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Burning Bluebeard – Porchlight Music Theatre – December 15, 2019

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Remember the scene in Animal House when John Belushi grabs the guitar out of the hands of the guy playing on the stairs and smashes it against the wall. I wanted to grab the entire cast of the Ruffians’ production of Burning Bluebeard, a show about the tragic December 30, 1903 Iroquois Theater fire, and smash them against the wall, gently of course, as I’m not a violent person.

On the other hand, a ruffian is defined as a violent person, especially one involved in crime, which seems fair, because, as far as I’m concerned, this play is a crime. But, just as no one was ever convicted in connection with the Iroquois fire, Burning Bluebeard has received great reviews over the years in which it has become a December tradition, and, based on the applause, was found innocent by many of those in attendance the night I saw it, in a clear case of audience nullification (see jury nullification if you haven’t watched enough Law and Order).

The Ruffians say that they use a “multi-disciplined creative process [that] fuses acrobatics, story-telling, and pop culture styling into a joyful anarchy that gives voice to the eerily beautiful harmonic hum of magical-realism.” I would agree with all of that, except the joyful part.

I’m not a big fan of avant-garde theater, the closest I have come to liking it before being the time I saw a production of Austin Pendleton’s Orson’s Shadow about Welles’s production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. But, if avant-garde is your thing, then knock yourself out, as opposed to the cast, and see this production. Just don’t sit in the front rows, or the fog, representing smoke, may knock you out.

The play is informative. But, personally, I would recommend, instead, reading the Smithsonian Magazine article about the fire and the reforms that resulted from it.

Q Brothers Christmas Carol – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – December 14, 2019

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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843. Though the underlying spirit (or spirits, if you will) remains the same, the Q Brothers have made more than a few changes. Bless them, everyone.

This makes six years in a row I’ve seen the Q Brothers ply their trade in this must-see show. I’d call it a tradition, but that implies a handing down between generations. I can’t even get most of my same-generation friends to go because they’re afraid of hip-hop, as if it were some kind of communicable disease. Bah, humbug, Those who have gone, thank me.

Since I’ve written about the show the last two years, there’s not much left to say, except to wonder when the cast will get too old to dance around the stage, and when that happens, will they allow a younger set of performers to replace them in the tradition of some road-weary 60s rock band that has reached its limit and sold their name (see Blood, Sweat, and Tears).

Nonetheless, I’ll mention a few things. Scrooge asking a young girl in the audience whether he’s using the word hashtag correctly. Her hands-up response suggested she didn’t know, which made me feel better. Scrooge’s childhood friend once again going off on a tangent, not one considered by Leibniz or Euclid, but different than last year’s, cracking up not only the other actors and the audience, but also himself, and thereby answering my question as to whether his random departure is part of the show. The Tarik Cohen joke added last year to show currency. The newly-inserted visual marijuana reference to the Illinois law about to take effect. Tiny Tim’s song that matter-of-factly lists all his ailments, none of which, I’m pretty sure, are transmitted by attending a hip-hop show. Just saying.

Two Tales of a City – Northwestern University and Newberry Library – December 4 and 11, 2019

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Northwestern’s Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was the best of lectures, Newberry Library’s misnamed Books That Built Chicago was the worst of lectures.

Kathleen Skolnik, who teaches art and architectural history at Roosevelt University, had the Northwestern audience in the palm of her hand as she led them on a photograph-aided journey through design elements of the 1920’s.

On the other hand, or palm, the Newberry Library didn’t even get the name of their program right. There’s a reason why Chicago by the Book: 101 Publications That Shaped the City and Its Image is so named, as evidenced by architect and IIT professor John Ronan’s task to convince us that the original brochure (a publication, not a book) for the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Mies van der Rohe buildings was worthy of being included.

He failed. Just because the buildings themselves may have been groundbreaking, doesn’t mean that the brochure was significant, its inclusion apparently resting on its attempts to glorify a plain, rectangular, interior living space.

And yet, Ronan held our attention better than David Van Zanten, Professor Emeritus in Art and Art History at Northwestern University, who discussed Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, 1910-11 (Executed Buildings and Designs for those of you who don’t read German).

Van Zanten spent most of his interminable bombination, not on the substance of the book, but rather on the way in which the pages opened and folded over one another, and then posited that, perhaps, he should have showed us this origami-related manipulation on the screen instead of through third-rate, mime-like, hand gestures.

There were two other speakers at the Newberry, who informed us about the arguments the chapter selection committee had over whether or not menus should be included in the book.

Sparing you this discussion may be a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.

Indulgence with Lucy Darling – Chicago Magic Lounge – December 4, 2019

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Arthur C, Clarke’s Third Law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Carisa Hendrix, aka Lucy Darling, proves that the technology doesn’t have to be that advanced to seem like magic, which is defined as “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.”

But, more importantly, she proves that what often separates the headliners from the run-of-the mill magicians is their patter and persona, especially when they purport to do comedy magic, as she does. Lucy’s talented, smart and funny. How often do you go to a magic show that includes a Chekov allusion about an illusion?

This was my second trip to the Chicago Magic Lounge, but first time at the main stage. It’s a beautiful room, and, if I may divert (and isn’t magic all about diverting your attention), the sliced potato pancakes were pretty darn good.

On the other hand, though Lucy is a cut above, her tricks are pretty standard fair. She does multiplying bottles, the linking finger ring, the any drink called for trick and one where she makes a book chosen by an audience member appear in a shopping bag. That last one didn’t fool Penn and Teller on their tv show, where, interestingly, the audience member chose the same book that was chosen at the Magic Lounge show. What would Arthur C. Clarke say about that?

I don’t know what P&T know, but it seems to me that Lucy could just hide a portable 3-D printer in the shopping bag, allowing her to produce an exact replica of the book in a matter of seconds during her stage patter. Or maybe she has an easier way.

Before she developed her current character, Carisa became a Guinness World Record Holder after holding a flaming torch in her mouth for just over two minutes. No torch this time, but the act is still hot.

Timothy Hagen (Flute) and Ben Corbin (Piano) – Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert – Chicago Cultural Center – November 20, 2019

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Midway through a day that included leading a class on cheating in baseball (more on that another time), a fountain-lighting ceremony with singing in Washington Square Park, and a musical comedy that’s Duck Soup meets Of Thee I Sing (see piece on Call Me Madam), I listened to a lovely concert by Hagen and Corbin, though I found myself slightly distracted from the music itself.

I became focused on (read obsessed by) the flow of Corbin’s hands on the piano, something I have struggled with (along with avoiding dangling prepositions). My curiosity thus led me to a piano-technique website that discusses hand, finger and body motions in sufficient detail to keep me occupied through the winter.

It also reminded me of the well-known fact that a difficult part of acting is what to do with your hands. I found an acting coach’s website that says it best.

It seems that when we act, the hands are destined to flop around like a hyperactive T-Rex.
Or if they are not busy doing dinosaur impersonations, they are perhaps engaged in:
• Penguining (Flapping the arms at the sides.)
• Waitressing (Arms in a v-shape, like a waiter carrying plates.)
• The ForkLift (as above but straight out)

The other distractions were the guy behind me who spent five minutes fumbling around with batteries he was trying to insert into a camera, and a woman’s cell phone that rang loudly for an interminable amount of time (okay, maybe 15 seconds), as she fumbled to remove it from her purse and tried to remember how to turn it off. If not so rude, or maybe because of that, it might have made an amusing SNL skit, as the ring was musical and ended almost in synch with the performance. I couldn’t help but think, however, that it needed more cow bell.

 

Porchlight Revisits Call Me Madam – Porchlight Music Theatre – November 20, 2019

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When Irving Berlin first played the counterpoint song You’re Just in Love for Ethel Merman, her reaction was “We’ll never get off the stage.” For those of us who are musically challenged, counterpoint is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour. Whatever the hell that means, Merman was right. It’s a great song.

Donica Lynn, in the Merman role, is the headliner for this three-performance run, and doesn’t disappoint, but Laura Savage stands out for me, as she has done before, this time not only for her acting, singing, and dancing, but also for her gymnastic skills, demonstrated by her forward and backward flips across the stage that earned her a perfect ten from the audience.

The woman behind me, whom I wouldn’t call madam, coughed throughout the show, her emanations unfortunately not blending in like white noise, but rather more like the black plague. At intermission I was going to offer to pay for her ticket if she would leave, but thought better of it out of fear that she might let loose a torrent of invisible fury directly into my face should I confront her.

Michael Weber’s always entertaining Behind The Show Backstory included frequent mention of the show’s authors Russell Crouse and Howard Lindsey, but, surprisingly, didn’t mention, for us trivia buffs, that Crouse named his daughter, the actress we came to know as Lindsey Crouse, after his long-time writing partner. So I was compelled to grab him at intermission to show off my grasp of useless information.

Weber’s half-hour piece, which he flew through without taking a breath, also included mention of George Sanders as General Cosmo Constantine in the movie version, which leads me to remind people that Sanders is not to be confused with his actor-brother Tom Conway, or with actor John Williams, as can easily happen when half-comatose, watching old movies late at night.

Stay Tuned: Rock on TV – Museum of Broadcast Communications – November 14, 2019

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Straight from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rock on TV exhibit is a trip down memory lane, with video from shows like Shindig, Hullaballoo, Soul Train, and American Bandstand; and artifacts, like one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, a Paul Shaffer keyboard, and costumes worn by Cher and Michael Jackson (not the same ones by both).

I wrote a two-page paper on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its politics for my college freshman rhetoric class (how do I remember that?), so I was happy to see that show well-represented in the exhibit, especially because of two famous incidents it references.

One was Pete Seeger singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for a second time, after his first rendition was deleted by the network from an earlier show because of the song’s anti-war message. The other was Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, going a little overboard when blowing up his drum set on stage, apparently causing some permanent hearing loss for Pete Townsend.

Darlene Love appears in several of the videos, commenting on various shows, including, of course, both Late Night and Late Show with David Letterman, which forever etched her name in TV music history for the 28 times she performed Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on them.

Letterman is lauded as someone who brought a lot of rock acts onto his show. Apparently, other hosts, like Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan, who famously had The Beatles and Elvis Presley, among other rock acts, on his show, only did so kicking and screaming.

It’s a stretch to call all the music highlighted in the exhibit “rock”, but my only real complaint is the varying, overlapping sound levels that sometimes make it hard to hear at a few of the stations, even if you’re not Pete Townsend.

Chicago Humanities Festival – November 3 – 10, 2019

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The nominal theme of this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival was Power. Recent years’ have been Graphic, Belief, Stuff, Speed, Style, Citizens, Journey, Animal, America, Tech-Knowledge, The Body, Laughter, etc. If they insist upon continuing the naming pretense, I would like to suggest, for next year, Apathy. It’s my hope that this would, by power of suggestion, reduce tickets sales, thus making seats more available.

I often select sessions based on their comedic potential, so, not surprisingly, my most hopeful year, despite the frequent disconnect, was 2009’s Laughter. I particularly remember seeing former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who, in addition to being very smart, is downright funny, much funnier than any of the comedians I’ve seen at the Underground Comedy Club.

This year, Ren Weschler talked about his new biography of Oliver Sacks, who himself was a speaker at the 2002 festival. If I’d seen that, I wouldn’t have bothered with Weschler.

John Hodgman pushed his new book Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms. He told some good stories, but the audience’s questions were about his podcast Judge John Hodgman, which I’ve never heard. So I was surprised that many of the questions seemed serious, with people looking for actual advice from a comedian, and not one named Larry David.

Mo Rocca’s new book is Mobituaries, Great Lives Worth Reliving, but it was more interesting to hear him talk about his own career, which has included a job as an editor at a soft porn magazine.

Sarah Vowell, when asked why she became an historian, said that she doesn’t like to pry, which she acknowledged was a problem for her as a journalist, so she finds it easier to write about dead people, as she doesn’t have to talk to them, or, I suppose, see them.

Spamalot – Mercury Theater – November 8, 2019

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I was awed by Sara Ramirez when I saw her in her Tony-award winning performance as The Lady of the Lake in the original production of Spamalot, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to see Meghan Murphy, aka Big Red, in the same role. It was my main reason for going to the Mercury Theater production.

Murphy makes the role her own, commanding the stage, not only with her talent, but also with her brash, over-the-top playfulness that the director obviously must have encouraged, to the delight of the audience. Murphy’s scatting during The Diva’s Lament had the audience roaring for more.

There is no clear-cut origin of scatting, though apparently Louis Armstrong’s recording studio misadventure, when he dropped the lyric sheet to Heebie Jeebies and started improvising, led to its popularity.

There’s also no information, at least that I could find, about the origin of the term scatting. It seems like it must relate to scat’s other definition, that is feces, but I couldn’t find anything to suggest that conclusion.

In searching for references, I did, however, find a webpage that cites 11 literary fart jokes, ranging from Dante to Twain to Salinger. And that’s without mention of Judd Apatow, or the Frenchmen’s fart jokes in Spamalot.

I don’t know whether the Frenchmen throwing a cow as a weapon from their castle is supposed to be a continuation of the scatological humor (I wouldn’t doubt it), but it is well-documented that cows have been accused of contributing to climate change, though not, as some think, through farting, but rather, as NASA tells us, through belching.

Not to worry, however, as scientists are hard at work on ways to reduce the methane produced by cows, which should keep the EPA from shutting down future productions of Spamalot, or Gypsy, with its moo cow.

The Peanuts Papers: Charlie Brown, Snoopy & The Gang, and the Meaning of Life – American Writers Museum – November 4, 2019

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Happiness is a warm puppy. It’s also listening to cartoonists Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti, in a panel moderated by editor and literary agent Andrew Blauner, sing the praises of Charles Schulz and credit him with being the inspiration for their careers, although Brunetti admitted that part of the reason he became a cartoonist was because he couldn’t see himself as a more traditional artist wearing a beret and smock.

Schulz hated the name Peanuts, it having been forced upon him by the United Feature Syndicate, which the speakers referred to only as the syndicate, making me think that Charlie Brown was controlled by the mob.

Schulz based the strip generally on his own childhood experiences, though he favored hockey over football, and thus didn’t have the recurring placekicking issues Charlie had. While the speakers stated that Schulz never allowed Charlie to kick the ball, I’ve found possible evidence to the contrary, a cel showing a successful attempt with the help of Spiderman!

The panelists also mentioned Schulz having won the Reuben. A corned beef sandwich seemed like an odd prize until I discovered that it wasn’t food, but rather an award named after Reuben “Rube” Goldberg, presented to the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

The same year he won the award, 1955, Schulz took the advice of a fan and cut the unpopular character Charlotte Braun from the strip. He then sent a letter, preserved in the Library of Congress, back to the fan with a drawing showing an ax in Braun’s head. Good Grief!

One final note. It has been announced that the upcoming 8th version of the Snoopy Thanksgiving parade balloon will be clad in astronaut gear to honor the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Not so coincidentally, episode one of the new Apple TV show, Snoopy in Space, launched on November 1.