In its 15th and final installment, the fundamental problems with Collaboraction’s Sketchbook Festival are unmistakable: its scale and its irrelevance. Collaboraction artistic director Anthony Moseley admits to the latter, after a fashion, in his program note. What began a decade and a half ago as an experiment in “the convergence of theatre, music and visual art” has become to a large extent de rigueur on the theater fringe. “Multidisciplinary short play festivals are the new norm,” Moseley writes, and he’s dead-on. Chicago theater artists don’t need Sketchbook half so urgently as they might have in 2000.
But whether driven by spectacle or intimacy, the works rattle about in a distracting, oversize container. They’re set up to disappoint, especially when we’re asked to spend nearly as much time waiting between the pieces as watching the pieces themselves.
Through 1/24: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 7 and 9 PM, Sun 7 PM, Mon 8 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, collaboraction.org, $15-$30, festival pass $60.
