Lead Story Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Koongarra uranium deposit, in Australia’s Northern Territory, contains estimated reserves of 15,000 tons, valued at more than $4.2 billion, and the French energy company Areva hopes to mine it. But in a first-ever public statement, 36-year-old Jeffrey Lee, who as the sole living member of the aboriginal Djok clan has custodial control over Koongarra, told the Sydney Morning Herald in July that he’s vowed never to sell....

In the first of the 1920s Lucia books, British humorist E.F. Benson pits his childish, snobbish heroine–Emmeline “Lucia” Lucas, undisputed queen of culture in the little village of Riseholme–against a far superior outsider. When opera singer Olga Bracely moves to town, she unwittingly steals the spotlight from Lucia, sparking an epic battle between the two. Lifeline Theatre wisely turns this playground turf war into a musical, a fundamentally frivolous form for a fundamentally frivolous story....

This epic Italian drama was shot as a TV miniseries, then rejected by the state network. Released to theaters as a two-part feature with a running time of just over six hours, it beautifully realizes the travails of a middle-class family from 1966 through the millennium, as radical politics wax and wane in Italy. A young volunteer at a mental clinic (Alessio Boni) persuades his brother (Luigi Lo Cascio) to help him deliver a soulful electroshock victim (Jasmine Trinca) to her family in the country, but the adventure ends badly and marks both men for life....

Flashes of wit can’t rescue Elizabeth Brown-Guillory’s domestic drama from wearisome predictability. Of course the grandfather’s indigestion turns out to be a heart attack, his homophobia reflects a secret past experience, and he makes peace with his son, who then reconciles with the grandsons. The dialogue substitutes earnestness and armchair psychology for genuine emotion and insight into character. Director Edward D. Richardson tries to compensate for the missing dramatic tension by having the characters storm and shout from the instant the curtain rises, but this strategy means the energy level has nowhere to go but down....

Seven strapping men in swashbuckler shirts improvise a two-act Shakespearean play based on a title suggested by the audience. At the show I saw, “The Taming of the Jew” inspired the Bard’s usual themes (religion, family, betrayal) and plot devices (murders, disguises, fortunes gained/lost) as well as an uncomfortably funny circumcision. Director-performer Blaine Swen, a veteran of long-form Shakespearean improv who swears they don’t conspire during the intermission, has assembled a vigorous ensemble of actors and proven improvisers....

We all know that oil came from dinosaurs, or, at least, from the decomposition of organic (i.e., formerly living) materials–hence the term “fossil fuels” and the Sinclair dinosaur. But is it really true? Were there really enough dinosaurs–or even plant life–to create the billions and billions of gallons of known oil reserves? What is the physical process that converts dead reptiles and/or ferns into a homogeneous carbon compound that bears little resemblance to the molecular structure of plants and animals?...

Henry 4 (Part One) Though Eric Frederickson’s performance as the knight errant is sometimes charming, much of the ferocity of this uneven production, directed by Katie Carey Govier and fight choreographer Angela Bonacasa, feels forced. It’s obvious that many women, from Indira Gandhi to Margaret Thatcher to Condi Rice, know how to play politics and fight hard and dirty (often with someone else’s life in the balance). Govier knows this, saying in her director’s note that “women, like men, are vicious, brutal, compassionate, good-willed, jealous, over-zealous, passionate, violent, insecure....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Beefs about O’Hare: it sucks, its revitalization plan doesn’t include enough black contractors, and the taxi drivers’ bathrooms are too small to sit down in. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why your plane is so likely to be delayed at O’Hare, the clearest explanation I’ve read comes from air transportation columnist Patrick Smith, author of the wonderful column “Ask the Pilot,” at the Freakonomics blog (scroll down)....

What Christopher Durang calls his “sunniest” play (relatively speaking, of course–on his brightest day he’s 20 shades darker than Neil Simon) confirms that therapists are crazier than anyone. Prudence and Bruce, brought together by a personal ad, negotiate their relationship with, or despite, the help of batty shrinks. Though Durang’s absurd conversation (“I don’t think men should cry unless something falls on them”) and the introduction of Bruce’s male live-in lover add some interest and intrigue, the emotional stakes are minimal....

Ben Vida has created cyclical minimalist compositions with Town and Country, textured improvisations with Pillow, Steely Dan-style pop songs with Central Falls, and pensive acoustic guitar instrumentals on his 1999 solo debut, Mlps. (Boxmedia). Restraint is the only real common denominator–Vida brings a certain cool clarity to each endeavor. By contrast, Green Inferno (Kranky), the first album by his latest project, Bird Show, is as murky and mysterious as a rain forest....

I’m responding to Deanna Isaacs’s report, “Angling for an Uprising,” in The Business [November 24]. I’m one of the staff people mentioned by Isaacs who has left the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC) since the arrival of new executive director Olga Stefan. Like Robert Kameczura and Barton Faist, I have concerns with Stefan’s management of the organization. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » themselves. A couple of months after she began, Stefan raised membership dues to $50, without consulting the board....

The Old Town School of Folk Music takes its eclectic programming outdoors this weekend for the ninth annual Chicago Folk & Roots Festival, which features two days of music in Welles Park, 2333 W. Sunnyside. As usual, just about everything outside of rock, jazz, and classical music is represented: international touring musicians dominate the main stage, while locals command the other spots. One stage is dedicated to the school’s massive crew of instructors, another to dancing, and a third to kids; attendees are invited to take part in the jam sessions at the gazebo stage....

Since the mid-70s saxophonist David Murray has thrived anywhere he’s put down roots. In his trademark woolly postbop mode he’s led groups ranging in size from trios to big bands, and he’s also performed in wide-ranging collaborative settings like the World Saxophone Quartet, a revisionist organ combo with Don Pullen, and cross-cultural projects with Guadeloupean, Senegalese, and Hungarian musicians. On his latest album, last year’s Waltz Again (Justin Time), he continues to explore, blending a ten-piece string orchestra with a terrific quartet featuring pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, bassist Jaribu Shahid, and drummer Hamid Drake....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Banks wants the public to believe that he and his council allies are always taking a courageous stand against rising taxes for Chicago’s beleaguered citizens. But, as he ought to know, this is not exactly true. The fact is that Banks and his councilmates have been routinely hiking property taxes over the last few years every time they create a new tax increment financing district....

Heather Kenny’s June 17 cover story, “Preservationist, or Pest for Short,” was compelling; I wanted to read more so I went to Marty Hackl’s Web site and found some glaring inconsistencies with his public persona. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Reader article went on at some length about Van Bergen and the fact that Hackl once owned a Van Bergen historic home. What the article neglected to say, or what Hackl did not volunteer, was that he never gave a historic easement on his home....

The final revelation in Stephen Cone’s play–which traps a retired NYPD officer with an unwelcome interloper in a remote beachfront house–is unsettling and graphic. It’s also disappointing, since the last ten minutes get pulled out of the ether in Cone’s purposely elliptical Sam Shepard-style script. But Mark A. Steel as the ex-cop and Tyler A. Monroe as the young man make their simultaneous attraction and repulsion mesmerizing. And though director David Zak indulges in one of his trademark tics–actors hang from the rafters–his staging is otherwise wonderful, especially an ingenious scene in which the characters imagine the walls disappearing (aided by a transparent scrim)....

Poet Kevin Young is building an accomplished career from the detritus of pop culture past. He subtitled his 2003 collection, Jelly Roll, “A Blues,” and that it was, all sly and sexy wordplay, the poet’s very real pain shrugged off with a wiseass grin. He continues to spin high art from low, old forms of expression in Black Maria (Knopf). A “film noir in verse,” it follows the comings and goings, the ups and very low downs of private eye A....

Brett Richards loves stone and metal, and it shows in the attention to detail and visual appeal of his 13 abstract and figurative sculptures at All Rise. What attracts him is “the permanence of the material and the fact that you need so much more power than just the strength of your hands to form it. I’ve always been attracted to structural steel, its strength and stability and what it’s capable of doing....

Ex-spouses Elyot and Amanda rediscover their passion–for good or ill–and tweak the nose of social convention while honeymooning with new loves in Noel Coward’s wicked comedy. Joseph Wycoff masters Coward’s wit, gliding through Elyot’s sneers, barbs, rages, and sulks with the lusty grace and precision of a tango master. Melanie Keller’s Amanda holds her own, although the two seemed to have trouble sustaining their wrathful energy at critical moments. They and supporting actors Leah Wagner and Christian Gray–appropriately shrill, pompous, and dump-worthy as the jilted newlyweds–maintain an aura of elegant opulence despite a drab, shabby backdrop....

This annual showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music runs through 10/31 at Prop Thtr, 3502-4 N. Elston. Rhino Fest is coordinated by the Curious Theatre Branch, and features emerging and established artists from Chicago’s fringe. Performances take place in Prop’s north and south theaters. Admission for most shows is $15 or “pay what you can”; exceptions are noted below. For information and reservations, call 773-267-6660 (except as noted below) or visit www....