The Band’s Visit – Cadillac Palace Theater – 151 W Randolph St., Chicago, (312) 977-1700, broadwayinchicago.com
A curious freedom shapes The Band’s Visit, the new Broadway musical about a group of Egyptian musicians who get lost on their way to a concert in Israel. Stranded in a small town, they pass the time with the locals, eating at their tables and sleeping in their spare rooms.
Take Iris, an Israeli wife and mother who finds her own birthday party crashed by musicians her husband brings home. After years of mute frustration with her marriage, she suddenly reveals everything. “The eyes of these strangers on her life make it impossible to ignore what she’s been trying to suppress,” Moses says.
Ironically, they may be even more honest with each other because they don’t share a language. The Egyptians speak Arabic and the Israelis speak Hebrew, but when they talk to each other, they use halting, tentative English.
Q-tips say: Just ok. The Mr. said, some parts were good but. Mrs. Q says: the play was a little less than two hours, no intermission. No intermission was good because some people would have left at intermission and would not return. I did not enjoy this play much. The older couple next to me slept through most of the play.
Best part of the day was dinner at Shaw’s Crabhouse.