Oak Park Newspaper
Reviewed by Ed Vincent
Spike Heels is a wonderfully written psychodrama reminding me of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" but with in your face sexuality thrown in to spice it up. The plot of the writing is something like a DNA helix with all the twists and the different chemistry of the characters intermixing and clashing from scene to scene. The simple austere setting had me already anticipating some good action and I was not let down at any time. The "My Fair Lady" or "Pygmalion" plot line seems a bit timid for the thrust of this drama, though language is still assaulted in vulgar dialogue flying from the lips of a gal who ends up in her underwear.
There is humor, angst, indignation, verbal conflicts and lust flowing freely through the words and actions of the performers. Human relationships, if they're interesting have always been filled with some tension and some turmoil mixed with love and understanding.
The four characters were all great, but Georgie grabs the stage and all around her as a wild catalyst of the drama. I loved the writing of Theresa Rebeck and want to see more. For now though get your tickets and be prepared to a wild ride.
There is humor, angst, indignation, verbal conflicts and lust flowing freely through the words and actions of the performers. Human relationships, if they're interesting have always been filled with some tension and some turmoil mixed with love and understanding.
The four characters were all great, but Georgie grabs the stage and all around her as a wild catalyst of the drama. I loved the writing of Theresa Rebeck and want to see more. For now though get your tickets and be prepared to a wild ride.
Hollywood Chicago
Reviewed by PATRICK McDONALD
If you can remember the 1990s outside of childhood, you are in the glow of middle age, so congratulations. The Brown Paper Box Co. theater ensemble takes us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear with “Spike Heels,” a relationship comedy centering on the co-mingling antics of two couples, with a slight nod toward George Bernard Shaw and the play “Pygmalion” (or its musical counterpart, “My Fair Lady”).
The script of the play is a bit slight and histrionic, but the performances rescue those tendencies, especially the whirling dervish in the center of the action. The character of Georgie is an indecisive-yet-strong character, and is portrayed with exceptional presence and depth by the rising Chicago theater star Jillian Weingart. Flitting from man-to-man, and consequence-to-consequence, Weingart as Georgie becomes the glue which holds the flimsy scenario together.
Georgie lives in the same apartment building as Andrew (Jesse Dornan) in 1990 Boston. She has escaped the Bronx and her underachieving family, and Andrew has guided her toward a new career, as an administrative assistant at a law firm. Edward (Charles Azkenaizer) is Andrew’s lawyer friend who hired Georgie, and now wants to seduce her. This causes a rift in all the relationships, including the engagement of Andrew and Lydia (Whitney Morse), and it will take a couple nights of soul searching to work it all out.
The play is set in 1990. but besides the nod to the few odd hairstyles and fashion choices – including the ubiquitous footwear of the title that Georgie wears throughout – this is not a distinctly cultural look back. Georgie is supposedly a low rent type woman in the narrative – as fashioned by playwright Theresa Rebeck in 1992 – who has been “transformed” by Andrew in a Professor-Higgins-in-My-Fair-Lady way, but there is no real indication that he has influenced her one way or the other, besides the job reference and some books that Georgie seems to flip through quickly (despite their complexity). The relationships are a bit annoying, because nobody is closing the deal, and in that sense it does brings us back to being of the age range of the prime breeding – the late twenties/early thirties – where hormonal biology can trump emotional logic and kindness.
But it is Jillian Weingart that holds it together the most as Georgie, raging up against both Andrew and Charles, both sexually and philosophically. Weingart developed a sense of the character that grows stronger throughout the action, especially towards the end when she knows what she wants. Her dancing scene with the rejected Lydia, portrayed by Whitney Morse, becomes a freestanding shout-out to sisterhood, against the tide of the indecision and horny boys. The costuming (including epic hair) and mannerisms that Weingart developed in Georgie brings her to shimmering life, and she dominates as both the main character and the projector of stage radiance.
The only direct 1990s thing, besides Georgie’s choice of dress and hair, was the lack of mobile phone devices and screens that the characters do not have. Which leads to the question, was it easier to communicate back then, or harder? I’ll answer that later, I’m receiving a text from the past.
The script of the play is a bit slight and histrionic, but the performances rescue those tendencies, especially the whirling dervish in the center of the action. The character of Georgie is an indecisive-yet-strong character, and is portrayed with exceptional presence and depth by the rising Chicago theater star Jillian Weingart. Flitting from man-to-man, and consequence-to-consequence, Weingart as Georgie becomes the glue which holds the flimsy scenario together.
Georgie lives in the same apartment building as Andrew (Jesse Dornan) in 1990 Boston. She has escaped the Bronx and her underachieving family, and Andrew has guided her toward a new career, as an administrative assistant at a law firm. Edward (Charles Azkenaizer) is Andrew’s lawyer friend who hired Georgie, and now wants to seduce her. This causes a rift in all the relationships, including the engagement of Andrew and Lydia (Whitney Morse), and it will take a couple nights of soul searching to work it all out.
The play is set in 1990. but besides the nod to the few odd hairstyles and fashion choices – including the ubiquitous footwear of the title that Georgie wears throughout – this is not a distinctly cultural look back. Georgie is supposedly a low rent type woman in the narrative – as fashioned by playwright Theresa Rebeck in 1992 – who has been “transformed” by Andrew in a Professor-Higgins-in-My-Fair-Lady way, but there is no real indication that he has influenced her one way or the other, besides the job reference and some books that Georgie seems to flip through quickly (despite their complexity). The relationships are a bit annoying, because nobody is closing the deal, and in that sense it does brings us back to being of the age range of the prime breeding – the late twenties/early thirties – where hormonal biology can trump emotional logic and kindness.
But it is Jillian Weingart that holds it together the most as Georgie, raging up against both Andrew and Charles, both sexually and philosophically. Weingart developed a sense of the character that grows stronger throughout the action, especially towards the end when she knows what she wants. Her dancing scene with the rejected Lydia, portrayed by Whitney Morse, becomes a freestanding shout-out to sisterhood, against the tide of the indecision and horny boys. The costuming (including epic hair) and mannerisms that Weingart developed in Georgie brings her to shimmering life, and she dominates as both the main character and the projector of stage radiance.
The only direct 1990s thing, besides Georgie’s choice of dress and hair, was the lack of mobile phone devices and screens that the characters do not have. Which leads to the question, was it easier to communicate back then, or harder? I’ll answer that later, I’m receiving a text from the past.
