Steppenwolf Theatre Company's hyphen-less hype

Earlier this fall I began seeing an ad for Steppenwolf Theatre Company on the el trains that carry me home from work. Next to a photo of Steppenwolf ensemble member (and costar of CBS's Elementary) Jon Michael Hill were the words "The beautiful. The absurd. The I-can't-believe-what-just happened. Onstage nightly."

I thought, What happened to the hyphen between "just" and "happened"? There should be one in that space. It was possible that the hyphen appeared in other versions of that ad for Steppenwolf, ones that weren't designated to appear above riders' heads on public transportation. But no, apparently someone decided that that particular hyphen wasn't necessary at all:

photo credit: Joel Moorman/Chicago Business Journal

photo credit: LonnieTapia.com

Last month The Minutes, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts, debuted at Steppenwolf. It's about "small-town politics," according to a print ad I saw in the Chicago Reader, as well as unhyphenated "real world power."

Next up for the acclaimed Chicago theater company is BLKS by poet-playwright Aziza Barnes. The promotional flyer that I received in the mail indicates that the play takes place on "one f**ked up night." That's less clunky than "one night that's f**ked up," but if "f**ked up" is your noun-preceding adjective of choice, it should be hyphenated.

You might be thinking, Who gives a f**k? I understand. But details matter — in drama, in advertising, and even in the f**ked-up real world.

What great theater should be ...

... but wasn't the night I saw Diane Lane in Sweet Bird of Youth at the Goodman Theatre last fall.

Maybe the magic was there on other nights—judging by the 2008 Chicago production of Our Town, anything David Cromer directs is worth checking out—but if you look closely, even Lane seems to sense the unintentional irony.

the unfunny father of humor

Every month the management staff of my apartment building slips a bulletin under each tenant's door to let us know about holiday celebrations, shopping excursions for the senior citizens, "movie night," and other community events originating in the building. The bulletin is often padded out with "this date in history" trivia that's always worth reading, including the following factoid:

Aug. 16—The Original Funny Man. By many accounts, English comic actor Joseph (or Josias) Miller of London's Drury Lane Theatre was a popular favorite, known for his boisterous wit. When he died on this date in 1738, leaving his family in poverty, his friend John Mottley decided to collect all the jokes attributed to Miller and publish them. The proceeds from the book were to go to Miller's family. Joe Miller's Jests, first published in 1739, was 70 pages long, contained 247 jokes, and represented the first published professional humor. After numerous revisions and expansions, it contained more than 1,500 jokes that some experts cite as the foundation of all modern movie, television, radio and stage humor. Some are reluctant to give Miller all the credit, however; they say Miller wasn't a true comedian at all, but that he was always credited with everyone else's wit. According to one historian, Miller's friends gave him credit for jokes because he was actually quite grave and humorless.