Afro-Futurism The seven members of Afro-Futurism may perform at Second City, but they don’t deal in sketch revues. In fact, they’re less a company than a collection of black comics—performing solo stand-up routines, for the most part, punctuated with rap segments fronted by Marcel “Mr. Greenweedz” Wilks. There were a couple misfirings on the night I attended, as when an overly zealous Shantira Jackson tried to make a political point by getting the audience to yell out “No!” when it was clear we wanted to say “Yes!” But the lion’s share of the show—Felonious Munk’s sly banter, Sonia Denis’s dizzy (but not ditsy) persona, Martin Morrow’s tales of being too clean-cut for his own good, and the alarming confessions marking Dave Helem as perhaps the worst high school teacher in the history of education—was truthful and lots of fun. —Tony Adler
Christina, the Girl King Given the divergent contemporary interpretations of 17th-century Swedish queen Christina’s life and reign, one can’t criticize Canadian playwright Michel Marc Bouchard for muddying her history (she did summon Descartes to her court, for example, but she didn’t supply him cadavers for scientific investigation). Fortunately, Bouchard’s bold, intricate speculation creates spirited collisions between faith and reason, art and science, governance and warmongering, modernity and antiquity, and most centrally, desire and duty. While Bouchard ultimately reduces Christina’s perplexing abdication to a need to live openly as a lesbian, Cor Theatre’s nimble cast, led by laser-focused Toya Turner as Christina, imbue their characters with ample psychological complexity. Director Tosha Fowler turns the script’s many artful incongruities into two-plus hours of buoyant indeterminacy. —Justin Hayford
Pride and Prejudice Adapt Theatre Productions’ new version of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel begins with a present-day high school girl griping about having to read Austen’s book—the whole thing—for her freshman English class. But as the teenager begins to read, the story comes to life in her bedroom, with her family and friends—and finally the girl herself—morphing into the enduringly popular tale’s memorable, sometimes eccentric characters. This play-within-a-play approach allows the audience to enjoy the timeless aspects of the story through a 21st-century lens. This engaging (though overlong) low-budget production is adapted by Lane Flores and directed by Amanda Lautermilch. Aja Wiltshire, who plays Austen’s heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, has also designed costumes that cleverly meld period and contemporary styles. —Albert Williams
