Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical – Studebaker Theater – July 9, 2023

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This show wants to go to Broadway. As someone suggested to me, maybe Broadway and Belmont. I agree. For my money, this Price is not right.

I mean the show, not the person, as Saint Aubyn, playing the lead, portraying the elder Price, as opposed to the Elder Price, a character in The Book of Mormon, a much better play, is terrific, singing, dancing and interacting with the audience.

If you watch the video of the real Price on the Ed Sullivan show, and compare it with Aubyn’s stage version of that event, Aubyn is the clear victor. In the video, Price dances like Elaine Benes.

Performances, and great dancing by the whole cast aside (that shouldn’t be cast aside), there is a lot that could be cut from Personality, especially in the second act. I’ll try not to spoil it for you, in case all the highly recommended reviews lead you astray.

So please cut the scene where Price and three members of his band (redacted), the scene where he gets advice from (redacted), and the scene where (redacted) sings (redacted), which may lead the audience to believe (redacted), which is not true.

And wouldn’t it make his story even more interesting if those scenes were replaced with some reference to the interesting latter parts of his life, admittedly not associated with music, such as working with Don King to promote the famous Rumble in the Jungle and Thrilla in Manilla prizefights and starting a company to develop low income housing for underprivileged minorities.

And while, according to the show, his marriage was less than ideal, none of the online bios I could find mention that fact at all. According to the 2021 obituaries I found, he was survived by a different wife and several more children than were introduced in the play. May he and this show rest in peace.

Nascar Chicago Street Race – July 2, 2023

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No, I didn’t attend. Get serious. Although, I will admit to the following: when I was 13-years old, having gone with my parents to the Daytona International Speedway and done one of their one lap ride-along experiences. Interestingly, it was right after that I stopped being able to sleep through the night.

I also will admit to having gone to drag races on a Sunday!, Sunday!, Sunday!, around that same time, though, if I recall correctly, it was at the Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove Wisconsin, not at the U.S. 30 Dragstrip in Hobart, Indiana. My clearest recollection is that it was cold and I was underdressed, and my father wisely purchased a thick Sunday paper so that we could wrap ourselves in the pages under our coats to keep warm.

Most relevant to the Nascar event, however, may have been my trip to a demolition derby in Soldier Field while in high school, which I was reminded of when I saw the picture of the recent racers sliding into the piles of tires used as barriers on the Chicago street course.

That looked like fun. Forget watching the professional drivers floor it on the straightaways. I can see that from amateurs anytime on the local highways, and with the added factors of a cell phone in their hands and my life in danger.

No, give me a car with a safety cage and a good old pile of tires to ram into. That’s an event I could get behind. A whole new meaning to being retired.

The Who’s Tommy the Musical – Goodman Theatre – June 24, 2023

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A year after The Who released their album Tommy, I saw them perform it live at the Auditorium Theater. I had trouble hearing for two days thereafter, but I didn’t care.

With that memory in mind, I thought about bringing ear plugs to the musical, but decided against it, though I was told afterward that the Goodman had them available for audience members, apparently out of my line of sight.

It was loud, though not nearly as loud as the concert had been, and, again, I didn’t care, and don’t appear to have any residual hearing loss.

I came for the music, and was rewarded with not only a tremendous orchestra, but also a great cast, terrific choreography and incredible set design, which included all kinds of amazing light displays. This production is very special, unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The Pinball Wizard scene that closes the first act is itself worth the price of admission, but I’ll also give a shout out to the way in which the paratroopers’ actions were depicted near the opening of the show.

When the full cast started singing the finale, the audience couldn’t contain itself any longer, standing en masse and cheering well before the song ended, which I suppose also could have been reflective of a need for movement given how cold it was in the theater. It’s always something.

The show has been extended to the end of July. See it, feel it.

Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon – Lookingglass Theatre Company – June 13, 2023

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This is the second musical I’ve seen with Honeymoon in the title. But this one doesn’t have any flying Elvises. The program describes it as – “First Generation Asian American Renegades. In Love. And on the Run.” Kind of like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, except not at all.

There’s a lot to like about this production, including the country western music, the humor, the cultural awareness and the serious issues raised, but it seemed to try too hard at times.

The first act made me want to find out how things would play out. The second act made me yearn for the first act. (I would same the same about a lot of other plays.) It was like watching someone using an incorrect thread type to stitch the parts together and winding up with a puckered seam. Still functional, looks okay from a distance and can be fixed, but wouldn’t wear it to the prom as is.

Because it’s a world premiere, I’ll restrain myself from revealing spoilers, but I will say – enjoy the Karaoke scene, try to take in as much of the set as you can and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about Benny.

Meghan “Big Red” Murphy – Wells Street Art Festival – June 10, 2023

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The Wells Street Art Festival should really be called the Wells Street Drinking and Eating Disgusting Fried Foods Festival, but there was art on display.

This was a different kind of Big Red performance than what I have seen in the past, and I’ve seen quite a few – a bawdy holiday show with her and The Boys at a couple different theaters, a tour de force performance as The Lady of the Lake in Spamalot, a solo cabaret show, a third of a We Three trio of ladies at Steppenwolf of all places, a musical guest at the Green Mill’s Paper Machete, a private birthday party performance in the courtyard of my building during the pandemic and, originally, a turn as the star of a production of Woman of the Year.

This time there were no risqué songs, no double entendres, no scatting, and no live music, as if she were David Byrne trying to break the Broadway rules requiring pit musicians. (He finally agreed a couple days ago to use 12, instead of the normal minimum of 19 the union wanted).

There was only great singing and engaging banter in an outdoor street fair setting that is less than perfect for performers, though Red managed to get members of the milling crowd to dance and sing along, all while drinking along (Red stuck to water, I think).

My only disappointment with Murphy was when she sang a disco version of “If You Could Read My Mind” and said how surprised she was to learn that it was originally a Gordon Lightfoot song. I was surprised that there was a disco version.

Totally unrelated, I feel required to mention that I saw former Bears and Illinois head coach Lovie Smith walking around at the festival, one of the few people there who was old enough to know Lightfoot had written the song.

Chicago Blues Festival – Millennium Park – June 9, 2023

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You don’t even have to enter the park to hear the music. It was so loud it made my throat hurt and my skin flaked. But the couple acts I heard induced a lot of head-bobbing in the audience and sounded great – Lightnin’ Malcolm, representing his birthplace on the Visit Mississippi Juke Joint Stage, and Stephen Hull, from that hotbed of blues, Racine.

Unsurprisingly, I have no interest in visiting Mississippi, but who doesn’t love a juke joint, which, in turns out, is a term derived from the Gullah word juke, which means bawdy or disorderly. What that has to do with a basketball player juking a defender, I’m not sure.

Besides the music and the everywhere-you-turned, blues-related merchandise, including items from the foundations of Muddy Waters, Eddie Taylor, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon, in case you need something from one of them to fill out your collection, the big draw at the festival is the smokehouse meat, which, I’ve found, has its own section concerning emission factors on the EPA website, which seemed like a good reason for taking a wide berth from where the cooking was taking place.

Pippin – Music Theater Works – North Shore Center for the Performing Arts – June 7, 2023

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I’d never seen Pippin before. It’s a very strange show, but I was hoping at least to see someone being held upside-down hanging from a trapeze while singing No Time at All, ala Andrea Martin in her Tony award-winning performance in the 2013 Broadway revival, but that was wishful thing, although, just as in the Broadway productions, the song was a show stopper, this time performed by Kathleen Puls Andrade.

Pippin, or really, Pepin the Hunchback, was the eldest son of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), named after his grandfather Pepin the Short, in what can only be seen as a cruel generation-skipping continuation of family humor. He never played basketball.

With all the fun stuff of the wild and crazy 8th and early 9th centuries as background, this production cleverly mixes in aspects of current day news broadcasts, while maintaining its play within a play confusion where the protagonist searches, in both incarnations, for self-discovery, being too late to join the Knights of the Round Table in their much more entertaining quest for the Holy Grail a couple centuries earlier.

The plot aside, dancing carried the day, with complicated, high-energy movement generated by a dozen very fresh-looking faces and backed up by an excellent band. If there was any doubt that the original show was choreographed by Bob Fosse, that was removed in the scene the ensemble broke out the white gloves, but alas, no trapeze.

DAMN Yankees – Marriott Theatre – May 21, 2023

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Growing up as a White Sox fan, the concept of DAMN Yankees has always been one with which I could identify.

The only other time I’ve seen a theatrical presentation of this show was in 1996, featuring Jerry Lewis as Applegate. The only thing I remember about that production, and not as a highlight, was Lewis bringing the show to a grinding halt by totally breaking character in the second act and committing a crime against nature by going into a “comedic” monologue.

It’s unfortunate that that’s how I look back, but it’s at least partially Fortunato (Sean, that is), who is much better in the same role, letting his comedic acting speak for him, that will cause me to think back more fondly this time.

Add to that, one of my local favorites, Lorenzo Rush, Jr., as Van Buren, the team’s manager, who, as usual, was a strong presence throughout.

And then there’s a relatively new local favorite of mine, Erica Stephan, doing great work as reporter Gloria Thorpe in a role far removed from her recent tour de force as Sally Bowles at Porchlight Music Theatre.

A new face for me was Michelle Aravena, dynamic as Lola, though I will never understand how Who’s Got the Pain wound up in this show. (Apparently it “was a last-minute replacement to substitute for a weird gorilla-suit number.”) It’s much better served as “the only filmed example of Fosse and Verdon dancing together”, which I never tire of watching on YouTube.

Speaking of dancing, a shout out to Sam Linda, a ballplayer wearing number 16 and dancing in a way reminiscent of Ray Bolger.

Watching the players slide and dance across the stage kept the show moving right along, obviously another positive effect of this year’s new rules to speed up baseball games.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me – Porchlight Music Theatre – May 11, 2023

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It’s been over 20 years since I saw the IMAX documentary Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure, but it has remained frozen in my memory.

Molly Brown may have been unsinkable, but she couldn’t hold a candle, or, in the case of this show, a banjo, to Ernest Shackleton. Just two years after the Titanic sank, the Endurance went down in Antarctica, the beginning of an amazing story that is faithfully told through dialogue, song, and actual video from the expedition on loan from the British Natural History Museum, all in the middle of a show about a Brooklyn woman trying to make ends meet and keep her baby warm while the father tours the country with a Journey cover band.

It’s a strange combination indeed, and not your mother’s musical (you won’t walk out humming any of the songs), but one that works, in no small part thanks to the two multi-talented stars of the show, Elisa Carlson and Andrew Mueller (I have now seen all three of the Mueller siblings perform on stage), and, in the midst of a show about hope and optimism, a lot of laughs.

Museum of Contemporary Art – May 9, 2023

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My whole ignorant life I thought tepee was spelled like that, but it turns out it’s actually tipi, the conical tent that is, not the hygiene accessory used to adorn other types of abodes on Halloween.

There are no fully constructed tipis at the Duane Linklater mymothersside exhibit, but several animal pelts, plenty of poles and attractively-designed linen covers, and, for some reason (things his mother owned?), a Kenmore refrigerator, a flat screen television, and a mini Apple Mac. I guess the addition of these items qualifies the exhibit for an art, rather than natural history, museum.

The Enter the Mirror installation includes the work of 19 different artists that the curator scrapped together under one name from stuff the museum didn’t see fit to put on display before or for a really long time, sort of like what I made for dinner last night.

For me, the highlight was Sam Durant’s Partially Buried 1960s/70s Dystopia Revealed (Mick Jagger at Altamont) & Utopia Reflected (Wavy Gravy at Woodstock), a couple of piles of dirt on mirrors, simulating graves, which made me wonder, why not the appropriately-named Grateful Dead at Woodstock, especially in light of the band not making it into the movie or soundtrack album.

I can’t think of anything even remotely interesting to say about the other four exhibits, other than that Endless, gratefully, is not.