Waves | Tuesday, September 1 7, 2013

 

‘Last Hand' offers free tickets for Students

August Lvsv
STAFF WRITER

Having spent the last ﬁve months co-
writing and assistant-directing the play “The
Last Hand,” I cannot honestly expect that my
own review of the production would be objec-
tive. But when the tickets are free (see below),
the reader may at least grant me the time to
assert the play’s entertainment value by illus—
trating the origin of the tale and by brieﬂy de-
scribing the various characters that make it up.
It is my hope that, if I am successful, the reader
will be interested enough to take advantage of
the free tickets to see the play his or herself;
thereby, in essence, becoming his or her own
critic.

The origin of “The Last Hand”
dates back to a hot summer in Chicago’s River
North. Richard James Zieman, the now-play-

wright and then—bouncer, stood intimidating?

ly—arms crossed over his thick chest, brows
furrowed—at the front entrance of a hopping
night club. The night was passing dully, when

Restaurant Review.

up strode through the parting crowd a youth of
fearsome countenance, his hazel eyes locked on
Richard’s. A moment passed as the two stared-
oif, toe—to—toe: Richard’s coldly suspicious eyes
boring into the passionless gaze of the boy. Iust
then—a hand pressed into Richard’s shoulder,
and a voice instructed him to allow the boy in.
Richard backed off; and so the youth, though
underage, passed by into the pulsing lights and
throbbing beat of the club.

Inside, Richard observed the boy
command the attention of all whom he passed:
smiling angelically at some; scowling ﬁend-
ishly at others. It was not until later, at the end
of the night, that Richard had the opportunity
to interview the boy—the boy who had indeed
captured the interest of Richard himself. Sur-
prisingly, he was willing to divulge his story.
And his was a story of uncommon tragedy
gone unobserved and disregarded; a story of
families lost and dreams ensnared on the dan-
gerous streets of Chicago’s West Side.

Richards sexperience with this youth,
his story, became the seed that would eventu-
ally grow into the compelling tale of Angel, a

young gang member with the hope of escap-
ing his cutthroat existence in order to fulﬁll
his dream as a rapper; and Clip, a hardened
gang enforcer who must wrestle with his own
identity in order to ﬁnd his own redemption
from his past. Embroiled in their gang code of
respect, status, and violence, Angel and Clip—
best friends torn asunder—each must desper—
ately pursue their goals as their stories play out
in the taut conﬂict between loyalty and betray—
a1.

And winning won’t be easy. On ei-
ther side of this duo lie the unpredictable char-
acters of The Pharaoh and El Grito. The former

is the gang leader whose tyrannical reign of the

West Side has caught both Angel and Clip in
his grip; the latter is the suspicious acquain-
tance of Angel whose provocative and wily
character may just cost Angel his life.

In the background of this drama
stand Miguel and Dante. Miguel, a low-regard-
ed street-tagger whose ambition is outmatched
only by his cocaine addiction, mindlessly pur-
sues The Pharaoh’s respect and the chance to
run his own crew. A dullish drug-dealer, Dante

is one of the many exploited followers recruit-
ed by The Pharaoh; like most of The Pharaoh’s
underlings, his allegiance demanded the blood
of his family—and the decision haunts him
still. '

“Follow me, Angel,” The Pharaoh
suggests, “and I’ll see that you live to die old.”
But with a risky heist going down tonight at
The Pharaoh’s card game—Angel’s sole desire
is to live to see the next morning.

The Last Hand is playing September
13th through October 20th at the Athenaeum
Theatre, located at 2936 N Southport, at the
intersection of Lincoln/Wellington/Southport
(right off the Brown Line). Student tickets are
$15. FREE tickets are available for Friday Sept.
20th, Saturday Sept. let, and Sunday Sept.
22nd (7:30pm showing on Fri 8r Sat, 2:00pm
on Sun). To reserve your free tickets (limit two
per email), please email LastHand@shoutchi-
cago.com with your name, phone number, and
performance date and time. You will receive
email conﬁrmation of .your reservation, and
your tickets will be held at the box ofﬁce.

lue
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Written and Directed by

Woody Allen

Alec Baldwin
Cate Blanchett
Louis CK.

Bobby Cannavale
Andrew Dice Clay

Sally Hawkins
Peter Sarsgaard
Michael Siuhlbi‘u‘g

 

Disappointing trek to Chinatown' 5 Three Happiness

Kyle Stanevich & Austin Gonzalez
TECHNEWS WRITERS

I was presented a problem over the
weekend. I had to ﬁnd a place to take my fam-
ily out to eat. They came out with some col—
lege necessities forgotten at home, and as pay-
ment for their trip, I had to ﬁgure out a place
to eat. Being just a freshman, I did not know
too many good Chicago places that they had
never been to before. Luckily, my roommate
chimed in and suggested we go somewhere in
Chinatown. He also recommended we stop by
a Chinese bakery to get some of those amazing
buns.

We ﬁrst decided to drive over there.
However, on a crowded Saturday it was impos—
sible to ﬁnd any parking space. We pulled into
one lot entrance just to ﬁnd that the lot ofﬁ-
cially reached capacity with the car in front of

us. It was just our luck that three other people
also thought that they could get into the same
parking lot and ended up boxing us in. After a
slow escape, we drove around a bit more trying
to ﬁnd any place to park. Eventually we gave up
and drove back to IIT. .

Still determined to go to Chinatown,
I had the idea that we take the train, the ﬁrst of
a series of bad decisions. Of course, my fam-
ily does not have CTA passes, so after buying
a pass we got on the train towards the loop. At
this point all of us are starving. We get off at
Roosevelt to transfer over to the orange line.
Of course, the train was packed to the rim. We
escape the large smelly train car at Halsted and

begin the trek over to Chinatown. The path _

was narrow and littered with garbage, which
made the entire thing stink like a dumpster.

. We arrived, but our task was not yet
ﬁnished. Next was the daunting task of decid-
ing where to eat. There were so many places
but which one is the best? I turned to my trusty

friend, Yelp, for answers. We were starving, so
I didn’t do any in depth research, but I decided
on a place, Three Happiness, another bad deci-
sion.

At ﬁrst it was like any other Chinese
restaurant, a solid atmosphere, and not too
crowded. We sat down and ordered some dim
sum from the expansive menu. Then came our
tea, which was surprisingly good, other than
having as many tea ﬂakes in the tea as pulp in
extra pulp orange juice. Upon ordering Mapo
Tofu, Kung Pao Beef, and General Tso’s Chick-
en, our dim sum came out. At least the service
was fast.

The dumplings and fried smelts were
the best things we ate there. Once our actual
food came we dug right in, but were disap-
pointed. The veggies weren’t cooked thorough-
ly, the rice was hard and dry, and the meat was
extremely chewy. There weren’t enough spices
on the food to make it taste much like anything
other than soggy corn ﬂakes. We passed our

dishes around, so to taste all the food, but none
of us were happy. The tofu was a bit soggy, and
had no ﬂavoring, more like tasteless cubes of
opaque Jello-O. The beef was a bit like cold
beef jerky that was soaked in like warm water
for a week The chicken was probably the best
but still a bit on the cold side, not a good sign
for chicken. I was personally looking forward
to the tofu because I had the same dish in a
Chinese class I once took, but it did not even
come close. My family is not ﬁlled with Chi-
nese food experts but we all agreed that that
was. some of the worst Chinese we had ever
got. We hurriedly paid the bill and" left.

Depressed and ﬁlled'with‘a tasteless
pit in our stomachs, we discussed stopping into
the Chinese bakery, but just wanted to leave. I
have been to Chinatown before and was nev-
er disappointed, but this time was one of the
worst meals in my life. I will give the rest of
Chinatown another chance but you will never
ﬁnd me inside of Three Happiness again.