Theater

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.

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).

Merrily We Roll Along – Porchlight Theater – February 24, 2018

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Though I have enjoyed many Porchlight shows, I skipped the recent production of Billy Elliot. Having seen the Broadway in Chicago production in 2010, I wasn’t interested in seeing another version of this cross between Rocky (if he were an 11-year-old who quit boxing to become a dancer despite his father’s fear that people would think he was gay) and The Full Monty (if the men were 11-year-olds who kept their clothes on but wore cod pieces).

I was happy, however, to see Merrily We Roll Along (though now I can’t get the tune to Old Friends out of my head). While not near the top of Sondheim hit shows, the current version (revised in 1994) is said to be far superior to the original 1981 Broadway production, a flop that had 52 previews, but only 16 performances, which isn’t even close to a record. The 1965 musical, Kelly, closed after one performance (which made me think of The Producers, though I’m not suggesting any financial irregularities).

Speaking of financial irregularities (and remember I wasn’t), at dinner after the show (at Hash House a Go Go), the conversation turned to the FBI report on the latest NCAA basketball recruiting scandal, and in particular to the Wichita State University Shockers. This led Cindy, a former Kansas resident, to inform me that the team’s mascot is a shock of wheat named WuShock. As I have never lived on a farm (though I could smell some from my dorm room in Urbana), Cindy also explained to me what a shock of wheat is, which led me to think of Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy (technically an extraterrestial, sentient, tree-like creature), and led the restaurant manager to tell me that, in nice weather, when they have the sliding windows open, birds fly in to peck at the shocks of wheat on display in the restaurant. As far as I know, this is not a recruiting violation (though the NCAA rules are rather arcane), and the birds maintain their eligibility, which is more than I can say for current high-profile college players implicated in the recruiting scandal, some of whom, like Kelly, may soon be one and done.

Franklinland – Jackalope Theater (Broadway Armory Park Fieldhouse) – February 17, 2018

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Dinner first at Mas alla del Sol. Blood orange margaritas. Camarones con verdolagas. Chocolate lava cake. All yummy.

Then the potentially life-altering decision. Go to the bathroom at the restaurant or wait to go at the theater. As fate would have it, I chose the restaurant. Stories like this, as in the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors, portray how little things can lead to different consequences and life paths (or, as in the movie, parallel universes, but I’ll save the multiverse discussion for another time). My decision’s effects weren’t that dramatic (I don’t think, but how would I know – if I had waited, would Gwyneth somehow have entered my life – and what chaos might that have caused?).

In any event, as I’m departing a bathroom stall I come face to face with an old friend I hadn’t seen in decades. We say hello and I prudently suggest that he might not want to shake hands with me at that moment. We hold a catch-up conversation while I wash up and he goes about his business (all the while, Gwyneth may have been standing on the street outside the restaurant).

At the armory we are led to the elevator to expedite our trek to the theater itself (see earlier blog on the march required the first two times at this theater). At the theater I run into another old friend – I don’t think I know that many people, but they do seem to show up everywhere. That said, I might not have run into him either if Gwyneth and I, upon meeting on the street, had elected to skip the play.

The play appears to be historically accurate. The two most memorable moments are Franklin’s son appearing to throw up on stage (acting) and Franklin’s grandson appearing on stage with his fly open (not acting). He must have elected to go the bathroom at the theater.

Women in Jeopardy – First Folio Theater – February 10, 2018

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“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Or not, as there was no mail delivery at my building on Saturday, probably because of the seven inches of snow that fell Thursday night into Friday afternoon. Undaunted by the USPS’s shortcomings, I  didn’t let the snow stop me from driving to Oak Brook to see Women in Jeopardy at the First Folio Theater.

We left early and detoured slightly to head to Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen before the matinee for a drink and perhaps some gumbo or fried alligator (tastes like chicken – if chicken were made of leather). But, at 3:00 in the afternoon, it was jammed and we couldn’t even get a seat at the bar. Beads everywhere, Mardi Gras crowd getting started early.

So, with no food or drink to be had (fortunately we brought our own chocolate), we got to the theater early. I immediately ran into and caught up with an old friend, who was ushering for our performance as a member of the Saints (the volunteer arts organization unrelated to New Orleans and the aforementioned Mardi Gras).

They played the familiar theme from Jeopardy as a lead in to the play, but the show was about women in jeopardy (though a comedy), not women on Jeopardy (darn). Just as in the last play I saw at First Folio (Silent Sky), this production used their ceiling of stars (celestial, not theatrical) as part of the scenery, this time in a camping scene. It reminds me of the ceiling at the Aragon Ballroom (though not nearly as spectacular), which reminds me of the last concert I saw there, Chuck Berry in 1972, when he duck walked and played a very extended version of the lyrically sophisticated My Ding-A-Ling, his cover version of which incredibly was his one number one hit.

The Rest of Theater 2017

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In other posts I’ve singled out some of the plays I went to in 2017. Here’s a quick survey of the rest of them to wrap up 2017 (you’ve probably received all your bank tax statements by now also).

I saw two plays at the Porchlight Theater, Scottsboro Boys and Woman of the Year (at the theater’s new location), where I discovered Meghan Murphy (see blog on Big Red and the Boys). Both are Kander and Ebb shows, but otherwise couldn’t be more different, one serious and based on a true story, the other lighthearted and not, like me.

When the Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre wasn’t underwater from flooding, I saw She Loves Me and Honeymoon in Vegas. Same usher, coincidentally. She remembered me because we discussed at length the need for me to keep my legs out of the aisle the first time (as my friends know, I always try to get an aisle seat). If the usher is reading this, I was just kidding about tripping the actors, really.

I saw Parade on my first trip to the Writers Theater. The play introduced me to the music of Jason Robert Brown, which is what led me to see Honeymoon in Vegas, for more music from him. That and the flying Elvises.

Five Guys named Moe (also my first time at the Court Theater) is not actually a show about five guys named Moe. What little story there is, is just an excuse for Big Moe, Four-Eyed Moe, Eat Moe, No Moe, and Little Moe to sing and dance. Worked for me. Give me Moe.

But not more King Charles III (Shakespeare Theater). I’m not an Anglophile. I just didn’t care about the characters. But I ran into an old friend at the show, who bought me a drink, so all was not lost.

The two characters in Mr. and Mrs. Pennyworth (Lookingglass Theater) are storytellers, which was appropriate given my foray into storytelling in 2017. But the best thing in the show was a giant, mythological boar (as opposed to the real bore in King Charles III).

The lead actress in Born Yesterday at the Greenhouse Theater was like a medium channelling Judy Holliday, but not in a cataleptic state. She was able to move about the stage.  Indeed, this medium was well done.

Ragtime – Cahn Auditorium – January 27, 2018

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Northwestern University’s annual Dolphin Show, billed as “America’s Largest Student Produced Musical”, is in its 76th year.  Yet somehow I just found out about it.  Working sure did cramp my style.

We went to see the students put on Ragtime at Cahn Auditorium, twice. The first time we were there a week early, so we went back a week later when the play was actually being performed.  I’ll take credit for that first troubling sign of senility, but at least we knew where to park when we went back.

Both times it was a lovely ride up Lake Shore Drive and Sheridan Road, though my companion was annoyed by all the Evanston homes that still had their Christmas lights and trees up a month after the fact.  I was okay with the lights.  Evanston streets are otherwise dark at night.  Lights are lights.

With no play to see the first time we drove up, only a few students who were obviously surprised when we entered the otherwise empty and unprepared auditorium (we all stood there staring at each other, dumbfounded, for what was probably only three seconds but seemed like an eternity while I tried to comprehend the situation), we walked to Dave’s New Kitchen for dinner.

Dave’s is tiny – the predecessor, Dave’s Italian Kitchen, was huge (maybe that’s why it went bankrupt). We were lucky to get a table after only a 15-minute wait on a Saturday night. Then again, it’s Evanston, not Chicago.  Great homemade pasta at good prices, optional BYOB.. Students and us.

The show featured a large, talented, student cast and orchestra, some nice set design, and a great Model T prop car.  The show was long (almost three hours including intermission).  But that’s a function of Ragtime, not this specific production.  And not as bad as the one time I went to the Northwestern Waa-Mu show, which, as I recall, lasted well into the next day.

Jackalope Theater Company – Broadway Armory Park Fieldhouse – 2017

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The Broadway Armory Park Fieldhouse (formerly the home of the local National Guard), is an interesting place to see a play. In addition to the small, spartan theater, the fieldhouse has volleyball, yoga, gymnastics, tae kwon do, dance, badminton, and basketball, among other activities.

From the tiny parking lot adjoining the armory, it’s a hike from the front door to the second floor rear theater, because of which your ticket confirmation email actually tells you to allow enough extra time to get to your seats. Theater volunteers position themselves along the way to guide you in case you didn’t bring a map and bread crumbs.

I saw Ideation in June 2017. It’s an interesting psychological examination involving unknown factors and peer pressure impacting a seemingly unthinkable situation. Very thought provoking.

In December I went back for 1980 (Or Why I’m Voting for John Anderson).  I voted for John Anderson in 1980. To quote Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” So I felt compelled to see the play.

I was almost late for the play, after stopping to watch a young woman work up the energy or nerve to grab a bar and leap into the indoor sky from a platform. Did I forget to mention that the fieldhouse also has a trapeze school? Not your typical theatrical venue.

The play was okay. The highlight for me was the performance of one of the actresses, who transformed her body language through the course of the show from an innocent, scared young lady to a seasoned, confident woman as her character developed.

Reviews for Franklinland, now playing at the theater, look good.  So I expect to be going back soon, in anticipation of which I’ve started working out.

Ah Wilderness – Goodman Theater – July 6, 2017

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The Goodman Theater is a wonderful venue, with two great spaces. Its shows present top-notch actors and excellent production values and I can walk there.  But lately almost every time I go there I wish I hadn’t. I know this makes me an outlier, but this is my blog. Get your own.

The theater marketed Ah Wilderness as Eugene O’Neill’s classic family comedy. They got everything right except the part about comedy. I was bored to tears and left at intermission. With nothing else to say about that, I will recap my other recent visits to the Goodman.

In September 2016 I saw Wonderful Town, music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Great credentials. And I remember, as a kid, loving the movie version of the play My Sister Eileen, upon which the musical was based. Rosalind Russell in her prime. But the show is dated. What it made me think of however, was Avenue Q, another show about the quirky residents of a street (Avenue Q versus Christopher Street). Avenue Q may be my favorite play, ever. Sue me (no wait, that was Guys and Dolls – loved that one too).

In December 2016 I saw Second City’s Twist Your Dickens at the Goodman. I had high hopes, but the production was filled with swearing, which was supposed to be funny, and many in the audience apparently found it to be, but I found it distracting and tedious. No talent involved. If I owned a watch I would have kept looking at it.

The one show I did like at the Goodman the last couple years was King of the Yees (April 2017). It wasn’t perfect, but it was current and everything about it was interesting.

Because its plays consistently get good reviews, I’ll probably keep going back to the Goodman for more, but for the new stuff, not for the retreads of shows that are over 60 years old (except maybe Guys and Dolls).