Theater

Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical – Studebaker Theater – July 9, 2023

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This show wants to go to Broadway. As someone suggested to me, maybe Broadway and Belmont. I agree. For my money, this Price is not right.

I mean the show, not the person, as Saint Aubyn, playing the lead, portraying the elder Price, as opposed to the Elder Price, a character in The Book of Mormon, a much better play, is terrific, singing, dancing and interacting with the audience.

If you watch the video of the real Price on the Ed Sullivan show, and compare it with Aubyn’s stage version of that event, Aubyn is the clear victor. In the video, Price dances like Elaine Benes.

Performances, and great dancing by the whole cast aside (that shouldn’t be cast aside), there is a lot that could be cut from Personality, especially in the second act. I’ll try not to spoil it for you, in case all the highly recommended reviews lead you astray.

So please cut the scene where Price and three members of his band (redacted), the scene where he gets advice from (redacted), and the scene where (redacted) sings (redacted), which may lead the audience to believe (redacted), which is not true.

And wouldn’t it make his story even more interesting if those scenes were replaced with some reference to the interesting latter parts of his life, admittedly not associated with music, such as working with Don King to promote the famous Rumble in the Jungle and Thrilla in Manilla prizefights and starting a company to develop low income housing for underprivileged minorities.

And while, according to the show, his marriage was less than ideal, none of the online bios I could find mention that fact at all. According to the 2021 obituaries I found, he was survived by a different wife and several more children than were introduced in the play. May he and this show rest in peace.

The Who’s Tommy the Musical – Goodman Theatre – June 24, 2023

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A year after The Who released their album Tommy, I saw them perform it live at the Auditorium Theater. I had trouble hearing for two days thereafter, but I didn’t care.

With that memory in mind, I thought about bringing ear plugs to the musical, but decided against it, though I was told afterward that the Goodman had them available for audience members, apparently out of my line of sight.

It was loud, though not nearly as loud as the concert had been, and, again, I didn’t care, and don’t appear to have any residual hearing loss.

I came for the music, and was rewarded with not only a tremendous orchestra, but also a great cast, terrific choreography and incredible set design, which included all kinds of amazing light displays. This production is very special, unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The Pinball Wizard scene that closes the first act is itself worth the price of admission, but I’ll also give a shout out to the way in which the paratroopers’ actions were depicted near the opening of the show.

When the full cast started singing the finale, the audience couldn’t contain itself any longer, standing en masse and cheering well before the song ended, which I suppose also could have been reflective of a need for movement given how cold it was in the theater. It’s always something.

The show has been extended to the end of July. See it, feel it.

Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon – Lookingglass Theatre Company – June 13, 2023

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This is the second musical I’ve seen with Honeymoon in the title. But this one doesn’t have any flying Elvises. The program describes it as – “First Generation Asian American Renegades. In Love. And on the Run.” Kind of like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, except not at all.

There’s a lot to like about this production, including the country western music, the humor, the cultural awareness and the serious issues raised, but it seemed to try too hard at times.

The first act made me want to find out how things would play out. The second act made me yearn for the first act. (I would same the same about a lot of other plays.) It was like watching someone using an incorrect thread type to stitch the parts together and winding up with a puckered seam. Still functional, looks okay from a distance and can be fixed, but wouldn’t wear it to the prom as is.

Because it’s a world premiere, I’ll restrain myself from revealing spoilers, but I will say – enjoy the Karaoke scene, try to take in as much of the set as you can and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about Benny.

Pippin – Music Theater Works – North Shore Center for the Performing Arts – June 7, 2023

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I’d never seen Pippin before. It’s a very strange show, but I was hoping at least to see someone being held upside-down hanging from a trapeze while singing No Time at All, ala Andrea Martin in her Tony award-winning performance in the 2013 Broadway revival, but that was wishful thing, although, just as in the Broadway productions, the song was a show stopper, this time performed by Kathleen Puls Andrade.

Pippin, or really, Pepin the Hunchback, was the eldest son of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), named after his grandfather Pepin the Short, in what can only be seen as a cruel generation-skipping continuation of family humor. He never played basketball.

With all the fun stuff of the wild and crazy 8th and early 9th centuries as background, this production cleverly mixes in aspects of current day news broadcasts, while maintaining its play within a play confusion where the protagonist searches, in both incarnations, for self-discovery, being too late to join the Knights of the Round Table in their much more entertaining quest for the Holy Grail a couple centuries earlier.

The plot aside, dancing carried the day, with complicated, high-energy movement generated by a dozen very fresh-looking faces and backed up by an excellent band. If there was any doubt that the original show was choreographed by Bob Fosse, that was removed in the scene the ensemble broke out the white gloves, but alas, no trapeze.

DAMN Yankees – Marriott Theatre – May 21, 2023

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Growing up as a White Sox fan, the concept of DAMN Yankees has always been one with which I could identify.

The only other time I’ve seen a theatrical presentation of this show was in 1996, featuring Jerry Lewis as Applegate. The only thing I remember about that production, and not as a highlight, was Lewis bringing the show to a grinding halt by totally breaking character in the second act and committing a crime against nature by going into a “comedic” monologue.

It’s unfortunate that that’s how I look back, but it’s at least partially Fortunato (Sean, that is), who is much better in the same role, letting his comedic acting speak for him, that will cause me to think back more fondly this time.

Add to that, one of my local favorites, Lorenzo Rush, Jr., as Van Buren, the team’s manager, who, as usual, was a strong presence throughout.

And then there’s a relatively new local favorite of mine, Erica Stephan, doing great work as reporter Gloria Thorpe in a role far removed from her recent tour de force as Sally Bowles at Porchlight Music Theatre.

A new face for me was Michelle Aravena, dynamic as Lola, though I will never understand how Who’s Got the Pain wound up in this show. (Apparently it “was a last-minute replacement to substitute for a weird gorilla-suit number.”) It’s much better served as “the only filmed example of Fosse and Verdon dancing together”, which I never tire of watching on YouTube.

Speaking of dancing, a shout out to Sam Linda, a ballplayer wearing number 16 and dancing in a way reminiscent of Ray Bolger.

Watching the players slide and dance across the stage kept the show moving right along, obviously another positive effect of this year’s new rules to speed up baseball games.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me – Porchlight Music Theatre – May 11, 2023

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It’s been over 20 years since I saw the IMAX documentary Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure, but it has remained frozen in my memory.

Molly Brown may have been unsinkable, but she couldn’t hold a candle, or, in the case of this show, a banjo, to Ernest Shackleton. Just two years after the Titanic sank, the Endurance went down in Antarctica, the beginning of an amazing story that is faithfully told through dialogue, song, and actual video from the expedition on loan from the British Natural History Museum, all in the middle of a show about a Brooklyn woman trying to make ends meet and keep her baby warm while the father tours the country with a Journey cover band.

It’s a strange combination indeed, and not your mother’s musical (you won’t walk out humming any of the songs), but one that works, in no small part thanks to the two multi-talented stars of the show, Elisa Carlson and Andrew Mueller (I have now seen all three of the Mueller siblings perform on stage), and, in the midst of a show about hope and optimism, a lot of laughs.

The Book of Mormon – Cadillac Palace – April 5, 2023

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I try to imagine what an edited-for-TV version of The Book of Mormon might look like. I can’t. There’d be nothing left except commercials.

This is the third time I’ve seen the musical, but the first since some shut-down-for-Covid revisions were made by the authors to, according to the New York Theater Guide, “center and deepen the Uganda characters . . . clarify satirical points; and remove ‘white savoirist’ depictions of the Mormon missionaries.”

If you loved it before and haven’t seen it for a while, don’t worry, the actors work it and the dancing’s great, and either you’ll like the changes or you won’t notice them, as you’ll be too busy laughing and shaking your head in disbelief once again at the dialogue and lyrics, none of which I choose to repeat in this space. Let’s just say, somewhere, George Carlin is smiling.

I think it’s more a statement about mainstream acceptance than softening that I didn’t see anyone walk out of the theater this time, not even during Hasa Diga Eebowai, a made up phrase (which is apropos given that one of the other songs is Making Things Up Again) that accidentally translates, in a combination of Portuguese and Japanese, I am told, as the nonsensical “just tell picture ebony”, but, trust me, means something totally different in the show.

Porchlight Sings Broadway Pop – House of Blues – March 27, 2023

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In the 26-plus years of the House of Blues, I’d never before been to it for a performance, unless you count my embarrassing, enraptured, emotional reaction to the restaurant’s jalapeño cornbread at many a lunch.

My absence ended with a bang, and some fiery crab cake appetizers, as I watched Porchlight Music Theatre’s Chicago Sings Broadway Pop erupt with performances from 22 explosive singers and dancers and a rocking seven-piece band.

It was so much fun that I almost forgot about my ongoing internal struggle over whether I prefer the spelling theater over theatre.

I had the good fortune to view the show from one of the boxes, which only augmented the experience, and made me wonder why Statler and Waldorf were always so cantankerous while watching the Muppets from their box.

Then I thought about the scene in the box in Pretty Woman and was grateful that this show was about Broadway pop, not Broadway opera, which made me think that opera would be so much better with tap dancing (think Hot Mikado), though sadly there also was none on this night, its only shortcoming.

Avenue Q – Music Theater Works – March 15, 2023

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This was my quadrennial visit to Avenue Q, my favorite musical roadway, ahead of 42nd Street, Christopher Street, Henry Street, Broadway, and Sunset Boulevard (forget about Fleet Street).

Unlike some shows, it has not lost its relevance after 20 years. Even the puppets seem like they haven’t aged a day.

I hadn’t previously been to the North Theater at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, where the Music Theater Works is working at music theater while its new building gets built. I loved it, a perfect fit for this show.

I want to give special mention to the two cast members charged with jumping between characters, Andres DeLeon and Melissa Crabtree. Take it from someone who has had his hand up a puppet’s butt (see my piece on my most recent journey to Q at the Mercury Theater), there’s an emotional attachment.

Yet these two actors flawlessly flowed between wildly different persona, demonstrating quick changes, not merely in their handheld attachments, but also in their physical manifestations and vocal ranges.

It’s all great fun, with some very smart commentary mixed in, and we all have the double EGOT-winning composer Robert Lopez to thank for it. I can’t get enough of his work, so I’m seeing The Book of Mormon again in three weeks. It’s the best show about following the advice in a book since How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which was about the business of wickets, not the business of religion.

Toni Stone – Goodman Theatre – February 16, 2023

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The program states that Toni Stone was the first woman to play as a regular on an American big-league professional baseball team, while at the same time parenthetically admitting that the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League preceded her achievement. Huh? I guess they meant to say to play on a men’s professional baseball team.

According to a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Stone, while first, was one of twelve Black women who played in the Negro Leagues because they were denied the chance to play in the women’s league. It’s Toni’s story, so we never heard about the others.

Except for the audience’s imagination, the set was the infield and scoreboard of a baseball diamond, which starts out as a nice visual, but then mostly provides the backdrop for a series of interspliced scenes attempting to depict game action, while actually adding nothing. As with movie monsters, things that aren’t seen are often the most powerful depictions.

Of course, the play isn’t really about baseball, and the second act provided some needed visual variety by ingeniously using the bleachers to simulate the bus used by the team, with home plate as the steering wheel.

And Stone’s interactions with Millie, conceptualized as being away from the field, were the best thing in the show.

If the object of the play was to make me curious about Toni Stone, it succeeded. If it was to add to the conversation about the various issues it addressed, then I would suggest that it worked the pitcher to a full count, but struck out swinging, with the bases loaded. Wait til next year.