The Rhinoceros Theater Festival is 24 years old now, which means it should be totally immersed in social media, internships, and postromantic hookups a la Girls. Instead this brainchild of the Curious Theatre Branch is still putting on small-scale, low-budget, original, live works—31 of them this time around—by members of the Chicago’s apparently burgeoning fringe.
The Carter Family Family Show Country music’s pioneering Carter Family is the subject of this interesting but slight offering from the Neo-Futurists. In three solo pieces, Chloe Johnston, Emmy Bean, and Joe Dempsey take turns introducing us to each of the band’s original members—restless AP; his wife, Sara; and sensible sister-in-law Maybelle. Relying mostly on third-person narration, the writer-performers cover the trio’s first recording session, Sara’s affair with one of AP’s cousins, and the band’s highly influential radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The show makes a strong case for the Carters’ talent and cultural significance, but its somber, reverent tone keeps them at a remove from us. A two-minute audio cameo by fast-living yodeler Jimmie Rodgers has more oomph than the show’s other 68 minutes combined.—Zac Thompson Through 2/15: Fri 7 PM.
Mantuary/Hot Water Director Rick Paul did a great service for the Chicago theater community at last year’s Rhinofest, resurrecting the late, lamented Sweetback Productions (Scarrie! The Musical, The Birds) for the purpose of staging a pair of what turned out to be well-received one-acts. This year he’s working his magic again. Hot Water is a campy adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s singularly incomprehensible 1935 short story—a noir murder mystery about a jaded movie starlet and her hard-boiled bodyguard. Mantuary is a cagey one-act by New Orleans playwright RJ Tsarov, in which tightly wound Lise flees her oppressive marriage by living in a cave that may actually be her spare bedroom. Both shows are stylishly designed, economically staged, and extravagantly acted. At 25 minutes apiece, they could be improved only by being expanded to full length. —Justin Hayford Through 2/15: Fri 7 PM.
Through 2/17: Thu-Fri and Mon 7 and 9 PM, Sat 2, 7, and 9 PM, Sun 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9 PM, Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston, 773-492-1287, rhinofest.com, $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door.
