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R. U. R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) – City Lit Theater – Through June 15, 2025

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If you’re into science fiction, you know that this 1920 Czech play by Karel Capek introduced the word robot into the vocabulary, and that it’s been a wild ride ever since, with famous examples such as R. Daneel Olivaw, Gort, Robby the Robot and Marvin the Paranoid Android, to name but a few.

As terminology has developed, androids have been designated as a subset of robots that are designed to look like humans, deriving from the Greek andro, for man. Therefore R2-D2, visually, is not really a droid, as in “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” but 3-CPO is. Of course, these entities existed “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” when there was no Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction or Wikipedia to consult.

A cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic and organism introduced by a couple scientists in 1960, is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts, like RoboCop, the Borg in Star Trek, and arguably anyone who’s had knee or hip replacement surgery, especially if the new joint comes with microprocessor control.

City Lit’s production, with significant alterations, for better or worse, from the original, has some humor and initiates some interesting discussions, but, in the end, becomes tedious, and would be better as a shorter, one act play. Though it may have been the forefather to much that followed, its themes are addressed more satisfactorily elsewhere, such as in I Robot and in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Measure of a Man, which features a trial to determine whether or not Data is sentient and should have the right to make his own choices.

The best line in the show, “progress is the root of all evil,” was put to better use as a song in L’il Abner in 1956.

Dave Barry: Class Clown – American Writers Museum – Chicago Hope Academy – May 15, 2025

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This program attempted to answer the age-old question – should you really trust a person with two first names?

It was clear from his comments that Barry doesn’t expect to be trusted. He told the audience several times that his readers shouldn’t believe anything he says, that he’s a self-described silly humorist, a liar.

Thus he finds great pleasure in receiving countless letters, correcting him for “errors” in his work, from people who don’t get that he’s kidding. He writes everyone back, often extending the joke (lie) and thereby compounding the correspondent’s misconceptions and fury over the “mistakes”.

Barry says he got his sense of humor from his edgy mother, who, though she suffered from great depression and eventually committed suicide, did not foist her problems upon others.

When asked, Barry doubled down on his chosen career, saying that, although he started out as a newspaper journalist, his first calling had always been comedy, not writing.

Perhaps his best story of the evening related to the day it was announced that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary (1988), which led to a photo of his son (a later Pulitzer winner himself) giving him a big hug, which, in fact, was unrelated to the award, but rather the result of Barry having told the boy seconds earlier that Barry was buying him a Nintendo. As Shakespeare first said in 1599, timing is everything.

Porchlight Music Theatre – Chicago Sings 30 Years of Porchlight- House of Blues – May 12, 2025

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Twenty-one songs, played by a top-notch band and performed by an extraordinary cast of 20, not counting, though I should, the additional eight “Youth Performers” who joined in for They’re Playing Our Song, as a prelude to the irrepressible auctioneer Greg “G-man” Dellinger once again doing his thing by racing around the room to help unburden willing attendees from any up-to-that-point unspent charitable contributions weighing them down.

The room was too cold for my comfort, making me think of the book I’m currently reading – FROSTBITE: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves – but the music was hot, especially, for me, starting right before intermission, when the legendary E. Faye Butler resurrected her award-winning Mama Rose.

First act rabbit hole for me – I had to look up the show Closer Than Ever (and its song – Fathers of Fathers), which apparently came out in 1989, with music by David Shire, who I knew had previously given his name to Talia Shire, née Coppola, but who, I didn’t know, has long been married to Edith Bernstein – Didi Conn of Grease fame.

You know you’re in for a great show when three of the Five Guys Named Moe (Court Theatre – 2017) are in the cast. One of them, Lorenzo Rush Jr. provided one of the evening’s highlights when he used his performance of Honeysuckle Rose, from his award-winning performance in Ain’t Misbehavin’, to further honor the evening’s Guy Adkins Award winner Heidi Kettenring, presenting her with a long-stemmed beauty.

Having thus resurrected the rose theme, Erica Stephan did the same for the mama through line, giving us Don’t Tell Mama from her award-winning performance as Sally Bowles, and making me glad that I hadn’t listened to Randy Newman’s warning in Mama Told Me Not to Come.

The Boogie Woogie Kid – Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – May 9, 2025

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As far as I know, Matt Ball, probably when he was much younger, self-proclaimed himself to be the Boogie Woogie Kid, which, I think, is against all the rules of nicknaming, which, by most standards, must come from your peers.

That said, Ball may have the fastest hands this side of Las Vegas magician Shin Lim or the late Sugar Ray Robinson, although Guinness World Records says that Keita Hattori of Japan established the new mark for most piano key hits in one minute, in December 2024, with 1030 keys.

My problem with that record is that Hattori just hit the same key over and over again. And I don’t mean him playing the Rodgers and Hart melody Johnny One Note from Babes in Arms (thank you Judy Garland). Can the guy even carry a tune?

Ball can. And though I thought it was a little doubtful that he could get through his set list of 15 songs (along with introductions) in 50 minutes, it was no problem. He even found a way to boogie woogie-ize some songs that don’t normally fit that mold, such as Amazing Grace. And please note that every song was recognizable.

Hadestown – CIBC Theatre – May 6-18, 2025

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Hadestown is good enough to see at least once. The cast is good, but no one jumped out at me. The music is good, if mostly unmemorable (at least to me), except for the catchy Way Down Hadestown. (Loved the band, however, and agree with reviews that have singled out the trombone player.) Also, I’m not a big fan of recitative shows.

Seeing Hadestown completed a musical triple play of sorts for me, having previously seen Wonderful Town and Urinetown. (I’ve never seen a theatrical version of On the Town, which is a pity, as in a town without.)

As far as Hades, the character, goes, I preferred the devil in Damn Yankees and the devil disguised as the snake in The Diary of Adam and Eve (in the Apple Tree), though the devil in Randy Newman’s Faust, which was so good that I left at intermission, left much to be desired. (The Devil Wears Prada doesn’t count, and is best forgotten.)

At the point in Hadestown when Orpheus is asked by Hades to play a song, I hoped he would break into The Devil Went Down to Georgia, but no such luck, just a lot of la la las.

The show can definitely make you think about serious things going on in the world today, but don’t I go to musicals to get away from that? I thought the song When the Chips Are Down was particularly relevant – “Now that the chips are down, Help yourself, to hell with the rest, Even the one who loves you best”.

The ending of the show differs from the classic versions and is a total sellout. Virgil or Ovid or whoever (other than Tony voters) is turning over in his grave, though, spoiler alert, Orpheus and Eurydice aren’t.

LEGO Endurance

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I would like to float the notion that Ernest Shackleton’s ship was prophetically named Endurance, not because of the trials and tribulations that his crew survived, but rather because of the fortitude needed to construct the LEGO set of the ship.

Shackleton and his men may have had to survive bitter cold, fierce storms and a lack of supplies, but I had to withstand an inadequate instruction manual, unhelpful online videos and pieces that kept falling off and rolling under furniture, and, on a couple of occasions, deep into the bowels of the vessel, necessitating rescue missions that exposed, not my body to the elements, or the ship to the ocean depths, but rather my pocketbook to the possibility of having to replace lost pieces under the new tariffs.

The Endurance crew was stranded for approximately 16 months. Yet, with all the roadblocks, I can proudly say that it took me a little less than 3 months to finish my project, during which time I lost no fingers or toes to frostbite and did not have to shoot any dogs.

I will never know whether history will still be acknowledging my achievement over one hundred years after the fact.

Michelle Cann – Northwestern Bienan School of Music – May 2, 2025

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Michelle Cann. I cannot.

I’m sure that one of the keys to her performance was that, according to the program, she had the services of not only a Piano Technician, but also a Supervisor of Keyboard Maintenance. (I have neither.) Also, I should add, the Mary A. Galvin Recital Hall is a terrific venue.

All that and the fact that she is an expressive, energetic, extraordinary pianist, who augments her playing with behind-the-music stories that are educational, enlightening and entertaining. And just when you think you can sit back and savor the concert you just heard, she knocks your socks off with an all-time great encore.

This is the third time I’ve written about seeing Cann perform in the last two years, so there’s not much more I can say, other than I want more. She’s taking a break soon, but she’ll be playing Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 with the Cincinnati Symphony next week. Road trip?

Another Life Lesson Learned

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Those who know me know that I have a sometimes unhealthy need to follow instructions. The Ravinia Festival website said tickets for 2025 season concerts would go on sale at 8:00 am, which I took at face value. DUMB!

I didn’t find out until I logged in age 8:00 that you could get in the queue at 6:30. OOPS!

Needless to say, but I will anyway, there were a few people in line ahead of me, actually over 25 THOUSAND!

I use the term people loosely, as I’m sure many of them were secondary sellers (either living, breathing ones or sentient bots), which sounds much kinder, though it shouldn’t, than scalpers. (Interestingly, the term scalper is said to have arisen in the 19th century, as applied to railroad ticket brokers who sold tickets for rates LOWER(!) than face value.)

Rest assured, that is no longer the case, though I must add that I once got a nice price for a Boston Celtics game in the final year of the old Boston Garden by waiting until after the tipoff to make my purchase on the street, which had the added benefit of aggravating what had been a smug seller until he realized I wasn’t bluffing.

The secondary lesson here is not to schedule two things in one day, as the workman I had hired showed up at my door just as my computer pinged to tell me I had 15 seconds to make my purchase. Okay, actually 20 minutes, but I was already in a frenzy, so it seemed like 15 seconds. I believe that’s a corollary to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Sunny Afternoon: The Story of the Kinks – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Through April 27, 2025

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As I was entering the theater, the usher handing me my program pointed to a jar containing plastic bags with two little orange items in each and asked “Do you need earplugs?”, to which I responded “Do I need ear plugs?”, to which she responded “I’ve been told that the music is pretty loud.”

I hesitated for a moment, concerned that I might not be able to hear the dialogue with the plugs inserted, but quickly decided that I probably wouldn’t be able to understand the British accents anyway, so I might as well wear the protection, while also berating myself for not going to one of the open caption performances.

In retrospect, I probably only needed the plugs twice, the first time being near the beginning of the show when the lads are trying to determine just how loudly they should play the first five signature chords of You Really Got Me, which reminded me of the movie The Italian Job when Lyle gets “speakers so loud they can blow a woman’s clothes off.”

I have read that, not surprising, a lot of creative license is taken with events depicted in the show, but the story is kind of secondary anyway. I’ve seen the tropes before in other behind-the-scenes stories. More importantly, the cast treated us to a highlight show of 1960s Kinks, augmented by a raft of energetic dancing emblematic of that era.

The crowd, which was on its feet for the closing medley, would have been alright with the music continuing all day and all of the night.

Titanique – Broadway Playhouse – March 25 – July 13, 2025

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Titanique has been running in New York for almost three years and in Sydney for almost seven months, so it should come as no surprise that it has already been extended in Chicago, despite just opening.

As earlier written, I have followed the progress of the joint Porchlight Music Theatre/Broadway in Chicago production since it began rehearsing. Now that I’ve seen the official opening, I’ll share some additional thoughts.

The show is an event that starts rollicking even before the Celine Dion character, played with swagger by Clare Kennedy McLaughlin, in full Celine Dion accent, and then some, makes her first announcement to the audience. There were attendees in costume and a buzz in the air.

Maya Rowe (as Rose) and Adam Fane (as Jack), show no limits to their comedic energy and are able to turn on a dime to deliver with their singing.

I’ve previously noted that a lot of the show’s jokes elude me, and though I’ve now been educated about some of them, I still wish I could appreciate them in the moment.

This is especially true in regard to Rob Lindley’s ranting, eat the scenery, tour de force monologue as Ruth, which contained numerous references I didn’t understand, leaving me to ride the wave of the howling appreciation emitted by a large segment of the audience. The only thing missing was for him to start shouting “Auntie Em!!! Uncle Henry!!! Toto!!! It’s a twister!!! It’s a twister!!!” ala the guy in the tower in Airplane!.

This may not be a show for everyone (I’m pretty sure it won’t be playing the Kennedy Center in the foreseeable future), but the production values are first-rate and the whole cast is top-notch, frequently bringing down the house with their fabulous voices, even in the guise of an iceberg.