Theater

Good Night, Oscar – Goodman Theatre – March 20, 2022

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Spoiler alert! In case you don’t know—I did—Sean Hayes was a musician before he was an actor or comedian, having studied piano performance in college, and working thereafter as a classical pianist. (It’s amazing the stuff you learn on the Internet when you have nothing else to do for two years.) He has musical chops.

What I didn’t know, but was glad to see, was how much time he must have spent studying all things Oscar Levant, so that he could emulate his tics and mannerisms as if they were his own. (After the performance I found and viewed on YouTube Levant’s final television appearance, as the mystery guest on What’s My Line, to confirm the accuracy of the depiction.)

Now, imagine Hayes playing Rhapsody in Blue while playing the quirky Levant at the height of his mental health issues and drug addiction. Chopsticks would be tough under those conditions.

This is the seventh Goodman show I’ve mentioned in my blog. Regulars may remember that I haven’t been too kind in regard to four of those prior productions. In my defense, they weren’t kind to me either. But this one had everything, including actual Levant insights like “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.”

The Play That Goes Wrong (Take 2) – Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place – February 8, 2022

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No hitches this time. (My NDA prevents me from revealing what really happened in January.)

Though some of the action in the show loses a little when you know what’s going to happen (having seen an earlier production in December 2018), the fact that the performance is all about the humor, without any unnecessary regard to plot or character development, enables the excellent physical comedy to hold up on its own (kudos to the cast, set designer, and prop maker). Moreover, on one occasion, I, and everyone else in the audience, practically jumped out of their seats in reaction to a gag, even though the underlying premise took a second to process.

The theater was about half full, heavily weighted toward the front, which enabled me to have a row to myself, as it always should be. The theater took masking seriously, with an usher holding a sign that said “keep masks up.” On one occasion, during intermission, I saw the usher approach an audience member to tell that person to lift theirs. And though the play features some audience interaction, I’m quite sure (or am I?) that this particular moment was not in the script.

Bottom line – it was great to be someplace surrounded by laughter (not caused by me having toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe).

The Plans [sic] That Go Wrong – Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place – January 4, 2022

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A little over three years ago I wrote glowingly about The Play That Goes Wrong, a rib-tickler that leaves you with the kind of joy that everyone needs these days.

Given the latest onslaught by those nefarious people behind the Greek alphabet, I was more than ready for another dose of The Play’s theatrical hijinks, which I might describe as a Noel Coward version of Waiting for Guffman meets the Marx Brothers.

So I packed up my KN95, one approved by the Korean government and Amazon, along with proof of a lifetime worth of vaccinations, including those for shingles, just in case.

But, alas, The Play That Goes Wrong went even further wrong than originally scripted. Was the show cancelled due to an outbreak of Covid among the cast’s pets? Did I slip and fall on the icy sidewalk, tearing whatever cartilage might be left in my body, and get taken to the emergency room, where I waited for x-rays for 15 hours, writing this blog, while the staff tended to several hundred people with the sniffles? Did I go to the theater on the wrong night like I did for Ragtime in 2018? Or other, the answer most often correct on online AARP quizzes?

Just like it was every night of the 17-year-run of Shear Madness at the Blackstone Hotel, I’m going to let the viewer, in this case the reader, decide the outcome. I will only add that The Play That Goes Wrong will be here through February 13, so you may yet see a review from me that is only slightly more about the production itself.

As You Like It – Chicago Shakespeare Theater – November 30, 2021

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I’m bad with names, but better with faces. What I didn’t know until I saw Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s As You Like It last night, is that I’m good with thighs (and not just those on the Thanksgiving turkey), or rather quadriceps, as that sounds better, until I recognized the actor playing Orlando as having the same ridiculously muscular legs as I saw when he played the lead in the production of Memphis I saw three-and-a-half years ago at Porchlight Music Theatre.

I don’t go to a lot of Shakespeare, but this show is as I like it, in that it incorporates 23 Beatles songs into the script, along with some off-hand jokes that undoubtedly rile true Bard of Avon aficionados, and starts with a band and a modern-day wrestling match (more riling), even before the obsolete, often unintelligible English dialogue that is Shakespeare jumps in (wouldn’t supertitles be great?), with the match acting as a prologue and a way of entertaining those of us who get there early to avoid the proof-of-vaccination backup at the door, the sight of which made me wonder whether there were similar lines during the 1665 Great Plague of London.

Nunsense – Porchlight Music Theatre – November 18, 2021

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I first saw Nunsense in 1990 at the now-defunct Wellington Theater. The only thing I remembered about that production was that the cast included Georgia Engel of The Mary Tyler Moore Show fame. I didn’t remember that Ann-Margret played one of the other nuns . . . because she didn’t.

In the first of its three-performance Porchlight Revisits shows this season, the company built upon its upbeat choice of Pump Boys and Dinettes as the season’s still-running first full show, the set of which did double-duty for this show, a usage artfully explained in the dialogue, which also included other newly-added references, such as Ted Lasso and Roku, which, I think, is either some kind of noodle dish or a son of Odin.

I walked out with a smile, but not a program, as the theater emulated the restaurants that now have you scan a bar code to get your menu, which is fine by me except that I must have done something wrong this time, as, at intermission, someone delivered to me something called Udon, which I previously thought was Roku’s brother’s name.

My Week in Review – Presets, Pump Boys & Dinettes

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Eight years after buying my car, I finally figured out how to preset the radio, so now I don’t have to keep listening to golden oldies from the 60s, that’s 1860s, when Stephen Foster was the hot songwriter, or try to search for other stations while driving, which, to be fair, has resulted in no more than twelve accidents, none of them fatal. Who says you can’t teach an old dog . . . something, I forget.

I went to see my first play since Grease at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre in February 2020, this time Pump Boys & Dinettes at the Porchlight Music Theatre. Thankfully, given my constant need for continuity, Billy Rude appeared in both shows, this time as Jackson, whose leaps in the air while rocking his guitar reminded me of the fact that my vertical jump, once mediocre, is now, not only potentially dangerous, but also probably nonexistent.

I last saw Pump Boys in the mid 1980’s, when its tale of the Double Cupp Diner, lyrically located on Highway 57 (marked down from Dylan’s earlier Highway 61), not only delighted me, but also gave me words to live by with its Be Good or Be Gone, a song with which Melanie Loren, as Rhetta Cupp, in Porchlight’s production, wowed the audience.

By the way, the Cupp sisters, Rhetta and Prudie, who joined together for another highlight, Tips, bear no relation to Cooper Kupp, who is leading the NFL in receptions and touchdowns, though all of their cups runneth over.

Porchlight Icons Gala – Galleria Marchetti – October 20, 2021

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On October 19, 1989, 3.8 inches of snow fell in Chicago. We dodged that bullet. The weather was perfect for the Porchlight Icons Gala, and a gentle breeze flowed in from the multiple, large openings to the outdoors. We weren’t pent-up indoors with a few hundred people. And yet, there was no need to sit under a space heater.

But, just in case, I brought my new toy (not made out of LEGOs this time), a portable carbon dioxide monitor, a device that has become fashionable in schools as a means of measuring the effectiveness of air circulation efforts in the time of Covid.

According to a report in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, scientists, relying on the fact that “infectious people exhale airborne viruses at the same time as they exhale carbon dioxide”, concluded that “wherever you are sharing air, the lower the CO2, the lower risk of infection” from Covid.

I am pleased to say that, despite my dropping it on the floor at one point, and hopefully not because I did, my monitor continued to signal a level of carbon dioxide equivalent to a totally outdoor environment.

So, I was able to completely enjoy the honoring of Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson for her glorious theatrical career. Who? Chita Rivera.

The entertainment was top notch, as always with Porchlight, and Ms. Rivera was charming and gracious. And the wine was flowing (perhaps the cause of the dropped monitor), as were the donations, buoyed by an auctioneer extraordinaire. And it didn’t snow.

Broadway in your Backyard – Porchlight Music Theatre – Washington Square Park – July 18, 2021

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If you don’t count Piff the Magic Dragon, and I don’t, the last in-person, no scientist involved, theatrical event (as opposed to instrumental concert, by my definition, which is the only one that counts, as it’s my blog), I had attended before last Sunday was on February 25, 2020. I’m still waiting for the first indoor one, but not until at least the fall, and not anxiously.

In the park I’m surrounded by grass and trees and feel a gentle breeze on my back. In the Ruth Page Auditorium, where Porchlight normally performs, I’m surrounded by the walls of a 1927 building that may or may not have a ventilation system.

At the park event I sat in my own folding chair, which is far more comfortable than any seat at Ruth Page, and placed it so that I didn’t have to rub elbows with strangers exhaling in my immediate vicinity. My view was somewhat limited by overhanging tree foliage, but that’s still better than sitting behind Andre the Giant, which I always wind up doing at the theater, even though he died in 1993.

So, like the groupie I am, I’m looking forward to attending three future Backyard programs in three different parks in August. Have chair will travel.

The Theory of Nothing

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Just because the world has ground to a halt doesn’t mean that I should stop writing, or does it? Have I misinterpreted the signs? Anyway, to help us all pass the time, here are some notes about some of the things I’m not doing.

Speaking of signs, and the stealing thereof, I’m not watching baseball games. I wouldn’t anyway, but my class on the Literature of Baseball at Northwestern’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will be held online, instead of in person, which means I don’t get to indulge in the delicious home-made brownies that a member of the class, who is a baker, brings each week.

I’m not watching March Madness or running my pool, which is a shame because I concocted some bizarre rules this year in the hope that no one else would understand them. In that vein, in the absence of games, I have declared myself the winner of the pool.

Despite having been the Wizard of Oz in Wicked on Broadway, Joel Grey apparently does not have the power to make everything right and so is not going to the 25th Anniversary Porchlight Music Theatre Icons Gala honoring him and neither is anyone else, including me, at least until it gets rescheduled.

I’m not going to the postponed Newberry Library Associates Night, where I was hoping to cop some free wine and cheese and then sneak out before the staff droned on about research that would have bored me to tears.

I’m not going to the American Writers Museum to listen to Gene Luen Yang talk about his new graphic novel Dragon Hoops, as he cancelled his in-person book tour, and instead, according to his website, is touring as a cartoon.

I’m not going to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s 100th Anniversary Concert, which was to feature Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which also was performed at the orchestra’s first-ever concert on March 29, 1920. I missed that one too.

New Faces Sing Broadway Now – Arts Club of Chicago – February 25, 2020

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As usual, Porchlight Music Theatre’s New Faces event showcased a host of talent, and a host with talent, Cory Goodrich, five-time Jeff Award nominee, and two-time winner, who is soon to star in Porchlight’s production of Freaky Friday, opening April 10th.

There were songs from recent arrivals and entrenched hits, including four of the five longest-running shows in Broadway history – The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, The Lion King, and Wicked – but none from non-musicals.

One song was from a show that just opened on Broadway, but is familiar to Chicago audiences – Six. Six’s Porchlight connection is strong, as four of the six stars of the show have been featured in the past in the New Faces series.

What’s more, four of the six women in the cast have first names that start with the letter A, and the two who don’t replaced two from the original West End cast who did. Coincidence, or enemy action?

New Faces makes me think of people who literally have a new face, say for example the characters played by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in the movie Face/Off. I wonder if they would have titled the 1997 movie Trading Faces if not for the 1983 movie Trading Places.

Speaking of John Travolta, he appeared on Broadway in 1974’s Over Here, in the role of Misfit, singing a two-song medley with the Andrews Sisters. Over Here, which I never heard of before despite it having been nominated for best musical, also included the song Don’t Shoot the Hooey to Me, Louie (gotta love the title), sung by Samuel E. Wright, who sang Under the Sea in the animated film The Little Mermaid. With that kind of trivia, Over Here sounds like a candidate for a Porchlight Revisits production.