The non-holiday holiday show has become almost as big a cliché as It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol. It’s possible Brian Posen wasn’t thinking about that when he scheduled Bri-Ko. Maybe Stage 773 , his new digs at 1225 W. Belmont, had a gap in its schedule. But purposeful or no, this silent clown show fulfills all the standard requirements. Light-hearted and funny? Check. Not particularly thought-provoking? Check. Aimed squarely at the 20-somethings? Check again.

In Chicago, clowning has come to be equated with 500 Clown , who offer a particularly aggressive approach to clowning that’s part literary parody, part stunt show. Bri-Ko, which is comprised of Tim Soszko, Brian Posen and Brian Peterlin, approaches things a little differently. This show is smaller. There’s less wow and more laughs. And, appropriately enough, the whole thing feels a little bit more like sketch then anything you’d see at 500 Clown .

Things open with the three clowns emerging to don their white lab coats, hard hats and goggles, only to immediately be confronted with a burnt out light bulb. From here they move from task to task. Sometimes it seems that they’re employees in some bizarre laboratory. But that conceit seems to come go away and occasionally come back when it’s convenient. There’s no throughline to speak of. Just a series of funny bits. A teddy bear is sacrificed to science. Juggling balls “die” and are mourned. A series of switches are explored with predictably unpredictable results. And so on.

But for a 75-minute show like this, the lack of throughline isn’t particularly troubling. Most of the sketches are funny, and some are downright hilarious, such as the dance sequence. Soszko, Posen and Peterlin have good instincts, although their command of stillness, critical for good clowning, occasionally leaves them. But their audience interaction, if a little intrusive, is generally handled quite well.

So while this isn’t the perfect show, it’s certainly entertaining. With the exception of one sketch, there’s no real holiday theme. So if you’d like to see some clowning, or you’re just sick of the recycled Christmas shows that pop up like fungus all over town this time of year, Bri-Ko will give you a fun night out.

Bri-Ko, Stage 773

Nina Metz, Tribune—“Some of the material is recycled from years past, and not all the new elements work; a funeral for a bean bag (buried with full military honors) feels particularly tone deaf. But in terms of originality, Bri-Ko has no local peer. As a group, it has so much dorky likability going for it that you can—and really should—overlook the weaker portions of the show. Soszko is the strongest performer of the bunch, plaintive and cuddly one moment, a withering scold the next. He brings to mind the kind of clowning defined and refined by Buster Keaton and Bill Irwin.”

Laura Molzahn, Reader—“Don’t let their pink complexions fool you—Brian Posen, Brian Peterlin, and Tim Soszko clearly borrow from the Blue Man concept in these 75 minutes of generally hilarious physical comedy directed by Ann Boyd. Flying gumballs, lettuce, and marshmallows keep the comedy at a level all ages can appreciate as the trio skewer pretension and celebrate innocence in wordless sketches that mourn dead Christmas toys, for example, and spoof fine-dining rituals. Chelsea Warren’s clean, attractive set yields welcome surprises, but that’s not always true of the comedy: setups can be too methodical, and some bits are repetitious. With just a few more nuggets of comic business, this show would be the perfect return to the playpen.”

The Importance of Being Earnest, Remy Bumppo Theatre Co.

Chris Jones, Tribune—“Somehow, this Earnest lacks pace and a little of the necessary enveloping sparkle. Production values here are limited. Still, Melissa Torchia’s costumes are both appealing and gently amusing, and an opening-night moment when the bell rope used to summon sardonic manservant Lane (played with style by William J. Watt) fell out of the wall proved unanticipated but fertile comedic fodder. Not all the casting is as apt—Linda Gillum, to be frank, comes off a tad past the desirable age range of Gwendolen. Kelsey Brennan’s Cecily is pleasing enough, but she doesn’t fully play on the desirable contrast between innocence and manipulation. But Paul Hurley’s Jack Worthing whines and manipulates with class, and the show also features the considerable talents of Greg Matthew Anderson, an effortlessly ethereal actor who is the very epitome of what Wilde intended for Algernon—the kind of guy who, as Lady Bracknell puts it, has nothing but looks everything. We should all be so lucky.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“With rapid-fire, precision-tuned direction by Shawn Douglass, who has gathered a cast that seems uniformly born to play Wilde (and it is a special talent, to be sure), this Remy Bumppo production sparkles from the first sardonic glance of a butler to the final “bon mots” of all involved. And those bon mots and glittering adages come fast and furiously in three acts that glide by effortlessly, and with nearly nonstop, effervescent laughter that is invariably rooted in a mix of psychological insight and total nuttiness."

Tony Adler, Reader—“Shawn Douglass’s droll staging for Remy Bumppo Theatre brings out not just the absurdity but the absurdism in Oscar Wilde’s classic farce about lovers stymied by, well, nothing very much. There’s an amused imperturbability in the tone of things that makes Wilde’s high Victorian characters sound like they might’ve wandered over from a production of Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano. Nobody pretends very hard that there’s anything at stake in their wooing, or a serious question as to how things will turn out. Even in the midst of a brief third-act reversal, the characters behave as if they’ve read the end of the play and found it thoroughly satisfactory. They’re just performing for one another to pass the time—and, of course, to savor Wilde’s gorgeous aphoristic wit.”

Kris Vire, Time Out—“So don’t think director Douglass and Remy Bumppo are oh-so-clever for putting a man in Bracknell’s bustle and preposterous hats. No, their real smarts lie in putting [David] Darlow in them. Rather than camp it up as some actors, male or female, would be tempted to do, Darlow grounds Bracknell’s starched inquisitions about the social standings of Jack Worthing (Hurley), her daughter’s suitor, and his ward, Cecily (Kelsey Brennan), in perfectly pinched understatement. She has an unshakable confidence in her own ridiculously paradoxical pronouncements. The rest of the cast navigates Wilde’s silly mistaken-identity plot and abundance of epigrams well enough in Douglass’s serviceable production.”

Neal Ryan Shaw, New City—“The play is ably handled by director Shawn Douglass and his cast, all of whom attack Wilde’s brilliant dialogue with aplomb. Greg Matthew Anderson’s Algernon is a loveable cad. Paul Hurley’s Jack is a sympathetic fop. Linda Gillum, as Gwendolen, and Kelsey Brennan, as Cecily, are both delightful as the two ladies in love with ‘Earnest.’ David Darlow’s traditional drag turn as the authoritarian Lady Bracknell is sensational. This revival is a little more lighthearted than caustic, but Wilde’s witticisms alone are worth the price of admission.

Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“Earnest is a natural choice for Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, with its literate tastes and core of classically-trained actors. It’s not surprising that they’ve done an admirable job in bringing it to the stage, directed by Shawn Douglas, although on opening night it still was studied and careful. A week of performances should allow the company to achieve a fully-confident and relaxed presentation.”

Lobby Hero, Redtwist Theatre

Nina Metz, Tribune—“Lonergan’s paper-thin story is weighed down with enough faux moral ambiguity about loyalty and truth-telling that it nearly collapses in on itself. Nothing here resembles life as it is lived… But what an environment! Set in the lobby of an upscale apartment building, director Keira Fromm and set designer Andrew Jessop (who also stars) incorporate the theater’s front door and plate glass windows into the set itself, complete with a view out onto a bustling section of Bryn Mawr Avenue. It’s a clever bit of staging with plenty of verisimilitude, and a few scenes take place out on the sidewalk, visible through the windows and clearly audible thanks to some hidden microphones. It’s a setup that creates all sorts of delightful oddities, as real passers-by become inadvertent extras.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“At the center of Lobby Hero—which shows the vivid imprint of Keira Fromm’s impeccable direction at every turn—is Jeff (Andrew Jessop, a marvelous actor who magically makes his character’s thought processes palpable). A security guard at a Manhattan apartment building, he is a very bright and perceptive underachiever trying to get his life in order… Clearly everybody here has something major at stake. And Lonergan very shrewdly and tellingly weaves together his characters’ personal agendas with larger issues of criminal justice, discrimination, personal responsibility and the desire to simply ‘do the right thing,’ even when it isn’t all that simple. Jessop has done double duty on this show by devising its ingenious set design. He unquestionably deserves a big promotion.”

Albert Williams, Reader—“Kenneth Lonergan’s intriguing 2001 comedy focuses on Jeff, a young security guard at a posh New York apartment building, whose friends—including his uptight supervisor and a rookie female cop to whom Jeff is attracted—tend to take him into their confidence. When he tries to help them by revealing their secrets, he only makes matters worse for all concerned. The cast give intimate, honest performances under Keira Fromm’s imaginative and detailed direction. I felt like I was sitting in the lobby, eavesdropping, rather than watching a play. Andrew Jessop, who brings a quirky spontaneity to his portrayal of Jeff, designed the inventive set, which transforms an Edgewater storefront into an upscale Manhattan high-rise. Street traffic, viewed through the storefront’s windows, adds to the ambience.”

Zac Thompson, Time Out—“The performances in Fromm’s staging are generally as sensitive and nuanced as the script, but with one glaring misstep: the casting of Jessop as Jeff. Though skilled, the actor has a brainy, tightly wound demeanor completely at odds with the character’s laid-back indolence. Kidwell, however, is damn near perfect, contributing an unexpectedly moving take on Dawn as a tenderhearted person trying desperately to look tough.”

Travels With My Aunt, Writers Theatre Chicago

Chris Jones, Tribune—“With a pretty hefty running time for this kind of thing, the piece has always outstayed its welcome, a problem exacerbated by director Stuart Carden’s carefully wrought but uniformly paced Writers’ production wherein tension does not rise to the loftiest heights; Carden might also have put more focus on precisely how and why Henry changes. Those caveats stipulated, Travels with My Aunt is a very warm show. Carden has deftly put together a formidable cast here, including LaShawn Banks (who spends much time playing one of Augusta’s more interesting paramours), Sean Fortunato, John Hoogenakker and Jeremy Sher. This quartet not only meshes together uncommonly well, but they come with palpably different skills that all serve the piece in different ways.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“It is Havergal’s rollicking version that is now receiving a vivid, supremely well-acted production in Writers’ Theatre’s intimate bookstore space in Glencoe. It is there that the very skillful director Stuart Carden has gathered four remarkable actors—Sean Fortunato, John Hoogenakker, LaShawn Banks and Jeremy Sher—who portray a slew of exotic characters while also slyly slipping in and out of the central role of Henry Pulling — an impossibly bland 55-year-old banker and bachelor in early retirement.”

Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald—“The constant character shifting requires tour-de-force performances, which Carden’s top-notch male quartet delivers. LaShawn Banks, Sean Fortunato, John Hoogenakker and Jeremy Sher convey volumes with a quirked mouth or narrowed eye. Each takes on the role of the mild-mannered Henry. Each shades him a little differently, which makes for a poignant portrait of a man who has reached middle age without having ever really lived.”

Tony Adler, Reader—“It’s easy to confuse Graham Greene’s 1969 novel, Travels With My Aunt, with Patrick Dennis’s more famous Auntie Mame—and not just because of the similar titles. Both concern sheltered, naive males who lose their parents and get swept up into the adventures of a wild old female relative. But where Dennis’s nephew-hero is a 10-year-old kid, Greene’s is a retired English banker who never married and seems ready to spend his remaining years tending dahlias until Aunt Augusta shows up. What’s more, Augusta’s adventures are of a different sort than Mame’s—the sort that involves CIA agents, Nazi collaborators, corrupt Turkish generals, and trips to Paraguay. Performed chamber-theater-style by a sharp cast of four men dressed in bowlers and three-piece pinstriped suits, Giles Havergal’s stage adaptation of the Greene tale is an engrossing, satisfyingly nasty yarn that unexpectedly has as much to say about true passion as it does about looted art.”

John Beer, Time Out—“Carden stages Havergal’s 1989 adaptation as a trunk show to end all trunk shows. The part of Henry, who also narrates the action, is distributed among the four performers: Fortunato doubles as Aunt Augusta, Hoogenakker as CIA man Tooley and his flower-child daughter, and Banks as African valet Wordsworth, while Sher provides inspired Foley accompaniment (opening and closing an umbrella to simulate a departing train, for instance). The quartet’s athletic, hilarious teamwork transcends Greene’s crafty claptrap. The effortless panache with which the actors switch accents and characters is never less than dazzling.”

Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“The confined quarters in Writers’ Theatre’s suburban storefront that reduces Brian Sidney Bembridge’s set dressing to a collection of suitcases and incidental props makes for smooth and swift transitions under the choreographic direction of company newcomer Stuart Carden for the cozy two hours of their running time. The four players, carefully drilled by dialect consultant Eva Breneman, ascertain that our re-orientation time as we zip from locale to locale and persona to persona is minimal and effortless. There’s still the problem of the constantly-shifting focus, however—but since the show is scheduled to play until March, why not see it more than once and thus, get the whole experience?”