Theater

Santaland Diaries – Goodman Theater – December 18, 2018

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Santaland Diaries, David Sedaris’s 1992 essay about working as an elf at Macy’s during the Christmas season, is supposed to be a comedy. Perhaps it was in 1992, but not anymore. The Goodman Theater would be better off just shutting down for the holidays. Its 2016 production, in concert with Second City, of Twist Your Dickens, was unwatchable. Santaland Diaries isn’t that bad, but it’s boring and out of step with the times. Even its mystifyingly good reviews admit that.

The Chicago Reader review of the 2006 Stage 773 production of the Santaland Diaries said “some of the script’s pop-culture references are beginning to show their age” and gave the show a “somewhat recommended”. Yet, interestingly, twelve years later, the Reader gave the Goodman production a “highly recommended”, even while acknowledging that “a few lines in the script have unintentionally traded their comedic weight for dramatic over the years. One antiquated reference to mentally handicapped people, for instance, landed like the proverbial turd in an otherwise tasty punchbowl; it was 15 minutes before [Matt] Crowle regained the trust of the audience.”

Fifteen minutes, out of a 65-minute performance! How can that be a description of a highly recommended show? I don’t know Macy’s return policy, but perhaps this dinosaur can be relegated to Jurassic World. Jokes about cash registers really don’t register anymore. The best line in the show was Crowle’s put down of an unruly audience member.

None of this is meant as a knock on Crowle, soon to star in Porchlight Music Theater’s production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (where he’ll play eight characters), and whom I’ve seen in other productions around town. He does a fine job. Most memorably for me, his Billie Holiday impression, which obviously transcends the written script, was terrific.  Maybe next year the Goodman should do a Holiday show instead of a holiday show.

The Play That Goes Wrong – Oriental Theater – December 11, 2018

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While the comparison to the play Noises Off is obvious, if it weren’t for all the farcical humor of The Play That Goes Wrong (The Play), one might think of Michael Crichton’s original Westworld, “the ultimate resort, where nothing can possibly go wrong, go wrong . . . .”, and yet everything does.

So, to paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as it might apply to the play, The Murder at Faversham Manor (The Murder) within The Play: How does thee go wrong? Let me count the ways.

Forget the occasional forgotten line, The Murder goes into full Brannon Braga, Star Trek; The Next Generation, Cause and Effect episode, time loop mode with the actors becoming increasingly irritated as they can’t find a way to stop repeating the same lines. If it weren’t so funny, I would have thought it was written into the show as filler.

And then there was the set, or what was left of it by the end of the show. The comic timing of The Play is not limited to the actors. So, while the actors in The Murder break the fourth wall, the walls in The Murder almost break the actors, creating the need for some deliciously funny stand-in work by the crew of The Murder. I would love a behind-the-scenes tour of The Play by its crew, not the dangerously inept crew of The Murder, to see how they manipulate everything.

Query, by the way, are the actors in The Play breaking the fourth wall when the actors in The Murder are speaking to their audience, which, of course, happens to be the same as The Play’s audience?

In the end, despite set deconstruction, doors banging into heads, and actors in The Murder engaging in foul play, the only real injuries are to the ribs of The Play’s audience members, who are bent over in laughter.

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.

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.

 

 

Gypsy – Porchlight Music Theater – October 20, 2018

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I saw a production of Gypsy years ago where, among other offbeat casting decisions, a 13-year-old boy played the role of Mr. Goldstone. The Porchlight production was appreciably better, with special acknowledgement of the great E. Faye Butler and the strippers who brought the house down with their rendition of You Gotta Get a Gimmick.

The actors also lent their skills to rapid-fire set changes that reminded me of the Keystone Kops in their helter skelter, yet precision ballet that barely avoids collisions, though there was one moment when someone moving the proscenium arch representing the theaters Lousie played in knocked it into a dress rack that then almost went flying into the wings, without, however, anyone missing a beat. Live theater at its best.

Gypsy has an animal slant, what with a dancing cow, Rose’s dog and the song Little Lamb. Parts of the cow spend a lot of time on stage, which may have led to the guy sitting behind me snorting throughout the second act as if he were a bull in heat. Or, he just may have had a nasal problem.

This was the third show I’ve seen in the last few weeks that featured a dog on stage, the others being Legally Blonde and Nell Gwynn. And The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time also is playing in town. So, for now, you don’t have to go to Broadway to make a living as a canine actor. But after Illinois banned circus elephants, can dogs be far behind?

Or children.  Like many states, Illinois has laws regarding minors employed in entertainment-related performances.  The kids in the Porchlight production were great, although, unfortunately, they weren’t around for the curtain call (presumably home in bed) to get their due.  I only wish the kid I saw play Mr. Goldstone, way back when, had been denied a work permit.

 

 

Legally Blonde – Paramount Theater – October 17, 2018

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I’d never been to the Paramount Theater in Aurora before, and I’m not sure it was worth an hour drive each way to get their Bosco Cheddar Cheese-Stuffed Pretzel Breadsticks, but it’s a great venue (built in 1931 and beautifully restored) and I wanted to see the show, which didn’t disappoint.  Also, parking was cheap.

Legally Blonde, the musical, is pretty faithful to the movie, and the differences only make it better. I have this on the best authority, a woman I chatted with in the lobby after the show, who said she’d seen the movie 35 times, a hazard, she said, of having daughters. In turn I assured her that the play was a faithful depiction of law school.

The show’s lyrics are wonderful, from Blood in the Water to There! Right There!, and the Greek Chorus of high energy women inside Elle’s head provides non-stop entertainment.

The exercise guru defendant’s tour de force, Whipped into Shape, as performed by Jenna Coker-Jones, where she sings while jumping rope, exhausted me, but not her, and left me wondering about divas who lip sync during dance routines that aren’t nearly as athletic.

The use of a giant drop-down iPhone screen numerous times throughout the show is brilliant (including the live cast selfie at the end), my only complaint being that I probably missed something, either on the phone or on the stage, because there’s so much going on.  Also, I thought we were told to turn off our phones.

And, the part of the muscular UPS delivery guy from the movie is expanded in the play to provide additional comedy, and filler between scenes to allow costume changes. I know it didn’t advance the plot for him to get down from the stage, parade past and flirt with the women in the front row of seats, and, then, when reentering the stage, pose and announce “I have a package.”