Q Brothers Christmas Carol – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – November 27, 2018

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I keep coming back for more of this hip-hop interpretation of the Dickens classic. But, after seeing it several years in a row, what could still surprise me? This time it was the brief interlude when JQ seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment and go into an improvised description of a dream he had. Scripted or not, it had not only the audience, but also one of his fellow cast members in hysterics.

Everyone knows the Dickens story, but it occurred to me that not everyone may have considered what the Q brothers and their Christmas Carol have in common with the character Q from Star Trek.

Patrick Stewart, who, as Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, had several encounters with Q, also for many years performed a one-man, award-winning show of A Christmas Carol, playing more than 30 characters. Coincidence? I think not.

Q, in Star Trek, is of unknown origin. The Q brothers are of known origin, the northern suburbs of Chicago. I know this because a couple years ago I met an usher at the show who was their high school drama teacher. She was very proud.

Q, in Star Trek, is an extra-dimensional being. The Q brothers are multidimensional, namely writing, singing, dancing, and acting.

Q, in Star Trek, possesses immeasurable power over time and space. The Q brothers, as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future in their Christmas Carol, possess power over time and space, constrained only by the music the live DJ spins and the 75-minute duration of the show.

Q, in Star Trek, used his powers to pass judgment on humanity.

The Q brothers use their powers in Christmas Carol to pass judgment on Scrooge and get him to have some humanity. Spoiler alert – it works.

The Book of Mormon – Oriental Theater – November 24, 2018

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There’ve been almost 300 tv episodes of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park, and I’ve never seen even one of them, though I understand that some kid named Kenny has had a rough go of it (having died 98 times in the series, 12 in the shorts, 14 in the video games, and twice in the movie).

But now I’ve seen Parker and Stone’s (and the great Robert Lopez’s – Avenue Q, Frozen) The Book of Mormon twice, and, not being a student of religion, everything I know about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I’ve learned from seeing the play. I’m assuming, of course, that everything in the show is accurate.

Interestingly, in terms of religion-related musicals, I’ve never seen Fiddler on the Roof or Jesus Christ Superstar, though I have seen Damn Yankees.

I got lucky with a main floor discounted ticket and even luckier that no one sat next to me on one side in an otherwise full theater. This did, however, lead to a moment of awkwardness when the woman two seats over, who had put her coat on the seat between us, reached over in the dark to try to get something out of her coat pocket, but instead wound up tickling my shoulder, which reminded me of a joke about a woman and a chicken sandwich in her purse on an overnight bus ride.

The stage also went dark when they blacked it out a couple times during the Turn It Off tap dance. I guess tapping in the dark isn’t that hard for a professional, though I know how hard it is for me to stand on one leg with my eyes closed, which, fortunately, I’m not called upon to do all that often, and never on stage.

And, despite the darkness of the humor, Jacob Ben-Shmuel could be seen stealing scenes as Elder Cunningham, while Kayla Pecchioni lit up the stage as Nabulungi.

Porchlight Revisits 1776 – Porchlight Music Theater – November 15, 2018

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Kevin Rosten Jr., as John Adams, had ongoing problems keeping his microphone on during the first half of the show, but his performance, and his cheek, glistened after someone offstage Scotch-taped the mic into place.

Several of the other men who signed the Declaration of Independence were depicted in the show by female actors. That casting enabled me to watch Heather Townsend, with whom I had the great fortune to act in a short video a few years ago (or rather she acted and I muddled), excellently bring to life John Dickinson, one of the other main characters in the play.

Similarly, Teressa Lagamba gave a rousing performance as Richard Henry Lee.

There also were women playing women in the show (though no men playing women). In particular, I’ll mention Lucy Godinez as Martha Jefferson, a part originally played on Broadway by a right-off-the-bus, 21-year-old from Texas, Betty Buckley, whom I also mentioned recently as the original Edwin Drood and in my blog about Hello Dolly, even though, I reiterate, she was a no show the night I saw that show, not that I’m upset about that.

I saw Godinez, along with Lagamba, in Legally Blonde, where Godinez was a wonderful, high energy member of the Greek chorus. And, as when I saw her perform at Porchlight’s Preview in the Park and Chicago Sings the MGM Musicals, Michelle Lauto, here as Abigail Adams, impressed with her beautiful voice.

Unfortunately, Joseph Foronda, a well-respected member of the acting community, did no justice to the role of Benjamin Franklin. Porchlight’s revisits shows are very short runs that don’t claim to be full-out productions, so I’m not bothered by an actor carrying a script, but Foronda’s eyes almost never left his, giving the impression that he was reading it for the first time, and making me wish that he was the one with mic problems.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood – St. Sebastian Players – November 9, 2018

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How ironic that the same week that I missed seeing Betty Buckley in Hello Dolly because she was sick, I saw The Mystery of Edwin Drood for the first time, given that Buckley was one of the stars of the original Broadway production in 1985, playing Drood, and, perhaps needless to say, I missed seeing her again, as she isn’t a member of the St. Sebastian Players.

Actually, only three of the 20 cast members of Drood are St. Sebastian Theater company members, including one whom I have seen before and who. as the program correctly suggests, has the “creepy parts cornered.”

The rest are all ringers, so why not Betty Buckley? That would have brought some heat to the drafty church basement theater.

That said, the show is unsophisticated fun and young Sarah Myers (new to Chicago), as Drood, showed me enough that I expect to see a lot more of her in productions around town.

But the real ringer is Darryl Maximilian Robinson, as the Chairman of the Music Hall Royale. It’s a huge part that demands not just talent, but also charm during his frequent interactions with the audience in a show that looks for a joke at every turn and has no respect for the fourth wall.

It didn’t surprise me to learn that Robinson is “best known for his original one-man show of Shakespeare and time-travel comedy” called A Bit of the Bard, which I find all the more significant now that it has been suggested that Stephen Hawking, in his final book, has allowed for the possibility of time travel, in contradiction to his earlier “chronology protection conjecture,” in which “the laws of physics do not allow time machines,” thus keeping “the world safe for historians.”

Of course, with time travel, I might have opted to see Buckley in Drood in 1985, and then not bothered to see this production or think about, or use, time travel, and then we’re right back to where we started.

 

Hello Dolly – Oriental Theater – November 6, 2018

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So excited to see Betty Buckley as Dolly. She had a cold on opening night, but the reviews of the show were glowing nonetheless. I waited two weeks to let her recover, which was perfect timing as I could then not be in front of a television watching election pundits drone on for hours about things that either were obvious, irrelevant, undecided, or wrong. I prefer to just see the results the next day.

But, in the immortal words of Robbie Burns, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” And so, upon arriving at the theater, I learned that Buckley would not be appearing, due to illness, replaced by her understudy Jessica Sheridan.

Based upon conversations around me, I wasn’t the only one initially disappointed, but Sheridan won us over with her singing, dancing, and acting. In particular, her performance during the courtroom dining scene brought howls of laughter from the audience, which led me to a website discussing what Carol Channing and Bette Midler were actually eating in that scene in Broadway productions.

The second best ovation may have been when the train between Yonkers and New York City rolled onto the stage. Just one of many impressive costume and set design elements of the show that presented a cornucopia of colors.

The dancing waiters also were a crowd pleaser, though I was struck not so much by their considerable terpsichorean skills, but rather by the grace of one waiter who elegantly reached down in mid-routine to grab something that had been dropped on the stage and toss it into the wings, without missing a beat in his choreographed movements.

All in all an enjoyable evening, capped off by listening to Buckley show off some of her skills in the hysterical Hymm to Her when I got home.

1968: Song by Song – Chicago Humanities Festival – November 5, 2018

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The good news – the program featured great performances by the singers and musicians and, for those of us who were of a certain age in 1968, was a very nostalgic evening, complete with covers and quotes from The Chicago Seed, the underground newspaper of the day, which was edited by Abe Peck (who was in attendance), the father of Doug Peck, the musical director of the program. They even added an Aretha Franklin tribute at the end that extended the program well past its scheduled finish time, to the delight of the audience.

The bad news – what the hell were they thinking by including MacArthur Park as the song representing August, 1968?! Miami Herald readers polled by Dave Barry in 1992 voted the 1968 recording as the worst song of all time. The only redeeming thing about it is the instrumental interlude. If not for all the horrible things that happened in 1968, Richard Harris’s singing and the nonsensical lyrics of this song would take the cake, whether or not it was left out in the rain.

A much better choice would have been People Got to be Free by The Rascals, which was a chart topper that August and was a far more representative song of the feeling of the times that this program was trying to convey.

But if MacArthur Park it had to be in some fashion, why not Al Yankovic’s 1983 parody of it, with his far better lyrics, which included, “Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark/All the dinosaurs are running wild/Someone shut the fence off in the rain/I admit it’s kind of eerie/But this proves my chaos theory.”

After all, chaos abounded in 1968.

 

Tom Hanks – Uncommon Type – Chicago Humanities Festival – November 2, 2018

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My guess is that a majority of the audience at the Harris Theater came not to hear about Hanks’ book, Uncommon Type, which includes, often very minimally, mention of a typewriter in each short story, but rather because Hanks is their type of guy.

He didn’t disappoint. When asked by interviewer Peter Sagal about all the real life people he’s played, many of them heroes, Hanks told of how, when meeting Chesley Sullenberger, James Lovell, and Richard Phillips, he said to each of them in regard to his portrayal: “I’m going to say things you didn’t say, go places you’ve never been, and do things you’ve never done – live with it.”

In particular, he recounted Sullenberger telling him that his instrument panel went dead before landing his plane on the Hudson River and Hanks replying that a blank panel wasn’t dramatic enough, so in the movie it would instead act “like this”, which Hanks then demonstrated by flailing his hands to simulate the needles out of control. Sagal suggested that using those hand gestures in the movie would have been a crowd pleaser, as it was to this audience.

After Hanks mentioned a new movie coming out, Greyhound, where he plays the captain of a ship in World War II, Sagal noted that Sullenberger, Lovell, Phillips and John Miller in Saving Private Ryan all were captains, and suggested that Hanks couldn’t seem to get a promotion. Hanks added that Greyhound would forever be known as the movie where he doesn’t play Mr. Rogers (given the great anticipation of the release of that movie).

Hanks then responded to several questions submitted by the audience prior to the program, the final one of which inexplicably asked Hanks what his favorite sandwich is. Hanks went into a long, amusing explanation of his dietary restrictions, though clearly the perfect answer to close the program would have been “a hero.”

Hamilton – CIBC Theater – October 31, 2018

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I still haven’t seen Gone With the Wind, but I broke down and saw Hamilton (in a good seat at a reasonable price), despite a case of something akin to cleithrophobia, the fear of being trapped, as it relates to being in the ridiculously small lobby at the CIBC Theater at the same time as more than one other person, which is likely when attending a show there, given that the theater seats 1800.

I read a detailed synopsis of the play ahead of time so that I could follow the songs and action, as there’s a lot going on, but despite all the hype about the show, there’s an absence of live farm animals, rotating disco balls, and full frontal nudity.

There is, however, a very small intentional fire on stage, which, given the lobby, seems problematic. But they did tell us twice before the show started to see where our closest exits were.

There also was a crowd-pleasing understudy, Tomarr Wilson, as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if he had friends in the audience who came because they knew he’d be on, as he seemed to milk his performance, in an entertaining way, even past what I might have expected for his rock-star character.

Everyone in the show was great, but the other real crowd favorite was Andrew Call as King George, who easily could have gotten, not just the other actors, but also the audience to sing the chorus of You’ll Be Back along with him, had he been so inclined, when he shouts out “Everybody” near the end of the song.

Finally, a shout out for Hope Endrenyi, one of the universal swings in the show, because learning a thousand parts is impressive, and because she helped clean up Washington Square Park on Earth Day, and it’s not what you know but who you know.

 

 

Doris Kearns Goodwin – Leadership in Turbulent Times – Chicago Humanities Festival – October 30, 2018

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When they came around with index cards for submitting questions before the program started, I thought about asking Goodwin something about her beloved Red Sox, for whose games she has held season tickets for 35 years.

I hesitated and lost my opportunity, but it didn’t matter because the interviewer read my mind and led with that topic, right after she introduced Goodwin as a Pulitzer Prize winner, which the transcription on the overhead monitor interpreted as a pug prize winner. They must have been using the same app that my iPhone voice mail uses.

Goodwin said her love of history came from her father teaching her how to keep score while listening to Brooklyn Dodger games on the radio, so that she could record and recount the history for him when he came home from work.

Moving from her own motivation to become an historian to that of the subjects of her new book, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Lyndon Johnson to become politicians, she suggested that Lincoln was searching for esteem, Teddy Roosevelt for adventure, and Lyndon Johnson for power. Like with everything else, my motivation would be for the story value.

In discussing the Presidents’ leadership styles, Goodwin emphasized the importance of FDR’s fireside chats on the radio. The story goes, “you could walk along a line of parked cars in Chicago and keep hearing his voice because everybody was listening.” Much the same was true of Firesign Theater broadcasts in my college dorm.

Goodwin also mentioned Harry Hopkins, FDR’s most-trusted advisor, who was summoned by Roosevelt to the White House in 1939, and who then wound up living there for three and a half years. Interestingly, the Kaufman and Hart play, The Man Who Came to Dinner, also premiered in 1939, though it only ran a little over two years, truth being stranger than fiction, as further evidenced by the fact that in the movie Man of the Year, the Robin Williams character, TV host Tom Dobbs, does not wind up being President.

The Science Behind Pixar – Museum of Science and Industry – October 25, 2018

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As promised, after seeing the robot exhibit in January, I came back to the museum for The Science Behind Pixar. If you go in the afternoon it’s less crowded, because the school field trips are finishing up, and, after all, your competition to get into the exhibit is children of a lesser age.

Each of the nine elements of the Pixar Production Pipeline – story and art, modeling, rigging, surfaces, sets and cameras, animation, simulation, lighting, and rendering – has its own section where you can play at the process and hear from people at Pixar who do the jobs associated with that specialty. I now want to be one of them, although I have absolutely no knowledge in any of the areas.

The company says it employs between 500 and 1000 people. That’s a little vague considering their technical expertise. Perhaps job security, except at the top of the food chain, isn’t so great. But, given that I’m already retired, that’s not a deterrent.

Their website lists, as qualifications for an internship, “enrollment in an undergraduate or graduate program, or have graduated within one year from start of internship” That might be a problem. But what if I went back to school?

The element of rendering holds some promise. In computing it’s defined as “the processing of an outline image using color and shading to make it appear solid and three-dimensional.” Apparently I’ve been rendering my personality for years, without the aid of a computer.

And there’s a current opening for Vice President, Renderman. It’s always been my understanding that vice presidents don’t have to know or do much.

While at the museum I also went through the mirror maze in the Numbers in Nature exhibit. It’s also advantageous to see this exhibit in the afternoon, as a day’s worth of fingerprints on the mirrors helps you navigate, and, if you get lost, staff probably will rescue you before closing time.