Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square – Washington Square Park – July 30, 2022

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“Things aren’t what they used to be and probably never were.” – Will Rogers

The ACLU was handing out flyers, but there were no soap boxes in the park. No anarchists in sight. No spectators shouting down speakers.

There were people hanging around, perhaps waiting for an argument to break out, but, times being what they are, the Newberry staff had to be happy to have a docile event, where the biggest controversy was the position taken by Northwestern professor Bill Savage that it was okay to put ketchup on hot dogs. Even I booed at that.

Savage had some interesting, less hot-button things to say about Edward Brennan and his years-long effort to successfully rename many streets and renumber addresses throughout the city, accomplishing things that many mistakenly credit as being part of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago.

The only other speaker I heard any of was Katie Prout, a freelance-writer, who, amazingly, had a lot to say about pigeons, a fairly safe topic.

I then headed over to the Documents Bureau table where Society of Smallness clerks listened to a random complaint I came up with for the moment and issued me a certificate granting me the authority to do something about it. I was going to snap a photo to attach to this piece, but when I got home I discovered that they, ironically, had given me somebody else’s document. Next year’s complaint.

Back to the main stage for Sheryl Youngblood and her blues band, who did a sweet half hour before more talking heads appeared and I disappeared.

It Came From Outer Space – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – July 24, 2022

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This world premiere musical, based on the 1953 movie of the same name, which, in turn, was based on a film treatment by Ray Bradbury (and not on a William Shakespeare play), will probably never play Broadway, but I would not at all be surprised if it turned into a long-running Off-Broadway sensation, where audience members come dressed as aliens.

Of course, the musical Little Shop of Horrors, also based on a low budget science fiction movie, started off Off-Off-Broadway, then went Off-Broadway for five years, before eventually making it to Broadway and becoming a staple of theaters everywhere.

This show was written by the same two people, Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, who won the 2011 Jeff Award for writing the musical Murder for Two, which I loved. As is necessary to fully exploit the delightful silliness of the show, the cast played it straight, although I imagine that there were numerous breakdowns in rehearsals.

In particular I would like to mention Jaye Ladymore, whom I never had seen on stage before (unlike the other players), but who caught my attention last year on the ill-fated tv series 4400. Today I often found myself looking to see her movements and facial reactions, even when the focus of the action was elsewhere, like in outer space.


Jonathan Zeng – Music by the Fountain – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 22, 2022

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The concert was promoted as Jonathan Zeng, voice and piano. Zeng sang, but someone else, who was introduced, but not promoted, and didn’t speak, but did wave to the audience, played the piano.

Zeng’s voice was fine, but I found him boring. I would rather just have listened to the piano and heard in my head the voices of the performers who made famous the mostly Broadway show tunes he led us through. I was not surprised to learn, afterwards, that his resume includes a lot of work with opera companies, and not one musical theater credit I could find. Note to self, next time look at the resume before going.

Zeng’s patter, so important in cabaret type acts, was lackluster, and less than spontaneous, as evidenced by him being guilty of misreading his notes to say that a song had been indicted into some hall of fame, before correcting himself to say inducted.

He also admitted to not knowing, prior to including a song from it in his act, that Kiss Me Kate was based on Taming of the Shrew, or why Judy Garland had such a large fan following, until a friend of his took him to see A Star is Born (there wasn’t one today).

Piece of advice, Don’t admit these kinds of things when trying to work a room (or courtyard), unless you know how to make them funny. He didn’t.

Bastille Day French Night Market – Summer Thursdays at Lincoln Common – July 14 2022

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As I circled around the bandstand, from which there was a notable absence of music emanating, I saw a woman on stilts, a man juggling while riding a unicycle, and an artist doing caricatures, a scene just as I have always imagined it when that angry mob attacked the French prison in 1789.

Also, I could not help but notice that a mime was following me, imitating my every movement.

But I ignored him. Sure there was the temptation to do something embarrassing, to see if he would follow suit, but there were numerous small children in attendance, so I grudgingly restrained myself.

Then I started to feel sorry for him. He had committed to making me his target, but I was disinterested and no one else was paying any attention to him either. And he couldn’t just give up. That would be antithetical to the unspoken mime code of conduct.

So I engaged. I started making revolutions around him, causing him to spin to maintain his relative position to me. I spoke. He didn’t. I told him I had gained the upper hand, as I was now following him.

He bowed and conceded, non verbally, smiling and silently applauding, before walking away, while the band continued not to play on.

Lights on Broadway – Millennium Park – July 7, 2022

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Rehearsal. Almost any seat I want. Close enough so that I could see that the guest conductor, Kimberly Grigsby, wasn’t wearing shoes, but not close enough that I could tell whether her feet smelled.

It made me wonder what she would have on for the actual performance. Heels would change the angle of appearance of her baton from the musicians’ vantage point. Would they be confused? They were when she accidentally dropped her baton. She and the rest of us were amused.

Vocals were performed by Capathia Jenkins and Sam Simahk. Wait. I just saw him last weekend, playing Freddy in My Fair Lady. I hope he told someone he’s going to skip a couple shows.

Phew. They must know. Sitting a couple rows in front of me at the rehearsal were Colonel Pickering and the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce. But no sign of Professor Higgins or Eliza Dooliitle. Perhaps they’re at the races.

As listed in the program, the second half of the concert, except for one song, didn’t particularly interest me, so I left early, the operative rhyming couplet being “If I’d paid, I’d have stayed.”

Epilogue

The Grant Park Music Festival now informs me that Jonathan Groff (aka George III on Broadway) will be appearing to sing that one song, You’ll Be Back, my favorite song from Hamilton and one of only two from that show that I actually remember.

So, he was right, I’ll be back.

Cirque Goes to Hollywood – Millennium Park – July 6, 2022

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Hoorah for Hollywood, whose music the Grant Park Orchestra played as the backdrop for Troupe Vertigo, a dizzying group that creates an atmosphere, its website says, “where reality bends, expectations twist and the body embraces the imagination.”

I’ve given up on reality, as I hear it’s not so great, and try not to have any expectations, so as to avoid being disappointed, but I assure you that the manner in which the cirque performers’ bodies were bent and twisted into dangerous and sometimes painful looking positions, while hanging above the stage dangling from ropes or doing handstands on gymnastic equipment, transcended anything I routinely imagine.

The feats executed during the theme from Mission Impossible fit that bill. but, when three performers came out wearing horse heads while performing to the theme from The Magnificent Seven, I thought they should have done so for the prior number, the theme from The Godfather. I wonder if they were asked to do so but found the courage to refuse.

A little over three years ago I wrote about the Chicago Philharmonic playing classical music to accompany the Cirque de la Symphonie. How many more combinations like this do I need to see to complete a full cirque[it]?

Jeopardy Zoom Test – July 6, 2022

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Thirty-four years ago I took an in-person test for Jeopardy at their studio in Burbank. The process was simpler then. All you had to do was ask to take the test and then show up – I’m good at showing up. There was less to know, and less competition (just nerds waiting in line cramming with index cards and excitedly reminiscing about past episodes). But I still wasn’t good enough to get on the show, though I did get invited to a party in Malibu by one of the other hopefuls who didn’t make it.

Nevertheless, for the last 16 years, with no expectations and for no good reason, other than challenging my diminishing memory, slow typing skills, and ignorance of current events, I have taken the annual online screening test.

Then, newsflash, I got an email last week saying that I had qualified for the second round of testing, on Zoom (so they can watch to see if you have 12 people in the room helping you cheat).

This figured to be ugly. I have no knowledge about the last 30 plus years on almost any topic they might ask about, and it’s too late to start studying the almanac again, like I used to do in class, when I went, on my way to participating in an intercollegiate trivia bowl.

But, I figured, what the heck, grist for the mill, something to write about in my blog. So, in preparation for the big day, just as Bobby Fischer famously played tennis on off days during his World Championship match with Boris Spassky, I watched Wimbledon on tv.

As it turned out, out of the 50 questions, there were only two or three where I knew the answer but couldn’t remember it until too late (one of them embarrassingly). There were a couple other questions I should have known, but they were geography related, and who knows anything about that these days without their GPS in hand. The other likely misses just weren’t in what remains of my wheelhouse.

Still, who knows. Maybe a couple of my random guesses will turn out to be correct, or my deer in the headlights look will appeal to them. I’ll hear back from them within a year, or not, or maybe I’ll get invited to another party. That would be a win.

My Fair Lady – Broadway in Chicago – Cadillac Palace Theatre – July 2, 2022

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As noted in my last blog, I didn’t go to the show last night. But I changed my mind and went today. Sue me.

I’ve seen the movie so many times that it was very hard to disassociate the play from the film while at the theater. Nevertheless, as with the movie, I loved it, and there were some specifics worth mentioning.

First, the terrific voices. The entire cast was a listening pleasure, although I’ll admit that some of the lyrics early in the show were hard to understand due to the Cockney accents and I was thankful that I was already so familiar with them.

Second, the use of the sets, that is the way in which they were moved around and the actors moved in concert with them. For me, it was beautiful choreography.

The show, as in the movie, doesn’t have a lot of dancing, a waltz here, a gavotte there. Despite the fact that Eliza could have danced all night, she doesn’t. It isn’t like, for example, the current Broadway production of The Music Man, which has added tap dancing, because why wouldn’t you when you have Sutton Foster. The only noticeable addition to me was the drag line helping to send Alfred P. Doolittle off to get married in the morning. That was some party.

Everyone knows the music is great, so no point in lingering, other to say that, with all due respect to the great Cole Porter, my all time favorite rhyming lyric, which I sat in the audience anticipating, continues to be the pairing of Budapest and ruder pest in the song You Did It. Alan Jay Lerner really did it!

My Fair Lady – Broadway in Chicago – Cadillac Palace Theatre

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I thought that for a change of pace I would write about something I didn’t do. This won’t become a habit because, after all, I spend a lot more time not doing things than doing them, and would run out of time not to do things if I had to write about not doing them all the time.

So, first, with hard work and a little bit of luck, I had to find the right thing not to do. I opted not to go see the Broadway in Chicago production of My Fair Lady tonight. It wasn’t an easy decision. I love the movie – who doesn’t. I’ve never seen the play. The woman playing Eliza is receiving rave reviews. But . . .

The Chicago critics are somewhat split about some other aspects of the production. And it’s two hours fifty minutes long. No reclining seats at the Cadillac Palace.

A couple of the reviews I scanned focused on issues with the second act. So, I thought, as long as there were good seats available, at half price, and I know how the play ends, why not just go for the first act. Wouldn’t that be loverly?

But inertia is a cruel mistress. I’ve got two e-books currently on loan from the library, a movie I want to rent, and a reclining chair at home, so, even though the Cadillac is not that far from the street where I live, I figured my time might be better spent writing about not going. After all, I’ve grown accustomed to this pace.

Courtyard Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 1, 2022

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Eric Schneider and Andy Brown were back together again. Last year, while praising the music, I highlighted Schneider’s song introduction shortcomings. Maybe he read my piece, as this year he didn’t even try to tell us any background information, except that he did know that Hoagy Carmichael wrote the song New Orleans, but was from Indiana, which was a prime example of what Schneider thought was funny. I disagreed.

In my opinion, Brown is the better musician of the two. Perhaps I just don’t have a refined ear, but on a couple of occasions, Schneider’s playing this year reminded me of Commander Riker’s trombone issues in Star Trek – just never could hit that note in Nightbird.

Whereas Riker admitted it was his fault, Schneider, at one point, regaled us with his version of the creation of the clarinet, which, according to my research, was maybe 50% accurate, and why therefore it was so hard to play, which, in any event, would not explain the one particularly alarming note that emanated from his saxophone, rousing me from my contemplations in the church courtyard’s idyllic setting.

Still, the rain held off, and thanks to Brown the concert was well worth its free price of admission. I will go back to see him performing solo in a couple weeks.