Theater

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.”

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 three Offs before its birthplace 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, 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.