The Good Doctor at Jedlicka Performing Arts Center

Around The Town Chicago - Recommended

"...The Jedlicka Performing Arts Center is opening its season with Neil Simon's comedy "The Good Doctor." At the beginning of the play, we are introduced to Anton Chekov (Matthew Dunn) who speaks of writers blocks and laments that people find his stories "funny and charming" (adjectives that often come to mind in regards to Neil Simon). Chekov is composing a number of short stories, three of which he appears in himself: in one he interviews an actress for one of his plays, in another his father takes him to a brothel for his sixteenth birthday, and in which Chekov goes walking to fight writer's block and a strange man offers to commit suicide in front of him in exchange for a couple of Kopeks. As to the others, they are very charming, but we are never really sure if they are meant to be funny or sad (Chekov famously insisted to its director's disbelief that "The Cherry Orchard" was a comedy)."