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With or Without Wings
Written and Performed By Mierka Girten
Produced by A Red Orchid Theatre
15 31 N. Wells St.
Chicago, IL
Tickets: 312-943-8722 or www.aredorchidtheatre.org, $20-$25
Fri & Sat at 8:00 p.m., Sun at 7:00 p.m.
Running time is 75 minutes with no intermission
Through November 2nd
Laughter and Tears in the Face of Adversity – Mierka Girten is a Hot Ticket
With or Without Wings, Mierka Girten’s one-woman tour de force about living with multiple sclerosis, is a powerful and powerfully funny show. It’s a fast-paced 75 minutes in which Girten introduces the audience to her ordinary Midwestern life as an aspiring actress from Cincinnati and then crushes them with the horror of learning that she has MS. Thankfully, Girt en’s MS is in remission.
With or Without Wings is far from a perky little story with a happy ending, however. Remission is a state whose permanence is far from guaranteed. An awesome cloud hangs over Girten, a cloud which urges her to live each day fully. As she clowns her way through her story, creating the relatives, roommates, boyfriends and medical practitioners who color her daily experience, Girten is about as alive as one can get. There is a sense of urgency to Girten’s living and by the end of the show her urgency has become a personal matter for the audience as well. The thought of ever losing Ms. Girten’s exceptional talent to such a horrible disease has become abominably unthinkable. It hurts in a way that raises the riotously funny interlude with this wonderful woman to the level of high art. It takes guts to lay one’s soul bare for the world to see and Girten has guts…lots of guts…and lots of heart…and a wicked funny bone.
This production of With or Without Wings is a reprise of Girten’s highly acclaimed 2001 performance. In spite of that, I didn’t exactly know what to expect from the show. I knew that some of the proceeds go to the Mookie Jam Foundation, a non-profit that Ms. Girten helped establish to support performers with MS. As someone who has seen and greatly enjoyed a number of shows with physically challenged performers over the years, I was excited to give this one a try. I was not, however, expecting the caliber of performance that I saw. A Red Orchid is a Category 1 Equity house and With or Without Wings is a first-rate show that fits the category. With all of the recent success of Chicago productions I really think that this show has the wings to fly anywhere. Girten may hail from Cincinnati, but she and her show have become Chicago treasures. Don’t miss it.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Randy Hardwick
randyontheglobe@yahoo.com for comments
Date Reviewed: September 22, 2008
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