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No less an authority than Tony Adler of the Chicago Reader has called Jeremy Menekseoglu “one of the most ambitious, prolific, original, and gifted playwrights in Chicago.” Menekseoglu is the presiding spirit at Dream Theatre in Pilsen, where he writes, directs, and acts in practically everything that goes onstage. His enormous, often surreal output ranges from short studies of sexual anomie in Texas to an epic three-part reinvention of the Oresteia that climaxes at the dead center of hell. But Menekseoglu’s great theme is the trauma of childhood. More and more, as in recent shows like The Grisly/Glorious Adventure of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Billy Moon and The Devilish Children and the Civilizing Process, he’s taken to anatomizing classic children’s stories as a way to get at their horrific underpinnings.
Kinda difficult. I guess what’s important to say right off the bat is that this isn’t like the traditional Peter Pan at all.
