CHICAGO -- On Jan. 8, performance artist/playwright Paula Killen -- one of this town's favorite daughters -- returns from the West Coast with a controversial L.A. import of Oscar Wilde's masterwork, The Importance of Being Earnest.
A 1997 hit from The Fabulous Monsters of Los Angeles, the production features the mercurial Killen as hypocritical straight-arrow Jack Worthing, the city bachelor who changes his identity in order to philander in the country. By altering her sexuality, Killen takes the satire one step further. The gender-busting venture is optimistically intended "to please purists and avant-gardists alike."