Theater

Rent – Porchlight Music Theatre – November 3, 2022

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I love the musical Something Rotten. So what does that have to do with Rent? The following are some lyrics from SR’s “It’s a Musical.”

“Some musicals have no talking at all
. . . .
All of the dialogue is sung
. . . .
You just sit there asking yourself
“Why aren’t they talking?”
. . . .
And people actually like this?
No, they love it . . . .”

I’m not one of those people. I’ll save a long explanation of why for another time, after I’ve had time to construct one. For now, it is what it is.

So, when one of the characters in Rent spoke/sang “it’s over” early in the second act, I momentarily got excited, until I realized the line wasn’t directed to me, and I had to sit through another three or four false endings.

That said, if I were on the Jefferson Awards committee, my report would contain numerous nominations, with excellent stage performances and behind the scenes work all around.

To mention only a few, the band rocked throughout, Lucy Godinez, as Maureen, brought the house down with a diva dive into her big solo, and Josh Pablo Szabo, as Angel, captured the audience upon first entrance.

I might have been less anxious for a swifter conclusion if the show had not been up against the fifth game of the World Series, though, to be fair, those broadcasts could use less, not more, talking.

Clue – Mercury Theater – October 29, 2022

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Not exactly Agatha Christie. While there were some giggles, the highlight of the first two-thirds of Clue was the guy behind me explaining the intricacies of his Halloween couch potato costume.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t particularly care for the characters (with no offense to the actors, whom I’ve seen do good work elsewhere). The suspects displayed fewer dimensions than their cardboard, board game avatars.

It occurred to me that it would have been more interesting if the dramatis personae had been the survivors of the S.S. Minnow. In fact, Episode 16 of Season 2 of Gilligan’s Island, entitled Not Guilty, wherein the setup suggests that one of the castaways is a killer, was a better whodunnit.

That said, the last half hour or so of Clue provided some real entertainment, beginning with Chicago favorite Mark David Kaplan, as the butler, being cut loose to deliver a rapid, over-the-top summary of the prior action on a par with Nathan Lane’s rendition of Betrayed as his jail cell synopsis of the story in The Producers. They probably have to replace the scenery after every performance once Kaplan gets done chewing it with exquisite aplomb.

Clyde’s – Goodman Theatre – October 1, 2022

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I didn’t think to count, but, according to the program, there were 21 sandwiches in this play, set in the kitchen of a truck stop eatery.

The last play I saw with this much food on stage was Sweeney Todd. That time the food wasn’t actually what it was alleged to be in the show (I hope).

Similarly, I doubt that all the ingredients suggested in Clyde’s were as stated, but, this time, I suspect, for convenience and budgetary sakes, not to avoid criminal prosecution.

But that doesn’t mean that the Goodman is cutting corners, as evidenced by the quote in the program from the props supervisor, who had to decide things like, “how many pickles do I need.”

If she messes up and there are too many leftovers, do they take it out of her pay? And I wonder how much food they went through in rehearsals. Did the actors ask to redo scenes so that they could eat more?

Speaking of the cast, their fine performances were highlighted by the fact that no one said their lines with their mouth full, which was particularly important in a performance without captioning.

Porchlight Music Theatre ICONS Gala – Ritz-Carlton – September 23, 2022

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I have now been to the last four Porchlight ICONS Galas, which have provided an interesting progression. The first one was a Sunday brunch that honored Jerome Robbins. He was not present to accept the award, having been dead for 20 years.

In 2020, because of the pandemic, the event became a three-day online affair, and included a pre-recorded interview with honoree Joel Grey, who, I’m happy to say, is still with us.

Last year, with life starting to open up, we were able to honor Chita Rivera in person on a Wednesday night.

This year, the event worked its way up to a Friday night, and not only was honoree Donna McKechnie in attendance, she also sang for her supper (a song from her Tony award-winning role as Cassie in A Chorus Line).

It was a wonderful evening, which means I only have two complaints.

Please don’t pass around exploding appetizers before dinner. Ten minutes in the bathroom trying to clean up my shirt, after biting into a pastry filled with goat cheese, wasn’t in my original plan.

And, if the hotel can go to the trouble of offering three different entree choices, how about also giving us dessert choices.

After all, because of my connection with Porchlight, I was given a Golden Ticket (really) for the event, just as if I were a kid in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, not Willy Wonka and the Vanilla Thingy on My Plate Gala.

The Devil Wears Prada – The Nederlander Theatre – August 9, 2022

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The show started about 15 minutes late. Given the heretofore mixed reviews (which I still haven’t read), I assumed last-second changes were being made to the script for this pre-Broadway run.

The opening set showed a New York street with a crosswalk in the foreground that made me wonder whether the Beatles were about to walk across the stage, Paul barefooted. Alas, no. Maybe after rewrites.

But the set that will linger in my mind was the Eiffel Tower, which rose spectacularly from the ground right before my eyes.

The opening scene of the second act, with finely dressed members of high society walking around, some with parasols, made me think of the Ascot Gavotte from My Fair Lady.

If it seems like the script didn’t have my full attention, I’ll mention that I probably was the only one there, including the actors and the writers, who got the joke when Andy threw her phone away because she no longer wanted to sell (cell?) her soul.

And, besides, because it’s still a work in progress, there’s no list of scenes or musical numbers in the playbill to aid my memory (and, surprisingly, I didn’t receive a press kit). But I know there was a song and dance about being in your twenties I liked a lot, and could remember if I still were.

Though I enjoyed it, the show is mostly about the costumes, the budget for which is probably somewhere around the gross national product of the Netherlands.

So, I clearly am not the target audience. There were a lot of crowd-pleasing fashion references about which I was gratefully clueless.

The whole cast was, of course, first rate, but I wanted to see more of Javier Munoz, who plays Nigel, the juicy role that Stanley Tucci had for dinner in the movie.

It Came From Outer Space – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – July 24, 2022

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This world premiere musical, based on the 1953 movie of the same name, which, in turn, was based on a film treatment by Ray Bradbury (and not on a William Shakespeare play), will probably never play Broadway, but I would not at all be surprised if it turned into a long-running Off-Broadway sensation, where audience members come dressed as aliens.

Of course, the musical Little Shop of Horrors, also based on a low budget science fiction movie, started off Off-Off-Broadway, then went Off-Broadway for five years, before eventually making it to Broadway and becoming a staple of theaters everywhere.

This show was written by the same two people, Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, who won the 2011 Jeff Award for writing the musical Murder for Two, which I loved. As is necessary to fully exploit the delightful silliness of the show, the cast played it straight, although I imagine that there were numerous breakdowns in rehearsals.

In particular I would like to mention Jaye Ladymore, whom I never had seen on stage before (unlike the other players), but who caught my attention last year on the ill-fated tv series 4400. Today I often found myself looking to see her movements and facial reactions, even when the focus of the action was elsewhere, like in outer space.

My Fair Lady – Broadway in Chicago – Cadillac Palace Theatre – July 2, 2022

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As noted in my last blog, I didn’t go to the show last night. But I changed my mind and went today. Sue me.

I’ve seen the movie so many times that it was very hard to disassociate the play from the film while at the theater. Nevertheless, as with the movie, I loved it, and there were some specifics worth mentioning.

First, the terrific voices. The entire cast was a listening pleasure, although I’ll admit that some of the lyrics early in the show were hard to understand due to the Cockney accents and I was thankful that I was already so familiar with them.

Second, the use of the sets, that is the way in which they were moved around and the actors moved in concert with them. For me, it was beautiful choreography.

The show, as in the movie, doesn’t have a lot of dancing, a waltz here, a gavotte there. Despite the fact that Eliza could have danced all night, she doesn’t. It isn’t like, for example, the current Broadway production of The Music Man, which has added tap dancing, because why wouldn’t you when you have Sutton Foster. The only noticeable addition to me was the drag line helping to send Alfred P. Doolittle off to get married in the morning. That was some party.

Everyone knows the music is great, so no point in lingering, other to say that, with all due respect to the great Cole Porter, my all time favorite rhyming lyric, which I sat in the audience anticipating, continues to be the pairing of Budapest and ruder pest in the song You Did It. Alan Jay Lerner really did it!

My Fair Lady – Broadway in Chicago – Cadillac Palace Theatre

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I thought that for a change of pace I would write about something I didn’t do. This won’t become a habit because, after all, I spend a lot more time not doing things than doing them, and would run out of time not to do things if I had to write about not doing them all the time.

So, first, with hard work and a little bit of luck, I had to find the right thing not to do. I opted not to go see the Broadway in Chicago production of My Fair Lady tonight. It wasn’t an easy decision. I love the movie – who doesn’t. I’ve never seen the play. The woman playing Eliza is receiving rave reviews. But . . .

The Chicago critics are somewhat split about some other aspects of the production. And it’s two hours fifty minutes long. No reclining seats at the Cadillac Palace.

A couple of the reviews I scanned focused on issues with the second act. So, I thought, as long as there were good seats available, at half price, and I know how the play ends, why not just go for the first act. Wouldn’t that be loverly?

But inertia is a cruel mistress. I’ve got two e-books currently on loan from the library, a movie I want to rent, and a reclining chair at home, so, even though the Cadillac is not that far from the street where I live, I figured my time might be better spent writing about not going. After all, I’ve grown accustomed to this pace.

Chicago Sings Stephen Sondheim – Porchlight Music Theatre, at the Museum of Contemporary Art – May 23, 2022

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Back when you were still allowed to talk about Woody Allen, people were fond of saying that they preferred his early movies, when he was funny, before Stardust Memories, though there has been good stuff after that, if not of the same madcap variety as say, Bananas.

What does this have to do with Sondheim. Well, I liked his early work better, and, dare I say it, in particular when someone else was writing the music – West Side Story and Gypsy.

But Chicago Sings was about Sondheim, so no Bernstein or Styne tunes. And, because those of us who support the theater are supposed to be aficionados, we were “treated” to a number of songs that the average Joe (not to be confused with last season’s 13-episode TV show I liked but that has not been renewed – again I’m on the wrong side) might not have picked from his other shows.

As for the performances, I will call out Laura Savage (as I have done several times before), who lights up the stage, and Mark David Kaplan, whose Pretty Little Picture as Pseudolus made me laugh (which was permitted in early Sondheim shows).

But enough about substance. The food was good. The registration line not so much. And, thankfully, no one fell down the winding staircase on their way back down to the auditorium for the show after drinking at the reception.

Spring Awakening – Porchlight Music Theatre – April 28, 2022

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This was my second opening of the week. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first day of the new Whole Foods near me the day before.

The performances at both were fine, but, even though it’s not a classic, I prefer the song from the Whole Foods commercial, Every Beat Of My Heart, by the Du-Ettes, to anything I heard in Spring Awakening, even Totally F**ked, which mostly stood out for the impressive one-handed cartwheel one of the actors did during the “dance break.”

Spring Awakening won the 2007 Tony for Best Musical, beating out Curtains, Grey Gardens, and Mary Poppins. For my money, I would have given the award that year to the not-even-nominated Legally Blonde, which, I guess, wasn’t deep enough, but sure was a lot more entertaining.

So I had to find things other than the play’s hit-me-over-the-head messages to think about while waiting for the final curtain.

The intellectual Melchior made me yearn for Michael Fitzsimmons, the biker loner character who spouted poetry in Peggy Sue Got Married.

Melchior’s obsession with Faust reminded me that I still remember, from high school, the first eight lines, in German, of Goethe’s Prolog im Himmel, which I repeated over and over in my mind to help pass the time.

I also thought about Franz Liebkind, whose play, when put in the right hands, turned out to be a lot more fun.

And, finally, I wished, if I were going to see a musical based on a 19th century German children’s story, that it be an adaptation of the Katzenjammer Kids.