IN PERFORMANCE: Cirque du Soleil's "Ovo" ★★★½ Through Aug. 21 at the United Center, 1901 W. Madison St.; Tickets: $60-$130 at 800-678-5440 or www.cirquedusoleil.com

Insects are such a good match for the Cirque du Soleil, you have to wonder why those scurrying around that famous Montreal hive had not thought of them before.

In years of reviewing Cirque shows, from “Nouvelle Experience” on, this is the first time that Cirque's contortionists have made dramatic sense. In every other show, you admire the twists and turns, spend a few seconds pondering your own ever-growing inability to do even a fraction of the same, and then wonder not so much where those arms and legs might be going next as why they would be going there. Yet in Deborah Colker's distinctive, fresh and curious “Ovo,” which hatched a summer Chicago run Wednesday night, you actually get to see these performers create a slew of spiders, to name but one of the bugs under the creative microscope. Or so it seems. Some of the appendages display the kind of mutative powers that make the term “leg” redundant.

“Ovo” is my favorite Cirque show in a couple of years. “Viva Elvis,” the newest Las Vegas show, is trapped in the celebration of authorized Elvis, hindering creativity. The less said about the disastrous “Banana Shpeel” the better. In Vegas, Cirque now tends to split the demographic, offering different kinds of shows for different kinds of people (up next: Michael Jackson). Its track record in proscenium theaters remains mixed. And who wants to see Cirque is some sterile suburban arena?

But the first-run tent shows — “Ovo” is the latest in a long and very distinguished line that have been coming to Chicago for two decades — retain a certain purity of vision and connection to the company's outdoor roots. Gifted artists such as Colker, a major figure in contemporary Brazilian dance, are generally left alone to do their thing. The experience for an audience is intimate, yet full of spectacle. And for Cirque, the canvas is secured by 25 years of creativity.

"Ovo" is the new touring production by Cirque du Soleil.

In her native Brazil, Deborah Colker is a widely acclaimed choreographer with a long-established dance company, Companhia de Danca Deborah Colker. But Colker is also the director of Cirque du Soleil's touring tent show, “Ovo,” which opens Wednesday in Parking Lot K, next to the United Center on Chicago's Near West Side. It'll be in Chicago all summer.

Q: So you just arrived in Chicago from Brazil?

A: I love this city. This is my first time here and it's really a great surprise. Nobody knows how is Chicago. It's a little like New York, but nicer, cleaner. Really, I didn't know. I expected to see Don Corleone.

Q: Your show is about insects. Why insects?

A: At my first meeting with Guy Laliberte (Cirque's CEO), he told me he wanted to have a show about nature and biodiversity. I asked if it must be political and he said, “No, it's an artistic show.” So I had this idea to do a show about insects.

Q: They don't get much respect.

A: No. If we see an ant we stomp on it. Butterflies we respect. But insects are so small and so important. They are part of our world all the time.

Q: How do they translate into a show?

A: Well, for example, I wanted to find a relationship between acrobats and insects. How they fly. How they run. Insects have six legs or eight legs, and it's the same with the acrobats. They have more legs than usual people. And then, as well as the movement, there is the personality of the insects. Some can be nice and beautiful. Some can be horrible and dangerous. I wanted to put a lens in their small world.

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced its slate of plays for the upcoming "First Look Repertory of New Works," a script-development project that premieres new work in modestly scaled productions. This year's line-up includes:

• "Man in Love" by Christina Anderson. Robert O'Hara directs a new play set in the 1930s.
• "Want" by Zayd Dohrn. A piece about former junkies and sex addicts in group therapy.
• "Oblivion" by Carly Mensch ("Weeds"). A play about trendy Brooklyn parents with a tricky teenage daughter.

First Look runs from Oct. 26 to Nov. 11 in the Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 N. Halsted St.

The upcoming Marriott Theatre premiere of the new musical "For the Boys" (opening Aug. 26) has cast its two leads. The Broadway performers Timothy Gulan (left)  and Michele Ragusa will play, respectively, Eddie Sparks and Dixie Leonard.

"For the Boys" is based on the 1991 Bette Midler movie, as adapted for the stage by Aaron Thielen.  Marc Robin directs and choreographs. Set in the 1940s, the show uses numbers from the great American songbook.

Others in the mostly Chicago-based cast are Anne Gunn, Summer Smart, Michael Lindner, Bernie Yvon, Johanna McKenzie Miller, Holly Stauder, Michael Weber, Melissa Zaremba, Katheryn Patton, Rod Thomas, Jameson Cooper, John Michael Coppola, Alex Goodrich, Karl Hamilton, Andrew Mueller, Brandon Springman, Zachary Keller, Johnny Rabe and Daniel Coonley.

 
David Henry Hwang's "Chinglish" plays through July 24 at the Goodman Theatre; more information at www.goodmantheatre.org. Read the Tribune's ★★★★ REVIEW.

Leigh Silverman's production of David Henry Hwang's "Chinglish," which had its world premiere Monday night at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, will be on Broadway this fall.

The producers are Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Roy Gottlieb, Barry and Carole Kaye and David and Barbara Stoller in association with the Goodman. New York's Public Theatre, which initially had this show on its 2011-12 season, participated in the development of the piece.

The show, which does yet have firm dates or a specific theater, is expected to land at one of the Shubert houses. Whether the entire cast will be going to Broadway with the show has not yet been confirmed.

The announcement means that a pair of new plays that emerged from Chicago's two leading theaters will be on Broadway this fall: Lisa D'Amour's "Detroit," which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Hwang's "Chinglish."

Richards and Frankel are producing both shows.

THEATER REVIEW: "Chinglish" ★★★★ Through July 24 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; 2 hours, 25 minutes; $25-$73 at 312-443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org

At the moment in David Henry Hwang's "Chinglish" when Sino-American business relations develop to the point a Chinese buyer and a U.S. seller find themselves in bed together, you get a sudden flashback to "M. Butterfly." That brilliant 23-year-old drama, which made this playwright's career, explores how Western men have long been vulnerable to the seductive mysteries of the beautiful, er, women of the East. And so, as you watch two bodies move through space in a Chinese hotel room, you first think that Hwang, America's premiere dramatic chronicler of East-West relationships, has returned to an old theme.

Indeed he has. But China has changed and so — we come to see in this shrewd, timely and razor-sharp comedy premiering at the Goodman Theatre and logically headed to Broadway — has Hwang. The power has shifted in one direction only: East. Skyscrapers now abut opera houses. Bullet trains cut through butterfly gardens. And recession-weary American businessman are left salivating over "the greatest pool of untapped consumers history has ever known."

So the vulnerable party in this 2011 tryst is the American, an unhappily married man whose family business is on the point of collapse and whose striving past is pockmarked with the scandals and past moral failings of the American business and banking sectors, screw-ups followed closely in the new provincial China where names like Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow aren't unfamiliar. China isn't an exotic dalliance for this anxious corporate traveler — it's last-gasp bailout for the desperate.
Meanwhile, the Chinese woman who holds all the cards — and the lucrative contracts — neither flicks her pretty eyes nor looks down like her ancestors. She's in it, and she controls the exchange, entirely for her own purposes and her own sexual pleasure.

Lydia R. Diamond's "Stick Fly," a show that had its world premiere at Chicago's Congo Square Theatre Company, is headed to Broadway, it was announced Monday.

"Stick Fly" premiered in 2006, when Diamond, who now is based in the Boston area, was living in Chicago. It tells the story of an affluent African-American family who vacation on Martha's Vineyard.

The piece, which will be produced by Alicia Keys, is to be directed by Kenny Leon, who directed Denzel Washington in "Fences" on Broadway. "Stick Fly" is slated to open at the Lyceum Theatre in New York in December.

The historic, 1,888-seat Paramount Theatre in Aurora says that it has already sold almost 10,000 subscriptions to its new slate of self-produced musicals, beginning this fall.

As a point of comparison, Drury Lane Theatre has 25,000 subscribers and the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire has about 40,000 (one of the biggest subscription bases in the country). But both of those musical houses have been around much longer.

The four-show season includes "My Fair Lady" (Sept. 14-Oct. 2), "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (Nov. 2- 20), "A Chorus Line" (Jan. 18-Feb. 5) and "Hair" (March 14-April 2).  These are Equity-affiliated shows with a live orchestra in the pit. Prices are very low: subscription tickets to all four productions start at $70.

Before deciding to self-produce, the Paramount presented mostly non-Equity touring productions, usually for a week or less.

THEATER REVIEW: "Shout!" ★★½ Through Aug. 14 at Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire; Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes; Tickets: $41-$49 at 847-634-0200 or ticketmaster.com

If there's one thing that most of the songs in “Shout!” — the musical revue of British pop songs of the 1960s, as recorded by women like Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield — have in common, it's the clash of freedom and obligation in a newly seductive city. Whether it's “I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself,” “To Sir With Love” or “You Don't Have to Say You Love Me,” and whether the lyrics are by Hal David or Tony Hatch or Don Black, these songs are a fascinating mix of sex, nervousness, feminism, little-girl-lost and revolutionary guts. If you look at the most popular song titles of the era, those miniskirted girls strutting down Carnaby Street in Swingin' London sure had a lot of questions: “Who Am I?”; “How Can You Tell?”; and, most musically thrilling of all, “How Can I Be Sure?”

Who could, in a world that was constantly changing?

None of this forms much of a part of the show currently at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.

THEATER REVIEW: "Middletown" ★★★ Through Aug. 14 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes; Tickets: $20-$73 at 312-335-1650 or steppenwolf.org

At one point in Will Eno's wonderful new play “Middletown” — a piece that's a bit like Thornton Wilder's “Our Town” if it had been penned by Dr. Seuss and edited by Samuel Beckett — a character suddenly feels moved to discuss the linguistic difference between the word “rock” and the word “people.” “'Rock,'” he opines from the stage of the Steppenwolf Theatre, “has a real honest ring to it. ‘People' feels like an afterthought.”

Like a lot of things in a play that seems quirky but actually is profoundly wise, you have to think about that one for a while. Here's another one: talking about botulism, another citizen of Eno's small town of Middletown wonders if this word might actually refer not to a disease but to “a philosophy of really bad choices.” Get it?

But let's go back to “rock” and “people.” If you do think about it — and if that sounds like a drag, this review is not your review and this play it not your play — you'll surely conclude that the guy's observation has merit. And from there, perhaps, you might start wondering why people, who created our language system even as rocks were just sitting around on the ground, chose to imbue an inanimate object with such gravitas and themselves with the wimpiest of monikers. What the heck does that say about our lack of confidence in ourselves? And at that point, as at other points, “Middletown” would be working its spell.

Eno, who also wrote the acclaimed piece “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” is an unusual writer, to say the least.

Where most contemporary playwrights would just write the word “hello,” Eno will typically write, “hello, hi, how are you?” and protect that trifecta from an editor. Not only is his dialog uncommonly rich and poetic, it free-associates with the most rare and delicious kind of abandonment. His characters start talking, it invariably feels, without actually knowing where their sentence is going to end, or even what they are going to say. But that's not to say that the resultant play is pretentious or formless or academic or esoteric or even just plain weird. Actually, “Middletown” (like the Wilder model) is tightly focused on what matters in small-town life: finding ourselves born, dying, relating to others, finding our place, searching for personal meaning, fighting off loneliness, passing the time.