Plantation! – Lookingglass Theater – March 25, 2018

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The Lookingglass Theater has accurately promoted Plantation! as being FUN-comfortable. The audience laughed a lot, even while occasionally squirming in their seats at the subject matter, though the squirming at the end of the play (spoiler alert) was more in response to the need for something, anything, to happen on stage.

In honor of Plantation! director David Schwimmer, the young girl sitting next to me was wearing a Friends t-shirt. Schwimmer was in attendance, hiding in plain sight with a baseball cap pulled down to partially conceal that part of his face that wasn’t covered by two weeks of neatly trimmed beard.

Based on past experience, I probably wouldn’t have spotted Schwimmer, even without the cap and beard, if not alerted by the girl sitting next to me’s father (I once failed to recognize a sports and television celebrity sitting naked next to me on a health club locker room bench, or so I was later told).

Other than me, I think everyone noticed Schwimmer right away as he made his way to the back of the house to watch the play, but I sensed from his appearance that he wanted you to pretend not to recognize him (ergo pseudo incognito), at least until after the show, when I saw him shaking hands with patrons. (David, if you’re reading this, please tell the author that I have a better idea for the ending of the play.)

I love the flexibility of the Lookingglass Theater space. It’s a chameleon, constantly changing the dimensions and positioning of the stage and modifying the seating arrangement, never appearing the same way twice. On other occasions I’ve ridden on the Pequod, sat on both sides of Alice’s lookingglass, and been in the middle of the Chicago fire. If the space were sitting naked next to me on a locker room bench, I probably wouldn’t recognize it.

Rachel Lee Priday (violin) and David Kaplan (piano) – Chicago Cultural Center – March 21, 2018

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As promoted (and mentioned in last week’s blog), this concert was streamed live on Facebook, in furtherance of which cameras were positioned around the room, but no camera operators, not even robotic ones as has been the trend in television for some time (see https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/823/cost-cutting-boosts-the-use-of-robots-in-television-studios).

This wasn’t a basketball game, where the camera has to follow the action. Here there was static action. Okay, that’s a contradiction (though I like the way it sounds). I mean the musicians didn’t run or jump around the room, but their fingers, hands, and arms moved, and quite skillfully I might add, magically creating music were there had been none (only notes on paper), as beautiful as a three on two fast break ending in a thunderous dunk or a last second Hail Mary (or in Loyola’s case, hail 98-year-old Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt) shot that drives another nail into my March Madness bracket coffin.

This week I went back to sitting on stage left, concerned that last week’s sheet music incident (see blog on Patrycja Likos and Yana Reznik) may somehow have been my fault, caused by my having sat stage right for a change. Moving back was the first step in my attempt to apply the scientific method to determine causation.

The Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts are produced by the International Music Foundation. Following the concert, I introduced myself to the foundation’s Executive Director, who, I assume, in the spirit of P.T. Barnum (there’s no such thing as bad publicity) and Oscar Wilde (the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about) welcomed the idea of my continuing to blog about the concerts, which is what I do. So here I am.

Martin Amis – American Writers Museum -March 20, 2018

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Martin Amis, a British novelist and essayist, was introduced as being qualified to speak at the American Writers Museum by virtue of his having lived in Brooklyn the last seven years. The room was full. I don’t think anyone cared where he lived.

He opened by telling us that Brits don’t go to listen to authors, that if your brother had just written a number one bestseller and was next door talking about it, you wouldn’t go. Perhaps that’s why Amis moved to Brooklyn.

He then read from his latest book, The Rub of Time, a collection of past pieces. The headline from The Guardian review of the book said it’s “brilliant, except when it’s not.” That’s the way I felt about Amis. His choice of passages to read was odd, given that a lot of what he read consisted not of his own writing, but of quotes from Donald Trump. That would be like Tina Fey simply reciting a Sarah Palin speech. Oh, wait.

Amis extolled the virtues of Melville’s Billy Budd, which caused a man behind me to suggest that there should have been a spoiler alert before Amis revealed the book’s ending. Given that the book was published in 1924, it made me wonder what the statute of limitations is on spoiler alerts.

A man in front of me asked a question that led Amis to suggest that a certain man in the news didn’t have sex with a certain woman, but rather engaged in some behavior in her presence not seen twice in human history. My imagination was at a loss, but I laughed anyway.

Amis’s favorite authors are Bellow and Nabokov, though Amis suggested that Nabokov wrote four too many novels involving 12-year-old girls (out of the seven such novels he wrote). Seven! It seems like one should have been enough. (I remember walking into a college interview with a copy of Lolita in hand to read while in the waiting room. Nothing like making a good first impression.)

Louder Than a Mom – Martyr’s – March 19, 2018

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I went to see my former storytelling teacher (see my January blog about the class) tell a story, proving beautifully, at least in her case, that those who teach, also can do. Martyr’s is the fourth different venue I have been to for storytelling. Four down, a hundred zillion to go.

The quality of the storytelling was high and the humor was rampant. Not knowing how crowded it would be, my friends and I got there two hours before showtime. No one else showed up for another hour. This allowed us to get the full attention of the waitress and acclimate ourselves to the almost complete lack of lighting in the venue. It’s not a good place to go if you have cataracts. Our smart phone flashlights really came in handy for reading the limited menu.

Next time I’ll eat somewhere else first. They didn’t even have mustard, though at least, unlike the restaurant the night before, they weren’t out of chicken. We all agreed that ketchup on chicken was a nonstarter, although the waitress said she has witnessed it. Perhaps she can get counseling for that trauma.

My former teacher, MT, introduced us to one of the hosts of the event, Kate, who encouraged us to tell a story at a future event. Though one of my friends and I were two of perhaps six men, one of whom was the bartender, at this well-attended event, Kate assured us that we would be welcome additions and that you don’t need to be a mom to participate. In fact, one of the eight speakers that night was a man, though his story was about the birth of his child, so, you know, kind of a mom story. Actually, he gets a pass on that as his story was about how ugly newborns are. (If you need a refresher on the Seinfeld episode, the Hamptons, about a “breathtaking” baby, you can find the script at http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheHamptons.htm).

Kate Moore – American Writers Museum – March 18, 2018

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We didn’t know Kate Moore was British (after all, we were at the American Writers Museum and her book was about Americans) until she opened her mouth to reveal a delightful accent and to tell us she was from “across the pond.”

She spoke nonstop for an hour about her book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, providing personal details about the women’s lives, while also discussing their place in history as it relates to discoveries about the effects of radium poisoning and changes in occupational disease labor law.

Leonard Grossman Jr., the son of the lawyer who represented some of the women in their battle against their employer, was at the museum for the program. He has an interesting website with scans of original newspaper articles about the women from the 1920s and 30s.

Though I usually prefer going to hear authors who have something humorous to say, all the authors I’ve seen at the museum perform a very important function for me. They give me something to talk about at parties, making me sound well-read, without actually having to read anything.

With this important function in mind, I’m heading back to the museum to see Martin Amis discuss The Rub of Time.  Last time I looked, he was also British. But his publisher describes him as “acidly funny”, so I’m back on safe ground.

After listening to Moore, we went to dinner at Howells and Hood, which wouldn’t be significant except to note that we both ordered chicken dishes and the waiter came back a few minutes later to tell us they were out of chicken! According to the National Chicken Council, the average American ate over 91 pounds of chicken last year . So you’d think a restaurant would be prepared for the likelihood of someone ordering chicken. At least they didn’t try to substitute something else lying around the kitchen that “tastes like chicken.”

 

Patrycja Likos (Cello) and Yana Reznik (Piano) – Chicago Cultural Center – March 14, 2018

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Just when I thought I might not have anything more to write about the weekly Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, a previously unseen episode of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows broke out part way through today’s performance.

The first piece went smoothly, as did the beginning of the second. Then Reznik reached up with one hand and made a minor adjustment to the way the pages were sitting on the piano’s music stand (cause or effect, I don’t know) and then, as the page turner executed his next maneuver, the pages starting unraveling every which way, fanning out in a slapstick fashion that seemed likely to bring the performance to a crashing halt. But, as the page turner tried to restore order, sprawling akimbo like a man playing Twister, Reznik, contorting her neck to the side to read a sheet of music that was now at a 45-degree angle, played on, amazingly, seemingly flawlessly.

The fuss was such that Likos turned her head around, while also not missing a beat, and looked to see what mayhem was taking place behind her. Then, after what was probably at most 10 seconds, but seemed like an eternity, someone from the front row of the audience rose up and came to the rescue, getting the sheets under control on the right side of the piano as the page turner held up his end on the left. The audience then held its collective breath until the end of the piece.

I have seen Reznik before and she is wonderful (as is Likos), but this performance was above and beyond. How does one prepare for such mishaps? It made me think about Tiger Woods and how his father used to scream in Tiger’s backswing to enure him to the distractions he might experience on the PGA tour.

I have been asked on occasion to inform readers about future events. This is the perfect opportunity to let everyone know that next week’s concert will be streamed live on Facebook. If you can’t make it in person, you might want to check out the broadcast. Who knows, perhaps an episode of McHale’s Navy will break out during the performance.

Julia Sweeney, Older & Wider – Judy’s Beat Lounge – March 11, 2018

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We had dinner at Topo Gigio, where, fortunately, the service was a vast improvement (or we wouldn’t have made the show on time) over where I dined the night before, where we sat for an hour before the waiter brought the check, without having brought the food (picky, picky, picky), which reminded me of the Steve Martin short film, The Absent-Minded Waiter (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsh47iNVRkM).

Judy’s Beat Lounge is a casual 56-seat space at Second City, with general, unreserved seating. We got lucky with four seats together along the side wall, with no sight line issues, even after two of the people in our group were told at the door that their tickets were for a different, prior night (oops). Fortunately the box office was willing to sell them two more tickets (very generous).

Sweeney, who is most famously known for her androgynous character Pat, as a not-ready-for-prime-time player on Saturday Night Live, has been living somewhat under the radar in a northern suburb of Chicago for the last 10 years, apparently for the sole purpose of raising an adopted daughter who provides her with an endless source of material for her routine, including the two most memorable lines of the night – one about her daughter intentionally bringing an uncomfortable dinner conversation to an abrupt end by announcing that she was experiencing a heavy flow and the other about how Sweeney’s husband started calling their daughter’s boy friend Rolf (as in The Sound of Music) in response to information about his politics.

The show is billed as a stand-up work in progress, but, except for Sweeney’s occasional glances at her notes when changing topics and occasional comments about whether a bit had worked or not, it seems ready for prime time to me.

Avalon String Quartet – Chicago Cultural Center – March 7, 2018

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I arrived a few minutes earlier than normal, hoping to get a seat stage right for a change, so I could see the pianist’s hands at work from behind. Too bad I hadn’t remembered that it was a string quartet playing, not a pianist. No wonder I could get the seat I thought I wanted, as the other regular attendees scurried stage left, where the quartet was to be positioned.

One advantage to sitting on the right side, I initially rationalized, was that I was near the little booth where Dave Schwan sits each week to host WFMT’s live broadcast of the program. Of course, during the music, he just sits there, not doing or saying anything. So it really wasn’t that special for me to be sitting near him (or for him near me, I imagine).

The Avalon String Quartet led off with Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes from Florence Price’s Five Folksongs in Counterpoint. That mouthful takes almost as long to say as the four minutes it took the quartet to play it. The selection reminded me that it will soon be St. Patrick’s Day, when no one will be drinking only with their eyes, although some will undoubtedly be blind drunk.

The second selection was Beethoven’s beautiful String Quartet No. 9 in C Major. I could see that at least one member of the quartet was using a tablet, instead of paper, to read the music. Beethoven surely didn’t see that coming, whether or not he was drinking with his eyes. (For an interesting article on issues related to this use of tablets, see https://www.inverse.com/article/10176-can-classical-music-escape-sheet-music-only-if-tablets-can-keep-tempo)

They’re Playing Our Song – Porchlight Theater – March 7, 2018

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The online Urban Dictionary defines porch light as “someone who attracts trouble, or crazy people. Like a porch light attracts bugs and unwanted pests, i.e. mosquitoes.” Unlike Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, my mother never had me tested. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’m crazy (who ever does), and the rest of the audience, on this and other nights at the Porchlight Theater, seemed perfectly sane to me.

The only trouble I have encountered at the theater is that Michael Weber, the theater’s Artistic Director, sometimes goes into a little too much detail when giving his pre show history lessons on Porchlight Revisits nights like this. So, while it’s interesting to see pictures of all the actors who starred in the 1,082 performances of the Broadway run of They’re Playing Our Song, did I really need to know that lyricist Carole Bayer Sager has several dogs that sleep in her bed with her and her current husband?

As for the show itself, I read a review of a 2010 Los Angeles production that said the show “doesn’t have the weight to require a 2 ½-hour running time” and “would have been much more enjoyable with a loss of 20 minutes.” Porchlight lost more than that (and it wasn’t even Daylight Saving yet – don’t forget to reset your clocks this weekend). It did the show in one hour and forty minutes.

In addition to the stars, Lorenzo Rush, Jr. and Sharriesse Hamilton, both of whom I saw in the theater’s 2014 production of Ain’t Misbehavin, there are six performers who act as their inner voices, singing backup, dancing, and inspiring the emotions and mimicking the movements of the leads. Great stuff. Wouldn’t everything be more fun if we had a few inner voices following us around, singing and dancing? Hopefully that wouldn’t require everyone getting tested.

Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner, A Sort of Love Story – Mercury Theater – March 4, 2018

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I hadn’t seen a show at the Mercury Theater in over 2 years (Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash) before seeing Bunny Bunny (bad title). I was elated to see that the Dairy Queen is still there, less than a block from the theater.

By the time you read this blog, our Uber driver, I hope, will have returned to bartending full time. He had no idea where he was going and caused me to fear for my life a couple times, not counting his moment of uncertainty about whether he should drive the car into Lake Michigan. He said that he had been an Uber driver for only two weeks and was starting it think it wasn’t for him. I couldn’t agree more.

Fortunately, we somehow arrived at the theater in time and alive, though they probably would have held the curtain for us (if late, but probably not if dead), as the theater, which isn’t that big to begin with (290 seats), was half empty.

The show was okay, amusing in spots. The woman playing Gilda was a force (Dana Tretter – upon looking her up, I realized that I saw her perform in the 2006 White Horse Theater Company production of “I Sing!”, along with a friend’s son, who won a Jefferson Award for his performance in that show). I now wish I had found the time to see “In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play” (great title), in which she performed, at the Timeline Theater the end of last year.

In addition to Dana, a lot of our attention was paid to a fake tree, which was heavily referenced in the opening dialogue, and which the crew kept moving around the stage during the frequent scene changes, making it seem like a rather stilted member of the cast (though not credited in the program).