Theater

Little Shop of Horrors – Drury Lane Theater – October 14, 2018

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“Feed me.” That’s all you really need to know about the plot of a show that only runs two hours, including intermission, during which excellent chocolate chip cookies were available for purchase.

The play (based on the 1960 movie) originated Off Off-Broadway in 1982.  I believe there have to be be three Offs before its birth place is considered to be outside the state of New York.

Music and lyrics are by Menken and Ashman (his brilliant dark side) – The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin – that’s all you need to know about that.

Lorenzo Rush, Jr., who is magnificently omnipresent in Chicagoland theater, as Audrey II. You hear, and love, but don’t see him until he comes out for a bow at the end of the show wearing a t-shirt that says Voice of Audrey II. He would make Levi Stubbs proud, although I was disappointed that the play does not include the song Mean Green Mother From Outer Space, written for the 1986 movie version, and sung by Stubbs of The Four Tops. I almost saw Stubbs in concert in 1968, but he was sick so I wound up seeing The Three Tops.

The 1960, very campy original, replete with malapropisms (Does it have a scientific name? Of course, but who can denounce it?), non-musical film of The (later dropped) Little Shop of Horrors was, in part, a Dragnet takeoff, narrated by Sgt. Joe Fink, shot by Roger Corman on a budget of $30,000, in two days, using sets that had been left standing from A Bucket of Blood. And one of the actors was a young Jack Nicholson, in a three and a half minute scene, as the masochistic dental patient played by Bill Murray in the 1986 Frank Oz version of the movie.

I’ve seen people eat people in Sweeney Todd, and plants from outer space kill people in The Day of the Triffids, but none of them leave you smiling like a hungry man-eating plant in a flower shop.

 

Nell Gwynn – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – October 9, 2018

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Nell Gwynn and Tootsie. Almost indistinguishable. Both plays deal with, among other things, plays within plays. The play within Tootsie is a bastardization of Romeo and Juliet (renamed Juliet’s Nurse), changed to accentuate the part of a man, who is posing as a woman unbeknownst to the rest of the actors in, or audience of Juliet’s Nurse.

Several of the plays mentioned within Nell Gwynn are rewritten to accentuate her parts, in more ways than one, as she takes the place previously occupied in the theatrical world of merry old England by men who posed as women, though those men were known to be men by their audiences and fellow actors, unlike in Shakespeare in Love or Victor, Victoria, where women posed as men posing as women on stage.

In any event, David Bedella did a great job as the actor who had always played, if not possessed, the women’s parts. I’m sure Bedella, or do I mean his character, or both(?), would make a great Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, who is always played by a man, because, as explained by creator John Waters, it’s a secret the audience has, that the other characters don’t know. He actually said cast, not characters, but I’ve already made this confusing enough.

Nell Gwynn, the play, is based upon real characters and real events (I’m pretty sure Tootsie isn’t), though extreme liberties are taken to make it an entertaining evening, which leads me to the bubonic plague.

There’s a joke in the play (or was it in the play within the play?) about the plague, which meets with feigned disapproval, whereupon Bedella asks of his compatriots, “too soon?”. Big laugh, unless, perhaps, you know someone who died from the plague. But, as always I provide important research, having found a pseudoscientific inquiry about when a joke is too soon.

 

Tootsie – Cadillac Palace Theater – October 7, 2018

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The Tootsie Roll company was founded in Chicago in 1907 by Leo Hirshfield. This has absolutely nothing to do with the musical Tootsie.

Al Jolson sang Toot, Toot, Tootsie! in The Jazz Singer in 1927. This also has absolutely nothing to do with the musical Tootsie.

Mrs. Doubtfire was a 1993 movie, which has never been turned into a play (although it’s under consideration), starring Robin Williams, in which he pretended to be a woman to get a job as a nannie for his ex-wife. And, although that movie has absolutely nothing to do with the musical Tootsie, an inordinate number of people attending Tootsie seemed to think they had come to see a theatrical version of Mrs. Doubtfire, as evidenced by confused discussions overheard during intermission.

I guess it could have been worse. They could have thought they were watching a revival of the play Sugar, based on the movie Some Like it Hot (more men pretending to be women), or wondered why they weren’t seeing Al Jolson sucking on a Tootsie Roll.

My favorite bits in the show were an x-rated song by Tootsie’s roommate, a rant of a song by Tootsie’s friend Sandy, and some dance instruction by the director of the show within the show that channelled Robin Williams, but still, no, this wasn’t Mrs. Doubtfire.

Santino Fontana was a terrific Tootsie. And no one confused him with Santino Corleone, Carlos Santana, or Fontana, Wisconsin. However, his part of Greg on Crazy ex Girl Friend is being taken over by Skyler Astin, which is sure to produce some confusion.

Tootsie is scheduled to open in previews on Broadway in March 29, 2019. Though its competition in the musical category may include Beetlejuice, Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations, The Cher Show, and King Kong, I believe that Tootsie, which is a laugh a minute, will win, at a minimum, some individual Tony awards. But who knows. The part of King Kong hasn’t been cast yet.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Season Preview Party – October 2, 2018

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The Urban Dictionary defines ghost as “to avoid someone until they get the picture and stop contacting you.” If only that worked with robocalls. Americans received 30 billion robocalls last year and a friend of mine insists that all of them were to him. But I digress.

Long before it became a verb, Shakespeare wrote about ghosts in five of his plays. And Dickens famously wrote about several apparitions in “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.” (How many of you knew the whole name of the novella?)

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater unites with Dickens every year to present “A Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol”. The 2018 production is one of this season’s shows that was highlighted at the preview party. I go every year. Do yourself a big favor and see it (even if you think you don’t like hip-hop).

Barbara Gaines, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Artistic Director, asked the audience how many of them had seen productions of the company in the Ruth Page Auditorium, where it resided for 12 years before moving to its present location in 1999. A smattering of people raised their hands, which inspired me to shout out to Gaines, after only one glass of wine, “What about the Red Lion?”, a pub that is owned by an friend of mine and that also is known for being haunted by ghosts.

Rather than ghosting me or asking staff to remove me from the room, Gaines asked me to repeat myself, and when I did, and she realized that I knew about the company’s birth on the rooftop of the Lincoln Avenue bar in 1986, she rose from her chair, and bowed and raised her hands in praise to me, whereupon Creative Producer Rick Boynton, who was on stage with her, jokingly took it one step further by asking if anyone had been to Barbara’s living room. A woman sitting in front of me raised her hand, thereby unceremoniously putting me in my place.

 

 

Sweet Charity – Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre – September 27, 2018

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I’d never seen Sweet Charity, so, in memory of the recently departed Neil Simon, I stayed in the suburbs beyond the limits of my golf visa, knowing that, at a minimum, I would enjoy the show’s two most well-known songs, Big Spender and If My Friends Could See Me Now.

What I didn’t know was that early in Act 2, a scene, including the song Rhythm of Life, seemingly stolen from from Hair, except that Hair debuted the year after Sweet Charity, comes out of nowhere, adding absolutely nothing to the story, but giving me time to daydream, and briefly consider opening the iPad on my lap to resume reading my latest ebook (about pioneering women pilots), as the scene bored me and I couldn’t understand most of what the chorus of hippies was singing anyway.

An exchange between the two main characters as they exited the scene, however, brought my attention back, as it was apropos of my attendance at the show and of my blog. Charity asks Oscar how he found out about the Rhythm of Life Church event they’d just attended under the Manhattan Bridge, and he responds that he’s on the mailing list for the Church of the Month Club. Sounds like me, except it’s theater and music email lists, and never under a bridge.

The rest of the show was solid, if unspectacular, except for the famous scene where Charity and Oscar get trapped in an elevator. Alex Goodrich, as Oscar, played the physical comedy of the scene and his claustrophobia to the hilt, eliciting roars of laughter from the audience as he climbed the walls of the elevator. Wouldn’t it be fun if, instead of showing the always depressing news, hotel elevators with television screens in them showed a version of this scene instead?

Porchlight Music Theater First Rehearsal Meet and Greet for Gypsy: A Musical Fable – September 18, 2018

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As I walked into the industrial building Porchlight uses as a rehearsal space, a couple staff members greeted me by name, asked me what color wine I wanted, and pointed me toward the bowl of M&Ms. I love the theater.

At age 13, Bernadette Peters was the understudy for “Dainty June” in the second national tour of Gypsy, when, as the assistant conductor, Marvin Laird, recalled, “I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought, ‘God that’s a big voice out of that little girl.”

So I suggest you remember the name Isabella Warren. Get a piece of paper, write it down, and put it someplace where you’ll find it a few years from now. I’m not sure how old she is, certainly not yet 13. Her IMDB page says she played a terrified seven-year-old girl in a 2017 episode of Chicago P.D. What I am sure of is that she’s going to be a star. I know this because, at this first rehearsal, at the end of her big song as Baby June, Isabella held a note so long that the rest of the cast started looking at each other, dropping their jaws, and getting downright giddy about the talent they were witnessing. The only thing that would have been better is if she had done it while standing on her head and drinking a glass of water.

That said, Porchlight built this production around the fact that E. Faye Butler always wanted to play Rose, and she didn’t disappoint at the rehearsal. But the best part of watching the reading, aside from imagining what the burlesque queens were going to be doing during their rendition of You Gotta Get a Gimmick, was seeing how much the actors were enjoying themselves. This is going to be a fun production.

Anything Goes – Music Theater Works (Cahn Auditorium) – August 18, 2018

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Several people who knew I was going to see Anything Goes remarked to me that it had gotten good reviews. I guess they were just trying to make conversation, given that it hadn’t opened yet. Perhaps they were recalling the reviews for the original 1934 Broadway production starring Ethel Merman, or subsequent ones featuring Patti LuPone and Sutton Foster. In any event, though it required great will power, I restrained myself from correcting them, until now.

Usually I do wait for reviews, and don’t like to go to opening nights, having participated in enough of them to know that often something goes wrong. But this was a short run and I had confidence both in the company and in Cole Porter, a real up-and-comer.

But, sure enough, there was a miscue by the star of the show, Erica Evans, as she started her first song. I’m not sure whether she started singing too early, or had word problems, but after one line, she very calmly and professionally, almost as if it were part of the song, said let’s try that again, a cue that the orchestra, through the conductor, flawlessly picked up on as it vamped to allow her to restart. She then proceeded to knock our socks off for the rest of the show.

Also, a quick mention of the percussionist who, in addition to a slew of the usual instruments, threw in a whistle, a bird call, and several other interesting things I couldn’t keep track of.

But, of course, my favorite part was the tap dance to the title song that closes the first act. What is it about someone, who has just finished being part of a 20-person, high-energy tap dance, calling out five, six, seven, eight, to launch the group into a dance reprise as the curtain lowers that is particularly delightful, or should I say delovely?

Avenue Q – Mercury Theater – August 15, 2018

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All of the puppets and several of the humans in this wonderful production also were in the 2014 production I saw at the Mercury Theater.

This time, however, I also got to go on a backstage tour. You can go to Playbill to learn about dressers and quick costume changes for actors in Broadway shows, but what if those actors are puppets (and I don’t mean just of the director, but rather actual puppets)? Playbill has some information on that too, as did the tour.

Some of the puppets in the show have several costume changes. So, just like in the movie Baby Geniuses, where real life triplets took turns playing the parts of twins, twins and triplets and more of the puppets, dressed differently, are called into action in Avenue Q, thus avoiding a possible costume malfunction or diva puppet tantrum.

This kind of arrangement is not to be confused with several child actors playing the same part, but on different nights, as when three boys playing Billy Elliot shared the Tony for best actor. Avenue Q won the Tony for best musical in 2004, but while two of the human actors were nominated, none of the puppets were, ironically, as one of the show’s songs is Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.

Hygiene also is a big deal backstage at the show. After each performance, several of the puppets get hooked up to a machine, in a way reminiscent of the movie Coma, that helps clean out their insides. If you don’t have one of those machines at home, there is online help for puppet care and feeding.

The pinnacle of the experience was when I was given the opportunity to try a puppet on for size (see picture above). I was asked to lubricate my hand with a big glob of sanitizer beforehand, almost as if I were going to give the puppet a prostate exam.

Murder for Two – Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre – August 12, 2018

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What could pull me away from watching Tiger Woods’ attempt to win his first major championship since 2008 (okay, I did record it for later playback and maintained radio silence in the interim) on a day when I warmed up for the spectacle by playing nine holes so that I could compare his comeback progress to the state of my game. (Despite his four back surgeries, he’s still better than I am, but, to be fair, I had a paper cut once.)

I first saw Murder for Two in 2011 when it premiered at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I remembered it as being a big smile. It still is.

If your idea of a fun evening at the theater is a Sam Shepard play at Steppenwolf, you probably won’t enjoy Murder for Two. But if you’re interested in seeing Agatha Christie meets A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (which derives from Alec Guinness playing nine characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets) meets auditions for Second City, where two actors careen around a rotating stage for 90 minutes, with enormous talent and energy, playing multiple characters, mugging for the audience, occasionally trying to crack each other up, singing, and playing the piano, individually and together, then this show is for you.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder has a Tony for Best Musical, but I like M42 better, which reminds me that I haven’t seen Forbidden Broadway in years, but wouldn’t a takeoff of A Gentleman’s Guide’s show stopping I’ve Decided to Marry You, entitled I’ve Decided to Murder You, be a lot of fun?

This show also reminded me of Two Pianos, Four Hands, a 1995 Canadian play I liked, in that there are two guys, who have four hands between them, playing piano. But the comparison stops there, just as it does after noting that Tiger and I both tee the ball up when hitting driver.

Porchlight Music Theater’s Preview in the Park – Washington Square Park – August 11, 2018

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I’m planning on going to the Broadway in Chicago concert in Millennium Park in a couple days, but I guarantee that today’s experience will turn out to be better. And not just because today I got to wear a Washington Square Park Advisory Council badge and carry a clipboard.

At Millennium Park I won’t get to meet and mingle with the performers as I did today. I introduced myself to James Earl Jones II, who is the third cousin of his more famous namesake. I’ve seen, and enjoyed, the ubiquitous Jones in six shows at five different theaters over the last two years alone. He told me, prior to Porchlight’s artistic director, Michael Weber, announcing it to the crowd, that he would soon be leaving Chicago to join the national touring company of Come From Away. I also chatted briefly with Weber and the other very talented performers, Leah Davis, Michelle Lauto, Liam Quealy, all of whom were friendly and gracious.

Like today, I might get to be fifteen feet away from the singers in Millennium Park as they perform, but, for that to happen, I’ll either have to get there three hours before showtime, go through a metal detector, wait in line until they open the gates, and hope I don’t get crushed in the ensuing stampede for the good seats; or pick just the right moment once the performance starts to rush the stage, and run across it pursued by a bevy of security guards.

This was the last Washington Square Park event of the summer, if you don’t count Doggie Yoga, and I don’t. But I’ll be going to Porchlight’s upcoming Chicago Sings the MGM Musicals at the Up Comedy Club, where Jones, Lauto, and many other talented performers again will be on display.