Theater

Boop! The Musical – CIBC Theatre – December 17, 2023

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There are 25 cast members in Boop!, if you don’t count the character Pudgy (real name unknown), the dog marionette, but you should. It’s a star (as is its marionettist, Philip Huber).

There could have been no better way, on a Sunday afternoon, to avoid watching the Bears tie the NFL record for the most 10+ point 4th quarter leads blown in one season (three and counting).

Twenty-three year-old Jasmine Amy Rogers, as Betty Boop, is a star. And her 16-year-old accomplice Angelica Hale, as Trisha, has a singing voice beyond her years.

Neither of them was even born when castmate Faith Prince won her Tony in Guys and Dolls, but she’s still got it (not the cold).

As in any pre-Broadway run, tinkering continues, even after rave reviews, and cast members perform flawlessly as if nothing has changed.

One song, She Knocks Me Out, has been added since the program was printed (as evidenced in the insert), and I imagine some dialogue has been altered. What probably hasn’t been touched is the great choreography and dancing and the bonanza of technical aspects of the show.

The cost of the costumes alone probably exceeds the GNP of several small countries.

And even someone with cataracts might be blinded by the palette of colors once Betty enters the real world.

As a further bonus, one song even gives us a little captioning, ala Mitch Miller, with the aid of a bouncing ball, which never hits the ground (unlike the tragically-comedic Hail Mary pass at the end of the Bears game).

The Hip Hop Nutcracker – Cadillac Palace – Dec. 13, 2023

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While Tchaikovsky waited in the wings, and I let my mind wander, the show opened with special guest emcee Kurtis Blow doing a bit of an opening act, as if we were in Las Vegas.

Then Marissa Licata walked out, violin in hand, and got things going in a direction more to my tastes, the first act culminating, as stated in the program, when the “Nutcracker, aided by a magic pair of sneakers, defeats the Mouse King.” As Mars Blackmon told us in 1989, as if he were watching the dancing on the stage, “it’s gotta be the shoes.”

The beginning of the second act goes back in time to a nightclub, in 1984, using cool video effects that convinced me that time travel, via a very fast subway train, apparently is possible.

That setting provided the opportunity for the cast to show off their acrobatic dance skills, one-by-one, as if they were competing in an Olympics gymnastic floor exercise. I awarded each and every one of them a ten. Simone Biles would have been hard-pressed to keep up with this crew.

There were lots of moves that should be physically impossible, demonstrating remarkable strength and flexibility, all to the beat of the music, but I was most intrigued by Jessie Smith’s ability to move six or seven body parts simultaneously in different directions.

Charles Troy: PORTER VS. SONDHEIM – Porchlight Music Theatre – December 4, 2023

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I went in thinking it would be a knockout, Porter over Sondheim, in four rounds, out of the seven, but then I thought that the particular selection of competitive categories that musical theatre historian Troy used put Porter at a disadvantage, as if he were only allowed to punch with one hand.

The composers felt each other in the first round, Sondheim taunting and jabbing away with Comedy Tonight, and Porter dancing around the ring, or rather having Fred Astaire and George Murphy do it to the tune of Please Don’t Monkey with Broadway, in Broadway Melody of 1940, 25 years before Murphy was elected to the U.S. Senate.

And then the roundabout hook of Getting Married Today caught me off guard, comparing favorably to Porter’s They Couldn’t Compare to You, and causing me to award Sondheim the round.

It turned into an MMA fight when Porter floored Sondheim for an 8-count with I Get a Kick out of You.

Sondheim rose from the mat and decked Porter with Together Wherever We Go, but Sondheim was penalized by the referee for only being the lyricist on that song.

Then both fighters symbolically went down (Porter’s Down in the Depths and Sondheim’s Uptown-Downtown).

The next round was drawn from the start – Never, Never Be An Artist versus Finishing the Hat.

Finally, just when it looked like Sondheim might win the bout with America (even though, again, only the lyricist), he acknowledged that he hated what he had written (and told CBS News in 2020 that he was embarrassed by the lyrics he wrote for West Side Story, though acknowledging that the audiences might think differently), which left Porter standing over him, flag in hand ala George Foreman at the 1968 Summer Olympics, to the tune of I Still Love the Red, White and Blue.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical – Marriott Theatre – December 3, 2023

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For those of us of a certain age, Carole King’s music is fundamental. And, for me, seeing a member of the extremely -talented Mueller family playing a part in King’s story is also basic.

In the first national tour I saw Abby Mueller, replacing her Tony award-winning sister Jessie in the part of King, and now I’ve seen brother Andrew as Gerry Goffin, after loving him in the off-beat Ernest Shackleton Loves Me earlier this year.

I also have now seen Erica Stephan, who plays Cynthia Weil, in four shows in just over a year – Clue, Cabaret (Jeff Award as Sally Bowles), Damn Yankees and Beautiful. There’s a reason she’s so in demand.

But, of course, Kaitlyn Davis, who, based on her bio, apparently was born to channel Carole King, is the star. And though the music is what draws people in, as it does in any jukebox musical, the show provides enough story such that the biggest round of applause of the night was when Davis, as King, tells her husband and lyricist Goffin, that she’s through with him and his philandering ways and sends him on his way.

Another appeal of the show for me is the complementary story of Weil and Barry Mann, King’s friends from the start of her career, who also wrote a myriad of hit songs, half a dozen of which are part of the score, and also are in the Songwriters and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame, and who, unlike the other couple, remained married for 62 years, until Weil’s death this year.

Young Frankenstein – Mercury Theater – Nov. 12, 2023

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One of my favorite lines from the movie Young Frankenstein is Frau Blücher (pause for sound of horse neighing) saying “He Vas My Boyfriend.” Mel Brooks, genius that he is, took that line and turned it into a whole song for the musical.

This is the second production of YF that I’ve seen. While I have a special attachment to the first one, as I had occasion, through happenstance, to later play golf with the actor who played Igor in it, I thoroughly enjoyed this first-rate version.

Though the entire cast was excellent, I particularly loved the way Andrew MacNaughton inhabited the monster, though I would have been even further amused at an attempt to capture his early efforts at speaking in a captioned performance.

Mary Robin Roth, as Blücher, was once again terrific, as she was in her recent polar-opposite Jeff Award-winning performance as Fraulein Schneider in Porchlight’s Cabaret.

And during the curtain call, even the cast seemed to rejoice in the work done by Sam Shankman, who normally plays the blind hermit, but who, as understudy, flawlessly stepped into the title role.

A Wonderful World – Cadillac Palace – October 18, 2023

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The first big dance number gave me great hopes for this pre-Broadway show, but they were dashed.

James Monroe Iglehart does a great Louis Armstrong, though he’s the biggest seven-year-old I’ve ever seen. Dewitt Fleming, Jr. is a terrific tap dancer, whose one scene wasn’t enough. A Wonderful World is too long, too talky and has too many endings – I counted three.

I was fine with the show depicting Armstrong’s four wives, who represented different phases of his life, but did we really have to suffer through his courtships and marital spats, when all we wanted was his music. And how many times did we have to see a motion picture assistant director tell Armstrong the same thing? No times would have worked for me.

To help keep it from becoming a four hour show, Armstrong’s gangster manager goes from tough guy to wimp in about two seconds. And, thankfully, all of Armstrong’s alleged hundreds of extra-martial affairs aren’t itemized.

Despite all the problems, it might still have been an okay, if not wonderful world, if the guy sitting behind me hadn’t insisted on singing along with every song, even though his name was not in the cast list in the program.

The Lehman Trilogy – Broadway Playhouse – October 12, 2023

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I know The Lehman Trilogy won the Tony award for best play but I have a lot of problems with it. And I’m not the only one.

The Washington Post suggested that “an American playwright [the playwright was Italian], confronted on a daily basis with the economic, cultural and historical ramifications of slavery,” would not have made the same decision to remain silent on the issue.

We’ve all become somewhat inured to the cavalier insertion of historical inaccuracies for the sake of artistic license, though I, for one, believe such liberties often make the vehicle less, not more engaging. So I won’t go into great detail regarding the ironic changes in the timeline  of events in a play produced by the TimeLine Theatre Company, as admitted in the play book itself, but can’t help but object to the reiteration of the myth that there were numerous suicides on Wall Street on Black Thursday in 1929. It’s just not true.

At least the acting was good, and I didn’t have to sit though the original five hours of the play, only three, which could have been reduced even further but for the author’s or adapter’s insistence on repeatedly using repetition until that poor horse died from a concussion.

The Nacirema Society – Goodman Theatre – October 8, 2023

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The last time I saw E. Faye Butler she was starring as Rose in Gypsy for Porchlight Music Theatre. Her turn in The Nacirema Society as Grace DuBose Dunbar, the matriarch of quite a different family from the . . . , wait a second, do Rose and her kids even have last names in Gypsy? Unlike the real people upon whom those characters were based, I don’t think so.

Grace does.  It’s the prestigious one of an upper class family in Montgomery, Alabama in 1964, and one that she overbearingly, like Rose, wants her, in this case granddaughter, to do proud.

Instead of the part being a vehicle for Butler to highlight her substantial singing skills, it’s one for her to demonstrate her considerable comedic chops. There was great music, however, in the form of partial Motown recordings played during each scene change. I know at least one critic complained that it made the play too long. I liked it, couldn’t stop bobbing my head.

The first act brought a lot of setup and some laughs, but, more noticeable to me, were the many times that the audience reacted with something between an ooh and an oy when confronted with conversations featuring uncomfortable humor. This isn’t a criticism, just an observation of the presence of shock value. I liked it and everyone else seemed to also.

The second act brought the house down. One guffaw after another, and not just from the dialogue, as Shariba Rivers, in the role of Jessie, the maid, was given license to do a lot of upstaging, literally and figuratively, via comedic facial expressions and body language. I left with a smile on my face.

Chicago Live – Navy Pier – September 23-24, 2023

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Navy Pier, it’s not just for tourists. Well, maybe most of the time, but not at Chicago Live.

Important information I picked up.

From Theo Ubique Theatre – how they pronounce Ubique. Their presentation of Sondheim songs, including Not Getting Married Today, led me to watch again, online, the great rendition by Katie Finneran.

From the Filament Theatre two-person presentation of something (I don’t what, I was just passing by the stage when they caught my attention) that “It’s hard to balance on invisible legs.”

From the young lady at the Hot Tix booth with an acting degree who currently works as a carpenter at local theaters, that the Nacirema (Society), in the name of the current play at the Goodman, is American spelled backwards. Doh!

Also, it sounds like Hot Tix is considering a membership that would allow you to pick your seat, something I could get behind.

From the marvelous Lucy Darling, that she is going to be the emcee of the new Teatro ZinZanni show opening in October. Lucy did a standard empty bag trick, while insulting audience members in a way that would make Don Rickles proud. The contortionist, Ulzii Mergen, also appeared, being attractive, impressive and cringeworthy all at the same time.

Other stuff I saw.

Porchlight Music Theatre promoting its upcoming Cole Porter Festival, which, I am excited to say, will feature Meghan (Big Red) Murphy in the role of Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. I have it on good information that playing this part has been on her bucket list. I liked Porchlight’s rendition of Now You Has Jazz better than Bing Crosby’s in High Society, though, I admit, having Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet did work in Crosby’s favor.

Lots of percussion – from third Coast Percussion and from a Chicago Philharmonic trio, whose sound was such that I kept waiting for dancers wearing big construction boots and carrying large trash cans to appear.

Dancers did appear for me at Culture Shock Chicago and Chicago Tap Theatre (as my readers know, you can never have enough tap).

Victor Garcia giving a master class on the use of the trumpet mute.

A DJ at a classic show tunes stage presenting a geographical music tour – I heard Kansas City (Oklahoma), Iowa Stubborn (Music Man), and Ohio (Wonderful Town).

Chronologically, the American Blues Theater’s road trip had me from the 50s opening Chuck Berry guitar riff of Johnny B. Goode (though sadly no duck-walking) and cemented my interest with the 60s CCR hit Down on the Corner (which was the song that sustained me while poring over the course catalog junior year of college looking for a new major). I’ll skip ahead to the 2000s to mention Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off because her appearance at the Bears game was apparently the biggest news in the NFL Sunday and thankfully overshadowed the high school team wearing their jerseys against Kansas City.

I love the Black Ensemble Theater but I have to say that I would have liked to hear the performance of Piece of My Heart emulate, not Janis Joplin, but rather the original Emma Franklin version.

Dee Alexander was new to me, but smooth as could be (with a great band behind her). I’ll watch for her in the future and be back at Chicago Live for more next year.

Porchlight ICONS: Celebrating Ben Vereen – Athenaeum Center – September 8, 2023

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I skipped the reception, because so did honoree Ben Vereen. He couldn’t make it because he was stuck in Romania. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me (and Dracula).

Vereen’s filming a miniseries there about the American Civil War (huh?). To his credit, despite the last minute cancellation, he found time to sing a song and provide a very engaging interview for a tape played during the night’s festivities, which also featured wonderful performances by event cochairs Felicia Fields and Kenny Ingram, along with a group of regular Porchlight performers and musicians.

If you’re wondering how Vereen can be filming during an actors’ strike, it’s because his is one of at least 281 productions (as of September 5) that are working under an interim agreement approved by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) negotiators, which, according to them, is not a waiver, but rather a contract that includes all the terms of the last SAG-AFTRA counteroffer to the producers.

There are those who aren’t happy about these agreements. Some big names, such as Viola Davis and Sarah Silverman, have declined to work on these films.

Meanwhile, with the writers also on strike, the public is relegated to watching game and reality shows (would Dracula qualify?), reruns of The Nanny or news conferences with its star Fran Drescher, who is the current National President of SAG-AFTRA.

While a taped Vereen was entertaining, Drescher in person might have been even more interesting. She doesn’t have Vereen’s theatrical resume, but a Broadway (not Romanian) musical version of The Nanny, book cowritten by Drescher and lyrics by Rachel Bloom (yeah!) has been in the works for a few years.