There are already theatres in Chicagoland who sort of fit this mold. The Gift in Jefferson Park, for example, or Next Theatre in Evanston. But while both those companies make themselves a critical part of their communities, I’m not sure that the work they choose is consistently informed by those communities.

16th Street Theatre in Berwyn, however, seems to be taking that next step. Helmed by Ann Filmer, this four-year-old company produces entirely new work. And given Berwyn’s large Latino population, Filmer has programmed a number of works by Latino artists. It remains to be seen whether this working-class neighborhood will support a new-work-centric Equity theatre, but it’s certainly a noble experiment.

16th Street’s current production—Our Dad is in Atlantis by Javier Malpica—marks the company’s first production in translation, and first work by a non-U.S. playwright (Malpica is Mexican). Interestingly, its starting premise is the same as Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers: a father drops his two young sons off to live with their formidable grandmother while he goes off to earn some money. But it quickly becomes clear that the beginning is about the only thing Malpica’s play has in common with Simon’s. For starters we never meet anyone but the two boys. Their father, grandfather, the other kids at school, the rest of their relations never actually appear. The boys’ isolation on stage emphasizes their feelings of abandonment. And things only go from bad to worse as their father fails to return as he’d promised, their grandmother dies, and their aunt and uncle who take them in basically treat them as second class family members. It’s not surprising that the boys decide to try to cross the border into the United States in an attempt to get to Atlanta and find their father.

The opportunity to see the illegal immigration question from the other side makes Our Dad is in Atlantis worth seeing. The production moves along quickly. Director Ann Filmer effectively utilizes a few set pieces to evoke a wide variety of locales. Todd Garcia and Remy Ortiz have strong chemistry as the two boys. They seemed to have a few line stumbles the night I attended, but their overall dynamic made up for any miscues. Malpica’s script isn’t perfect. The characters don’t really change much, although some of the fault there might lie in Filmer’s production. And anyone looking for anything feel good in this story is likely to be disappointed. But with a 75 minute run time, these problems are minimal. And the chance to see a new perspective on one of the central issues of the day makes Our Dad is in Atlantis worth the trip.

Our Dad is in Atlantis, 16th Street Theatre

Jack Helbig, Reader—“There’s a lot of potential in this two-hander by Mexican writer Javier Malpica, about young brothers whose father goes off to work in El Norte after their mother dies. It’s got vibrant, sympathetic characters and a situation fraught with dramatic possibilities. But Malpica never manages to build a compelling story around those assets. Instead he gives us tiny slices of daily life in which the rootless, lonely boys are shipped from one set of relatives to another before finally deciding to find dad. Director Ann Filmer tries hard to breathe life into the show, and Remy Ortiz and Todd Garcia have a great onstage chemistry—they’re convincing even though they’re at least a decade older than the children they play. Ultimately, however, all of their good work is undermined by the weak script.”

John Beer, Time Out—“Filmer’s spare production highlights the laconic power of Malpica’s parable. Garcia does masterful work as the older brother, occasionally registering his bleak situation with a stoic stare like something out of a De Sica film. Ortiz has the trickier task of playing pre-adolescent; while in spots he amps up the childlike to sugar-high levels, his guileless enthusiasm is crucial to Our Dad’s ultimate hammer blow. The play’s as eloquent and brutal as Dickens or The Grapes of Wrath; it should be required viewing in Arizona schools.”

Eurydice, Filament Theatre Ensemble

Kerry Reid, Tribune—“Julie Ritchey’s staging in a Pilsen loft cunningly incorporates a working freight elevator that bears the title character to the underworld, and also provides a shower that washes away her memories of life with her husband, super-musician Orpheus. The real strength of this production lies not just in the imaginative staging, but in the simplicity and lyricism of the performances. The emotional textures and conundrums woven through Ruhl’s text come through here with both urgency and delicacy.”

Keith Griffith, Reader—“Director Julie Ritchey uses Peter Oyloe’s dopey, gnomic Orpheus and Carolyn Faye Kramer’s adorably nebbishy Eurydice to draw out the ethereal lyricism of Sarah Ruhl’s 2005 Eurydice. Ruhl’s modern fable takes on the lightness of a floating island, unbounded by history or place, in the cavernous Lacuna Lofts. But the same space shifts with disorienting specificity into an underground nightclub for Omen Sade’s physical-theater take on the myth.”

Christopher Shea, Time Out—“Ritchey’s competent production doesn’t tackle the material with particular flair. Despite taking place in a gargantuan warehouse, the action unfolds mostly in an alley setup at the room’s center, rendering the architecture largely irrelevant. The pretty cast—the actors look as if they could’ve walked straight out of a CW drama—commits to the material. But, in casting as in design, one can’t help but wish that this production had a stronger eye for the off-kilter, the unusual.

Neal Ryan Shaw, New City—“By focusing on Eurydice’s experience, Sarah Ruhl’s play ends up becoming a treatise on loss and memory. And although imperfect, Filament Theatre’s production manages to make some of the play’s most striking and poignant moments utterly memorable. Director Julie Ritchey maximizes the potential of the space at the Lacuna Artist Lofts with open, mobile, yet not unnatural staging, although the predominance of the wood flooring makes for a peculiar Hades. Peter Oyloe is appropriately aloof as an Elvis-type Orpheus, and his original music, along with Shannon Bengford, is stirring when it’s not too precious. Carolyn Faye Kramer evokes empathy in the titular role, as does Patrick Blashill as her father, and together the chemistry in their relationship often eclipses the romantic one.”

The Madness of George III, Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Chris Jones, Tribune—“This Chicago Shakespeare production, a hugely invigorating and entertaining affair, benefits greatly from a true, old-fashioned star performance from Harry Groener in the leading role. Groener, a live wire of spectacular spontaneity and unpredictability, does the crucial job of making George at once troubled, a tad childish and hugely empathetic…The physical production isn’t so distinctive. Although Susan E. Mickey’s costumes are grand, the setting, by William Bloodgood, has a rather generic feel. And although there are times when you want Groener’s spontaneity to more powerfully affect the physicality of the show, Metropulos paces this piece masterfully and has cast it superbly, and she can mostly just let her actors run with this rich Bennett script.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“That is where The Madness of King George III, Alan Bennett’s impossibly smart, shrewd, poignant, funny, bristlingly alive 1991 drama about the man who ‘lost the colonies’ is now receiving a transcendent, impeccably cast production under the direction of Penny Metropulos. And it is where Harry Groener (a Tony Award-nominated actor with major musical credits, who also is widely known as the Mayor in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’), is giving one of those towering performances that suggests a lifetime of work has coalesced into a single grand portrayal—one that reveals years of accrued technique and profound life experience. Groener should not be missed. More crucially, he deserves to lead this production to Broadway.”

Kris Vire, Time Out—“Bennett’s extraneous overstuffing aside, he offers an outstanding character study in George, and Groener tackles it masterfully. A three-time Tony nominee for his work in Broadway musicals, Groener brings a musicality to the rhythms of George’s desperate, babbling descent and eventual reemergence. Metropulos’s handsomely appointed staging sags when Groener’s offstage; when he’s on, it sings.”

Dennis Polkow, New City—“Harry Groener makes a marvelous George III, wonderful at putting on the royal airs expected of him, and even more wonderful as he keeps those airs as he begins to lose his grip on his world. Ora Jones is his queen, wife and wonderful soulmate who is cruelly removed from the world of the king by their greedy royal children (Richard Baird, Alex Weisman). But what really makes director Penny Metropulos’ production soar is the way that the increasing ‘madness’ of the king is contrasted within such a strict eighteenth-century sense of control. And Bennett’s script, revised since his screenplay version, feels as relevant and fresh as ever.”

Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“Director Penny Metropulos has entrusted George III to Broadway veteran Harry Groener, who uses his years as a song-and-dance man to bring a vibrant physicality to monarch. It’s a technically brilliant and heart-wrenching performance. Metropulos also collaborates with her design team (particularly costumer Susan E. Mickey) to create a historically lavish and lovely-to-look-at production…Although The Madness of George III regularly impresses, Bennett’s play does have its longueurs now and then. And Bennett is a tad too cheeky to include a scene of the ‘mad’ monarch acting out a scene from Shakespeare’s drama about another mentally unstable ruler, King Lear. It’s a very effecting moment, but one more out of calculation and conjecture on Bennett’s part than something truly genuine.”

Woyzeck, The Hypocrites

Nina Metz, Tribune—“Not to get all Ayn Rand up in here, but Woyzeck, for my taste, is just too easy to disdain, something that has always colored my feelings toward the play. That said, it’s good how Graney emphasizes the transactional nature of Woyzeck’s relationships: every time cash is exchanged, the characters smack the bills with the backs of their fingers. It is a small but chilling detail that resonates during these economic times. No matter what, Woyzeck is doomed by external forces, and perhaps Buchner’s point, clunky as it is, is that we ignore the pain and troubles of others at our own peril.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“[Director Sean] Graney, who has taken a Brechtian approach to the play—adding powerhouse songs by composer Kevin O’Donnell and a fascinating soundscape created by Mikhail Fiksel and the actors—gives us a backdrop of army life and hazardous materials’ cleanup work. His Woyzeck (the ideal Geoff Button, boyish yet intense) is matched by the easy allure and fire of Marie (Lindsey Gavel, a tall, stunning, luminous-faced redhead). And for his searing, hour-long telling of the story, Graney also has tapped a terrific ensemble…Izumi Inaba’s deftly color-coded costumes are standouts in this real yet stylized staging that is not only a thrilling take on Buchner’s classic, but an example of Graney working at the top of his powers.”

Justin Hayford, Reader—“ The Hypocrites present the story of Buchner’s eponymous subnobody—driven mad and murderous by a rigidly hierarchical, morally atrophied society—in clear and accessible but generally perfunctory terms. As a result Woyzeck’s journey becomes a series of unfortunate misadventures rather than a grotesque nightmare. Only Michelle Moe as Woyzeck’s prostitute lover Marie plunges headfirst into the play’s depths, maintaining such a pathetic demeanor that she seems to have spent her life being kicked in the face. Her final tragic confrontation with Woyzeck is something to behold.”

John Beer, Time Out—“Not surprisingly, Graney spotlights the comic aspects of Woyzeck’s plight—his fussily condescending commanding officer, the pea-obsessed Herr Doktor. But it’s a feverish comedy, as bits of ominous dialogue circulate repetitively around the stage and Woyzeck’s enormous knife makes frequent appearances. The ferocious violence of the play’s climax turns out to have been perfectly prepared by the piece’s Kubrickian opening: The performers come on in hazmat suits, as though the play itself is radioactive. With its coda, in which the risen Marie (Gavel) congratulates us for watching a ‘beautiful murder,’ this fiercely inventive take suggests it just might be a little toxic."

Justin Hayford, Reader—“As he has with other classics, Graney reduces Woyzeck to a Comics Illustrated version; a simplified condensation of the tale running just one hour. Still, his version remains true to the story and characters, although Woyzeck himself is the only character Buchner developed beyond one-dimensionality. Graney’s physical staging is strong, retaining hints of the play’s German locale and earlier time period (despite some modern costume flourishes), and adding some pseudo-Brecht/Weill songs by Kevin O’Donnell.”