Mad Men - the musical...

DBH and I caught the preview of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Porchlight Music Theater in Chicago.  We'd both seen the original production in the early '60s with Robert Morse, Rudy Vallee and Charles Nelson Riley.  And we still enjoy rewatching the movie with Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee. 

Mr. Biggley and J. Pierpont Finch

Porchlight's production was fun, exuberant and malicious.  Just as you would expect if Mad Men was made into a musical comedy.  Everything is played over the top, with songs that had the audience standing and singing along as The Brotherhood of Man wrapped up the performance.  If you follow this blog, you know that musical theater, especially produced in small venues is a favorite of mine.  How to Succeed was produced in a theater seating at most 150, with a thrust stage, so we were wrapped around the actors. 

Rosemary and Finchy

My only nagging comment concerns miking the performers.  The horns and woodwinds, which were also miked, were consistently above the singers.  And to fix the problem, it appeared that the sound designed just made both louder...This is a very small theater.  I would love to hear the production with no mikes, or with sound designed by a technician who understands that louder is usually not better.  

Yummmmmm, this fall Porchlight is mounting Sweeney Todd.  Can't wait to see the bodies fall into the basement and the pies go into the oven while Mrs. Lovett and Toby sing God, That's Good.

Come to the Cabaret

How many times can you see Cabaret and still enjoy it?  DBH and I still trying to find that out.  Whether the movie version, or live, it is one of the great musicals of the 20th century.  Last Sunday we fell in love all over again with the Chicago Light Opera Works production, starring their Artistic Director, Rudy Hogamiller as the Emcee.  He was more than significantly malicious and a great singer and dancer.  Rudy danced in the chorus of Cabaret on Broadway.  The version of the show we saw was the original, with the secondary romance built around the older owner of the boarding house, Fraulein Schneider and the Jewish fruit shop owner, Herr Schultz. 

I don't mean to slight Jenny Lamb who was a great Sally Bowles.  And, without seeming like a fashionista, we wore the magnificent costumes designed by Jesus Perez with aplomb.  Lots of mid 30's style flowing chiffon and bias cut dresses. 

Manys the night we reach into our video collection (yes we keep a video player because we have so many) and pull out Cabaret with Joel Gray and Lisa Minnelli.  It never grows old.  Who could forget the gorgeous Marisa Berenson as Natalia Landauer and Michael York as Brian Roberts.  In the movie, the secondary romance is changed to a German/Jewish conflict featuring a young couple, Natalia and Fritz Wandel, which is resolved with Fritz discovers he is Jewish - and they flee Germany together with her Daddy's millions.  They are so beautiful to watch, but the romance of the older couple, which ends with them separating, is much more poignant and true to the Jewish/Nazi strife. 

Where the movie triumphs over the stage is the rendering of Nazi anthem, Tomorrow Belongs to Me.  In the CLOW version we saw, the song is first introduced by waiters at the Kit Kat Club.  Then at the end of the first act, it is reprised with all the singers and dancers at the engagement party of Frau Kost and Herr Schultz, turning a happy time into tragedy.  In the movie, a very blonde Hitler Youth member stands in bier garten  and sings the anthem in a clear boy tenor voice, solo at first, but then with all the customers joining and tilting the emotional movement towards the coming tragedy, both for Sally and Brian and for Germany. 

While enjoying Cabaret, thoughts flooded over me of how the current situation in Egypt is reflective of German history.  How could the Egyptians elect ultra-conservative Muslims who then elected a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as president, and not expect that they would attempt to establish Sharia law?  And how could they expect that people who give not a whit for the trials and tribulations of anyone except their conservative Muslim allies is going to pull Egypt out of its economic downward spiral?  The fall-off in tourism alone has a domino effect throughout their fragile economy.  And the Copts?  It won't be long before this prosperous segment of the population has fled the country entirely, if they can get out.  Like the Jews, they are a handy whipping-boy for whatever ails the Muslims.  I've advocated before that the US should just open its borders to all Christians in the Middle East.  They surely pass the persecution criteria we set for political asylum. 

So, the next time you want to see a great movie/play about the decline and fall of a country while the citizens dance and sing it up, see Cabaret.  You will leave the theater full of music and thoughtful sadness.   

Three princes, an unfulfilled promise and an unexpected pleasure

DBH and I have been hanging around theaters in Chicago again.  Even in the summer, there is much to be seen and admired.  Now that we have senior CTA passes (1/2 fare) and the street parking fees have doubled ($4 an hour in the "off-loop" area where theaters would be and a 2 hour maximum), we CTA to just about venues.  

First the princes.  Blood and Gifts by J. T. Rogers presented by TimeLine Theater Company focuses on US, Afghan and British political scheming between 1981 and 1991.  It's the story of "blowback" or the law of unintended consequences.  All the good intentions of the US and cynical facilitating of the British left the Afghans well armed militant Islamists.  The script is tight and TimeLine delivered a flawless performance.

Death and Harry Houdini, written by Nathan Allan and presented by the House Theater of Chicago, leaves you breathless.  OK, it's a magic show.  But the theater seats about 100 people, so you are literally on top of the performers.  And, they do all the big Houdini stunts.  Ensemble member Dennis Watkins has been performing as Houdini since 2001, so this production has had plenty of time to mature.  Watkins saws a man in half, eats and disgorges razor blades, performs card tricks, magic hat slight of hand and even the famous water torture cell.  What a show for children - they can even learn a bit about immigrant German Jews.

Belleville, written by Amy Hertzog and produced by Steppenwolf, fits the full Steppenwolf criteria - screams, blood, nudity and good drama.  Amy was crafty in constructing this play; four actors, a white couple and a black couple, and one set, so fairly inexpensive to produce.  Best of all, the good guys are the blacks and the baddies (or saddies) are the whites.  What more could American theater goers ask for?  It's also one act which is appealing now that getting eight hours horizontal is important.  It's no August, Osage County, but good theater. 

The unfulfilled promise is The Jungle Book, written and directed by Mary Zimmerman and produced at The Goodman Theater.  This play is funded by Disney.  They are looking for another hit for their Broadway theater.  Last February, I applauded and cried at the end of Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, one of my most memorable theater experiences.  Jungle Book just leaves you wanting a story to wrap around the music, most of which comes from the Disney animated movie.  The song and dance numbers are fun and pulsating, colorful and entrancing.  The costumes are splendid; the character actors (snake, tiger, bear) are perfect.  There is just no heart.  Even the boy playing Mowgli was well cast, naive and believable.  I've just downloaded the two books of The Jungle Book and plan to read them in Peru.  I hope Mary Zimmerman is doing the same.  The play goes from here to Boston and supposedly there will be considerable rework before opening there.

Another aspect of The Jungle Book that left me perturbed is the use of African-American jazz and swing music.  It's all from the Disney movie and beautifully performed, but this is the Indian jungle, not African.  So when Andre DeShields' showstopping King Louie, the head of the monkey pack, singsI Want to Be Like You, meaning like a man, I wondered, "Will someone play the race card over this?".  But I didn't really feel the same way about Kevin Carolan who played a overweight, intellectually challenged Baloo the Bear, though some doughy white men might.  I'd like to see some African-American theater goers weight in on this. 

Finally, an unexpected pleasure.  DBH and I are author  Salman Rushdie fans.  We plow through the good, bad and in-between because he is so imaginative and we always learn about more about Indian culture.  Midnight's Children is Rushdie's seminal work about the independence of India, the separation of India from Pakistan and Pakistan from Bangladesh.  Magical realism is not my favorite genre, but it serves the plot well.  And, the history of India's birth and development is hardly realistic anyway.   Well, they made a movie of it!  And it isn't awful.  The first half swept me back to the book and the great story of children born at the stroke of midnight when India was granted independence from Great Britain - all of whom can magically communicate with one another.  The balance of the movie deals mostly with the devastation of the subsequent wars - not an easy history lesson to condense into less than an hour. 

If you really want to dip into Rushdie, try The Satanic Verses, the book for which the Ayatollah of Iran put a fatwa on Rushdie and forced him into hiding for many years.