rachel Slavick, a piranha in heels as Mary Raft, and the statuesque beauty Megan Kohl as an unorthodox police detective.  Her character, unfortunately, like most of the others is unbelievable.  Certainly a well-connected "family operation" such as the Raft's would never fall to their knees over the simple intimidation she practices towards the end of the play.  Walker's play is a dramatic mess that never rings true, and we end up with lots of shouting, profanity and play violence that feels lame and contrived.  With the exception of Slavick and Kohl, everyone overplays this thing to the hilt.  "Beautiful City" feels as if it wants to make an important point about the haves and have nots of a major urban city, which is nameless here.  Like the rest of Walker's play, it is generic and hollow. Theatre Mir presents "Beautiful City" through April 3, 2010 at the Chicago DCA Storefront Theater, located at 66 East Randolph Street in Chicago.  The play runs 2 hours with intermission.  Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m.  There is an additional performance on Monday, March 15.  Tickets are $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors, and $15 for students.  For those in the theatre industry, tickets to the Monday, March 15 performance are $5.  Call 312-742-8497 or visit www.dcatheater.org.  More information on Theatre Mir is available at www.theatremir.com.   About Joe Stead Joe Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for the past twenty-five years.  He served as founder, producer and Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida.  Favorite productions have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap," "The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker," "Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Godspell".  He has also performed leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin," "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for Waukegan Community Players.  Joe holds a degree in Commercial Art from Tampa Technical Institute.  As a critic, he has reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.  Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America.  He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers.  He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene.  Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays.  His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).