Physical Fest Chicago 2016

Per my friend, Wikipedia, “Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that pursues storytelling through primarily physical means. Several performance traditions all describe themselves as "physical theatre", but the unifying aspect is a reliance on physical motion of the performers rather than or combined with speech to convey the story. In basic sense, you talk through hand gestures, body language, use of objects and many more physical features."  Mimes, sure, but so much more – puppets, masks, dance, sound effects – components that take “suspension of disbelief” to another sphere. 

Last year, my sister-in-law, Norah, and I stumbled on one night of Physical Fest 2015 and were swept away by two performances:  a one-man show “A Little Business at the Big Top” that recreates the world of circus and “Popol is Gone,” described as "a journey through madness, revolution and solitude" that is conveyed as a dialogue with the audience.  We vowed to return.

And we did, with Festival passes (not quite like Taste of Chicago or Lollapalooza passes), and dragged DBH along, though he did not much protest.  This year we attended all five productions – and wished we could have attended the workshops.  Here’s the lineup with our feedback.

Hominus Brasilis

Hominus Brasilis by Cia Manual (Brazil).  6o minutes of non-stop movement and a few words (mostly jibberish) that told the story of Brazil from the creation of the world to Zika virus and the Olympics.  You see the size of the “stage” in the photo.  And the movement rarely stopped on this lily pad for performance.  Magical, definitely a Prince.

Laura Simms

How to Find Romania, written and performed by Laura Simms.  Simms is a storyteller, and a substitute in this lineup.  You would not normally put a verbal performer into this festival.  She’s good, sometimes really good.  But, her performance is too long, with sections that could have been easily edited out.  Score:  Toad

The Bag Lady

The Bag Lady by Malgosia Szkandera, a Spanish artist of Polish descent.  Magic with plastic bags, mostly the common white grocery kind.  Such amazing physical control of her body to provide movement for her tiny puppets. What imagination! Definitely a Prince.

Sad Songs for Bad People by Rough House Puppet Theater (Chicago).  Puppets again, mostly with dark themes and, unfortunately, dark lighting.  Instead of regular spots, they used #10 cans on poles wired for lighting.  One sequence featured “black light”, but everything was so dim you could not follow the action.  Understandably they are attempting to create an atmosphere of amateurism, but they must be a bit more appreciative of the needs of the audience to accomplish this reverse of technique.  Some of the sequences were stunning, so very sad.  Score:  Very dark Prince

Sad Songs for Bad People

Hold Onto Your Butts by Recent Cutbacks (New York).  This rocked the house.  If you have seen Return to Jurassic Park, picture the whole story told by two men and a Foley (sound effects) artist.  Raunchy, punchy, over-the-top athletic with amazing sound-effects and sight-gags.  I want to see it again and again… Score: Prince.

You can actually share a bit of their wild and crazy show on this video promo.

"Johanna Faustus" at The Hypocrites

Seldom do I urge the playwright and director to make a production longer, but this time I wrote to Sean Graney, director and co-author, suggesting that he slow it down.  The production was crammed into an hour.  Lines spoken so fast, they were unintelligible.  Funny bits lost because the actors stepped on lines and did not allow the audience to absorb the jokes.  

And, the plot was rendered unintelligible as well.  Was it really Marlowe's Dr. Faustus or just parts of the plot woven into a new take on the validity of religion?  Overall, it felt like we were being exposed to the first version of a new work with many changes to come - at least I hope they come before they perform it again.  Graney is known for his new takes on old plays.  Ed and I have been twice to enjoy the 10 hour "All Our Tragic", based on the remaining 18 Greek plays.  Loved it both times.  Score:  Toad

P.S. - Sean replied, "I hated the production".

"Guards at the Taj" wins Obie - hands down.

On a delightful trip to Los Angeles in November, 2015 - Friday the 13th to be exact, we saw Rajiv Joseph's latest play, "Guards at the Taj" at the Geffen Theater in Westwood.  We love his previous plays, especially "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo".  "Guards" carried a warning not to reveal the ending.  That's because few would want to experience the end of this play. Likely I did not review it because I was still stunned.  

Featured are two guards who must stand rigid at the entrance to the soon to be completed Taj Mahal.  A wall separates them from the glorious mosque.  No one is allowed to see the work inside.  Life is boring and routine - the first act like a "Bob and Ray" radio comedy.  But slyly, the plot reveals itself as the  character of Shah Jahan, commissioner of the Taj Mahal, and the nature of life in an absolutist political system, is revealed in the guards' exchanges.  

Seems the architect, Ustad Isa, asked the Shah if the 20,000 workers could tour their completed masterpiece.  Rather than responding with benevolence, the Shah demands that the hands of the 20,000 workers and the architect be cut off so that nothing as beautiful as the Taj could ever be constructed again.  (Note to reader:  this is fiction, not fact.)  

Act II opens with the stage, now a pool several inches deep of blood and the two guards, who have been put in charge of the hand-ectomies, nearly out of their minds at the horror of their work.  Ultimately, one guard must cut off the hands of the other - and you see this (actually very well staged) in gory detail.  

So now you know "the rest of the story".  We left the theater feeling like we had been sucker-punched.  But it was good theater.  And it does deserve the Obie. 

Score:  Bloody Prince

"The Secretaries" and "The Few" - Toad Kissing in Chicago

We're toad-kissing again in Chicago. There is so much live theater produced in Chicago, it’s like diving into a chocolate sundae.  But, though worthy, not all of these plays are princes, and DBH and I will spend lots of time kissing toads throughout the summer.  I’ll keep you apprised of our adventures.

First up, The Few at Steep Theater. These are the folks who produce edgy, small plays that make you think.  Sort of like Steppenwolf Theater before they because such a money machine. Written by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Brad Akin, starring Peter Moore, Dana Black (looking and acting like former Steppenwolf star, Laurie Metcalf, just a bit more zaftig) and Travis Coe.  
Synopsis from the website: “Four years ago, Bryan walked away from his life, his lover, and his labor of love: a newspaper for long haul truck drivers. Now he’s back, without any answers and looking to finish what he couldn’t on the road. In the middle of nowhere, at the edge of the millennium, The Few pulls together the pieces of lives filled with loss.”

A newspaper for long haul truck drivers…really?  Yup, Bryan was a driver who saw and experienced the loneliness of the long-distance trucker and wrote about it.  Without him for four years, the paper has become pages of “seeking” ads, placed by truckers and for truckers. These play from the phone answering machine at poignant moments throughout the play. There are lots of small sub-plots artfully woven into the 90 minutes.  Overall a well-crafted, well-performed production.  Hunter won a MacArthur Fellows Genius Grant in 2014.  Good investment of their money – ours too.  Score:  Prince

Today, we grabbed last minute tickets to see The Secretaries produced by About Face Theater, a LGBTQA group.  Description from their website, “The Secretaries chronicles the initiation of Patty Johnson as she lands the job of her dreams at the Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon. But those dreams turn into bloody nightmares when she discovers that her coworkers are chainsaw-wielding lumberjack killers!  Amidst the campy carnage, this feminist satire skewers female stereotypes of the 80s and 90s while hilariously subverting sexist ideas of femininity. And while it was written more than two decades ago, The Secretaries remains startlingly fresh with regard to how little has changed in the last 20 years.”

The Secretaries reminded me a bit of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom which Ed and I saw in a dicey area of New York City about 1985.  Today, we went to the Sunday matinee – you need to be slightly more than high to really enjoy The Secretaries.  But it did have its moments, including the tyrannical office manager, Kelli Simpkins, who is a ringer for Tilda Swinton, the ingénue, played by Erin Barlow, one of our favorites at The Hippocrates Theater ensemble. Best of all, it brought back floods of memories of my first job in the Trust Department of Lake Shore Bank, 601 N Michigan Avenue.  Where are they now:  The office manager, Evelyn Nerdowitz, the vault teller, Bonita Dufik, the secretary to the EVP of the Trust Department, Susan Schultz, the bookkeeper, Josie Mancuso?  These women formed me in ways no college ever did.  But, score for the play:  Toad.  

Fall Theater Season in Tucson 2015

Winding Road Theater Company
Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, adapted by Toni Press-Coffman
directed by Susan Arnold, featuring MAC-Award Winner Lucille Petty
Our first Saint Joan, and admirably performed by Winding Road, especially Lucille Petty, who seemed the embodiment of a slight, middle-class French girl.  Shaw’s plays are usually long, so Press-Coffman’s shortened adaptation was appreciated.

All Hamlet, All the Time.

This Fall, The Rogue produced Hamlet and Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern
Are Dead in rep.  And, the National Theater broadcast live a performance of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

National Theater:  Saw this production first – most lasting impressions:

• Cumberbatch, lithe as a cat, gliding from floor to tabletop, rooftop to street.  That man moved like a ballet professional.  
• Always impressive, the NT’s staging of the final scenes included the destroyed castle of Elsinore, complete with tons of dirt.  What a job to clean that up after each performance.
• Polonius, always one of my favorites, played by David Calder, seemed shrunken in the role.

That National Theater Live is a great gift to the world from the U.K.

The Rogue

Hamlet by Wm. Shakespeare and Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, playing in rep. 

Oh, theatrical joy!  Matt Bowdren played Hamlet.  No, he became Hamlet.  Again, in a micro-theater, you heard Shakespeare’s most quoted lines up close and personal.  The Tucson production was considerably shortened from the NT Live production (almost four hours).  But this was easily the best Shakespeare production by The Rogue – we have seen about five over the years.  

And, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – pure magic.  Tom Stoppard brought the lunacy of Beckett to the stage existence of minor characters, whose only purpose is to appear several times in Hamlet, and like everyone else, to die.  The pair create word games, bet on coin flips and doze to pass the time between appearances.  When they are “on stage”, you experience that exact scene, with the same actors, that you saw in the performance of Hamlet.  How wonderful to see the plays in tandem.  Patty Gallagher is the more dim-witted Rosencrantz; Ryan Parker Knox is Guildenstern.  They inhabited the roles.  This was the best exploitation of Gallagher’s outstanding physical theater skills ever.  

University of Arizona Repertory Theater
Ooops, we did it again.  Cabaret, starring the U of A theater students.  They nailed it!  Excellent Master of Ceremonies and a Sally who gave her all.  The band appeared to be composed of profs – and they reveled in the swinging music.  

Reckless by Craig Lucas – Interesting, but not great, play with a dark Christmas theme.  Most memorable for split second scene changes.  All parts well-acted, but the ending was a let-down that wrapped things up a bit too neatly.  

How Could Anyone Forget "Moby Dick"? More summer theater in Chicago

Well, I did!  We "experienced" the full Moby at Lookingglass Theater on June 17th.  Lookingglass has become known for productions that combine drama with circus-type athleticism, imaginative staging and solid acting.  But reduce Moby Dick to two and a half hours?  Presenting a book as a drama is difficult enough, but MD is a novel inside of a natural history text.  And they did it very well.  

For me, hearing and seeing the beginning line, "Call me Ishmael", was like meeting an old friend in person.  The coffin was the central icon from the beginning.  The staging included stripping whale blubber off the hoop skirts of "whale ladies", men climbing and swinging from the rigging over 2/3 of the theater, a Greek chorus of New Bedford widows - there was hardly a factor in the plot that went usused.  Thankfully, they did not "waste" hours informing us about the different kinds of whales, my least favorite section of the book.  

Lookingglass is located at the old Water Tower at Pearson and Michigan, so a prime tourist area. Their productions combine the excellence and edginess of the Chicago theater scene with enough "tourist wow" to keep the crowds attending.  Their current production, which we will miss by one day, is Treasure Island, adapted by Mary Zimmerman.  If you plan to be in Chicago, don't miss it.  

Savoring Theater in Chicago, Summer 2015

DBH, his sister, Norah and I gorged on luscious theater this summer in Chicago.  Here’s a rundown on our outings. 

The Drowning Girls 

May 31st – The Drowning Girls at Signal Theater Ensemble.  Turn of the 20th century, three women, all murdered by George Joseph Smith, all in the bathtub.  Water, water everywhere in this innovatively staged one act play.

June 12 – The Birds – Dramatization of Daphne du Maurier’s short story.  Could have been truly frightening, but lacked sustained suspense.

June 26 – Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at The Goodman.  Based somewhat on The Cherry Orchard, the play featured excellent actors working an often banal script.  

June 28 – Bad Jews produced by Theater Wit.  7/8 of this play was tight, funny and featured outstanding performances.  The ending was maudlin and disappointing.  

All Our Tragic

July 4th – All Our Tragic – We celebrated the 4th by seeing for the 2nd time the 12 hour extravaganza produced by The Hypocrites.  Perhaps even better than the first time, we thrilled at revisiting the surviving 32 Greek plays smashed into a slam bang tale of lust, greed, death, spells and laughter.  Significant improvements made to the production, but the ending still a bit shallow. 

A Little Business at the Big Top

July 12 – Physical Theater Festival – Saw a Spanish duo present Popal is Gone and a solo performance by David Gaines of A Little Business at the Big Top.  Amazing theater.  Put this festival on your list for next year.  The performances were first rate and I think we paid $15 for tickets.  

July 26 – Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw – Ok, this is cheat.  I saw this fabulous production courtesy of the National Theater Live, broadcast to the Music Box Theater.  Ralph Fiennes was amazing.  Indira Varma was luscious and smart.  The production was amazing.  Thank you National Theater for bringing exceptional productions to such a large audience.  

August 15 – Brilliant Adventures at the Steep Theater.  Much like we discovered the Hypocrites in 2014, this year our discovery is Steep Theater.  They specialize in new, edgy plays, mostly from the UK.  The ensemble members are "steeped" in the Steppenwolf tradition of trauma in drama, which we love.  Brilliant Adventures is an interesting play about time travel – not great, but the acting was exceptional.  

American Idiot

August 30 – American Idiot produced by The Hypocrites.  A rock musical featuring the songs of Green Day, performed at the Den Theater on Milwaukee Avenue.  It looked like the locals took over the stage, as Milwaukee Avenue is a mash-up of homeless, helpless, hot spots.  Lots of rocking by amazing cast, but the effort lacked a soul.  I have never even heard of Green Day, much less their music.

Sideshow

Sept. 13 – Sideshow – musical at Porchlight Theater.  Story of Siamese twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton who try to make it in show business.  First act like a Disney musical.  Second act like a Sondheim musical.  We love Porchlight, but the first act needs work.

Sept. 27 – Disgraced at The Goodman – Pulitzer Prize winner by Ayad Akhtar.  Everyone has the opportunity to play the race or religion card in this play.  Supposed to be a great conversation starter for theater goers, but we agreed that there is no escaping race as a part of our national gestalt.  What matters is how you behave.

Lucio Silla

Sept. 30 – Chicago Opera Theater – Mozart’s first opera, Lucio Silla.  You can’t beat the Chicago Opera Theater for dramatic, economical staging.  About 20 members of the Apollo Chorus appeared on stage in what can only be described as, “Wear whatever’s comfortable, so long as it’s pants, long sleeved shirt, black, and casual.”  But it fit in with the sparse staging that used lighting to make the drama work.  Four sopranos, two in trouser roles and one tenor.  All magnificent voices.  Glad they are spending money on the right things.  Well, it was early Mozart, cut from six hours to two and a half.  Lots of trilling and repetition.  I enjoyed it as a “period piece”, but was ever so pleased that we did not have to witness all six hours. 

The Cheats

October 2nd – Steep Theater world premiere of Hamish Linklater’s The Cheats.  Intense and unsettling from the first words.  Moral of the play: be careful what you choose to share about your personal dark side.  This ensemble is definitely “Son of Steppenwolf” – complete with a fistfight.  We love it.  Excellent acting and a well-crafted play.  

We're ready to dive into the Tucson theater scene - yes, there really is one.  First up, Saint Joan by Shaw.  

Even when the fat man sings, it’s not over for me

La Rondine

Three hits in two weeks:  La Rondine by Puccini, Othello by Verdi and Lucrezia Borgia by Donizetti.  And we are not at the Santa Fe Opera.  These are re-broadcasts of previously live performances at our local theater.  I guarantee that if you like opera at all, you will love the whole new medium of broadcast opera.  No, it is not the same as being in the opera hall; for me it is better.  First of all the investment is $12 for the rebroadcasts.  Live broadcasts during the season run around $30.  Compare that to the $150 to $250 a ticket we pay for really good seats at the opera hall.  We get to see operas we would never see, with first class performers.  I get to eat an apple during the performance (if I want).  One time, a friend and I brought a picnic for the interval and ate at the tables outside of the theater.  To find where this is happening near you, Google Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, or Royal Opera broadcasts.  They also broadcast ballet and theater from the National in London.  

La Rondine was so wonderful that I purchased the disks to listen again and again.  This is a “lost” Puccini, swallowed by the start of WWI.  It is beautiful and a relatively easy opera to stage – it should be performed more often.  Many don’t consider it “serious” enough as Puccini originally designed it to be an operetta, but changed his mind.  I rather enjoyed the lighter nature of the plot.   This production from 2009 starred the soprano Angela Gheorghiu and the tenor Roberto Alagna.

Othello - a serious love mismatach

Othello starred Johan Botha and Renée Fleming.  But the real star was the bass-baritone Falk Struckmann’s forceful yet subtle Iago.  Solemn, malignant and unassuming,  Struckmann conveyed chillingly how Iago manages to wreak such havoc while eluding suspicion.  This 2013 production was panned by the NYT because there was no chemistry between Botha and Fleming.  Ok, she’s about 5’5” and weighs about 150 and he’s over 6’ and weighs 400+.  Give us a break.  This Othello did not need to play the race card to account for his problems.  Also Botha’s emotions range from A – B.  His one facial expression is a scow - but who cares with his voice!  We loved it.  It’s Verdi - so lush, lyrical and grand.  I’m a big fan of duets, trios, quartets, etc.  Verdi uses these devices to show different thoughts going on inside the minds of the characters.  So, even though they are involved in a duet, they are not really communicating.  Lovely, but strange.

Renee Fleming in Barbarella costume

And then there is The San Francisco Opera's Lucrezia Borgia, starring Renée Fleming as Lucrezia and Michael Fabiano as her long-lost son.  This is a Donizetti opera, so lots of bel canto vocal flourishes and ensemble singing.  Fleming sort of “swanned” through the role, but Fabiano as Gennaro, breathed life into the role's improbable conflicts and sang with both graceful lyricism and full-throated ardor.  The fact that he is rock star sexy only enhanced his appeal.  As his boon companion, Maffio Orsini, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, in a trouser role, was excellent and their duets were spell-binding.  The real star was bass-baritone Vitalij Kowaljow, who gave a thrillingly robust and commanding account of the all-too-brief role of Duke Alfonso, Lucrezia's jealous husband.  However, it has hard not to laugh when the director toyed with the affections of Maffio and Fabiano, adding bits of feigned homo-erotic lust and nose-rubbing.  Really?  They saved the best till last when Renée appeared in a Barbarbella costume for the third act.  With a butch haircut.  Really?  Based on my little review, you may think I did not like this production, but it was wonderful.  The minor imperfections only made it more appealing.  

The Yummy Gennero

The 2014 - 2015 Met season begins in October.  Here's the link. 

A Night at the Opera - in Chicago

DBH and I love to see “new to us” operas.  Chicago Opera Theater  presented two German operas in English, Viktor Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis and Carl Orff’s The Clever One.  The location was DePaul University’s Merle Reskin Theater, formerly the Blackstone Theater.

I have two vivid memories of the Blackstone, which is located directly north of the huge Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue.  The first is attending a play with my fiancé on August 28, 1968.  Totally unbeknownst to us, the Chicago Democratic Convention riots started during the production and we walked out into a mob of police, bloody young men and women and news cameras.  We hoofed our way out of there fast.  The second is taking my two nieces, Megan and Tracy, to see Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat.  To this day, they can still sing the songs.  

The Harlequin and Death in The Emperor of Atlantis

The operas we saw were homage to German composers working during WWII.  Ullmann is best remembered for his copious output while confined by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt ghetto.  He later died at Auschwitz.  The Emperor of Atlantis is written in the modern, atonal manner; you don’t go home humming the tunes.  It’s a about death going on strike, much to the Emperor’s chagrin.  He’s fighting a war and wants the enemies to die.  In true politician fashion, the Emperor then declares that he has freed the country from death…and so it goes.  Interesting, but not enjoyable.  Notable was the center stage set which consisted of two bunk beds that imitated those seen in the horrible photos inside the concentration camp barracks.

The King, the Clever One and the shadow puppets behind paper panels.

Carl Orff’s survival during WWII may have resulted from collaboration with the Nazis.  It’s the old tale of “he said, she said”, but he lived rather well under the Third Reich.  Orff is best remembered for Carmina Burana, written in 1937.  The Clever One reflects the primitive rhythm expressed by voices and percussion, combined with lyrical voices and orchestra, that characterizes Carmina.  It’s the story of a clever woman who outwits the king in a most kind and loving way.  It was the hit of the evening for us – because we love Carl Orff and because it was a fun and charming production.

Featured in both productions were outstanding singers; notably Emily Birsan, Soprano, David Govertsen, Bass-baritone, and Bernard Holcomb, Tenor.  These are young talents that we will hear more from as they mature.

But for me, the greatest talent was the Video and Puppet Designer, Sean Cawelti.  The Clever One was staged with three paper rolling screens behind the singers.  These were used for drawing, video projection, cutting apart for entrances and exits, and for shadow puppets.  The interaction of the set with the singers was dynamic and engaging.  Hard to describe, but so effective.  

Emotional void…

DBH and I saw three plays recently – and none of them resonated with us.  Yet most received sterling reviews.  What’s wrong with us - especially after our delight with How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying?

The White Snake

First, we saw The White Snake, produced and directed by Mary Zimmerman.  This woman can create.  She’s a former MacArthur Fellow and now creative director at both The Goodman and Lookingglass Theaters in Chicago.  She usually provides a thrill ride for her audience.  Several years ago, her production of Metamorphosis at Lookingglass brought me to tears as I stood to applaud at the end, it was so stunning.  But White Snake, produced at Goodman (where I feel the stage was too large for such a small production) was flat.  There isn’t much of a story – a Chinese tale about a demon white snake who longs to be human and experience love, and the man who loves her.  Same old, same old.  Lots of Zimmerman stagecraft and panache, but no real heart.  

Cabaret

Then onto to Cabaret, produced by The Citadel Theater Group in Lake Forest.  We love Cabaret, and this is the fourth time we have seen it in two years.  Are we Cabaret-ed out?  No, this play always grabs my heartstrings.  And per usual, the romance between Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, who have the most lyrical songs and the best voices, did play beautifully.  But Sally Bowles?  Cassie Johnson played her with such an affected accent and no singing voice at all.  Granted Sally is supposed to be a hard case cabaret floozy, but she does have a lot of great song and dance numbers and Cassie didn’t hit the mark with us.  Dominic Rescigno’s Emcee was nuanced, but small.  The Kit Kat girls and boys were suitably sleazy and Citadel did a good job of staging a large production in a very small space.

I wanted the Cabaret production to be mind-blowing.  My two nieces, ages 16 and 13 were with us - their first really adult musical theater.  They both had just studied the Holocaust, so it was appropriate that they see how theater can treat such a tragic subject with music, laughter, respect and awe.  

Exit Strategy

Lastly, we raced to see Exit Strategy, a new play by Ike Holter produced by Jackalope Theater in the depths of the old Armory on North Broadway.  The reviews were stunning.  Focusing on the closing of a Chicago public high school, the characters are five teachers, a vice-principal and a student.  The audience was studded with teachers who laughed and cried throughout the performance.  Maybe you had to be a teacher to love it.  But, neither DBH nor I felt emotionally involved.  That’s the fault of the playwright, who actually used the ghost of a character who kills herself in the first scene to pull the plot development along 2/3 of the way through.  A ghost?  Does this author think he is Shakespeare?  On the other hand, the actors were wonderful.  Unlike a lot of newer plays, Exit Strategy actually makes the actors sustain long scenes of intense emotion and they nailed it.  But the play did not come together into a cohesive emotional build.  In fact the ending (when the bulldozers come) was flat as a pancake for us. 

5900 North Broadway

On a higher note, we discovered a great new restaurant, Broadway Cellars, directly across from the Armory.  DBH had the biggest plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes ever (BP claims to be a comfort food restaurant) and I enjoyed Salad Nicoise with excellent rare tuna.  I snitched a few bites of the mashed potatoes with gravy and they were yummy.  We will return.  

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.

A Little Gypsy in My Soul

Ethel Merman as Rose

It’s December, 1961.  I’m with my friends, $5 standing room at the back of the American Theater in St. Louis, waiting to see Gypsy.  Right on the aisle and as I glance to my immediate left and there is Ethel Merman waiting for her cue to enter down the aisle.  It doesn’t get much better than this.  

I have delicious early memories of the theater:  Rapunzel at a children’s theater in Kirkwood; then One Touch of Venus with my Mobile aunties to see Ethel Merman and then the next year Call Me Madam with Ethel Merman – both at the magnificent St. Louis Muny Opera.  The aunties were great Ethel fans.  Nothing subtle about their taste in theater.  

We were not a musical family.  Daddy sang, always off key.  Mommy sang, but never more than along with the hymns or the radio.  As the youngest with two brothers, I was raised with America’s Top 40, then Johnny Mathis, the Kingston Trio.  But somewhere along the line, I grew to love musical theater, opera and classical music.  And, through my DBH, to enjoy blues, Portuguese fado, reggae, and lots of great Brazilian music.  

Louise Pitre as Rose

So, even though Saturday morning was spent with stomach flu, I snagged a half-price ticket to the Chicago Shakespeare’s Gypsy, starring Louise Pitre as Rose. What a magnificent show.  It’s a small theater, and I sat in the first row left, singers and dancers almost in my lap.  Was it the flu or the catchy music of Jule Styne and the great lyrics of Sondheim that brought tears to my eyes?  This musical just has one hit after another.   

Moral of the story – take young people to the live theater.  One of my joys is hearing my nieces enthuse about the plays we enjoyed when they were young:  Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Master Harold and the Boys – but no Ethel Merman…

Ooop, we did it again - back at the Kit Kat Klub

Our new favorite Tucson theater group, Winding Road, mounted Cabaret - with 12 performers, 6 in the orchestra, on a 30 by 15 foot stage in a theater that seats 100.  They did a great job.  The only props on the stage were two chairs, a typewriter table and a typewriter.  There wasn't room for anything else, and the chairs had to disappear during most of the musical numbers.  This summer we saw The Chicago Light Opera Works do a bang up job of Cabaret in a medium sized theater with a splendid cast.  But intimate theater is it's own reward - no mikes, no place to hide.  As we felt with the Chicago production, the performers who carried the show were Fraulein Schneider, Susan Arnold and Herr Schultz, David Johnson.  Not only are they superb actors, but their voices blended magically.  The ensemble showed the only weaknesses, as two of the females just weren't slutty enough.  The Kit Kat girls are decadent - that's where most of the fun comes from in the production.  Christopher Johnson as the Master of Ceremonies was strong throughout and gave a seminal role his own interpretation.  Please see this show if you are in Tucson. 

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.   

Toad kissing in Chicago theaters...

DBH and I are back in Chicago and hitting the theater circuit again.  Not that we don't do theater in Tucson - that has become a joy for us.  But here there are so many theater groups that our Wednesday - Sunday calendars are frequently booked up.  And then there is HotTix - 50% off most tickets + a service charge.  It's run by the League of Chicago Theaters and the box office is just down Michigan Avenue in the Water Works building.  So here's our rundown since May 11th.  For those of you new to toad kissing, that's what you have to do to see really great theater.  You kiss a lot of toads until you find a prince...

The Creditors, written in 1889 by Strindberg produced by Remy Bumpo -  about an ex-husband, a current husband and the wife.  Excellent production with all the dark, cruel scheming you might expect from turn-of-the-century Scandinavian author.

Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller - produced by Theo Ubique Cabaret.  Just music and all the greats from the 50's and 60's.  Charlie Brown, Up on the Roof, Poison Ivy,  etc, etc.  This is the same group that did the full production of Cats on a 10 x 30 foot stage in a room seating less than 100 people.  Fantastic.

Spoon River Anthology - Edgar Lee Masters' stirring 1915 poem cycle transformed into an emotional theatrical experience, as the deceased citizens of one small American town tell their stories from their home on cemetery hill - it's a musical!  The Provision Theater Company hit this one out of the park.

Barnum - The life of P.T. Barnum with songs by Cy Coleman, produced by The Mercury Theater Group.  Excellent.  A tiny stage filled with circus performers, high wire acts, singers and dancers.  I loved it.   

This House - UK's National Theater live telecast to the Music Box Theater.  Shows the action in the Whips' offices of Parliament in the years leading up to the change in government from Labor to Tory with the election of Margaret Thatcher.  Excellent.  Aided greatly by watching several months ago the original BBC production of House of Cards. 

The Emigrants by Slawomir Mrozek, produced by The Organic Theater Company.  Excellent acting - almost three hours on stage by two actors.  But what a boring script.  James Joyce would be stimulating after Morzek.  Next time, we'll look at who is the playwright as well as what the reviews say about the acting.             

The Audience - Written by Peter Morgan and starring Helen Mirren.  Another National Theater Live performance - 110,000 watching around the globe, largest audience ever.  Stunning, as Queen Elizabeth trots through her 11 PMs and their weekly 20 minute update.  All as imagined by Peter Morgan.  I laughed, I cried, it's so much better than Cats.

More information on the National Theater Live events.  Check them out in your city. http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=813677

 ©annboland.com 2013

A Good Dose of Chicago Theater

DBH and I are in Chicago for several weeks.  I’m doing the Hancock Hustle with my family on the 24th of Feb.  Coming in early gives me a chance to practice in our 24 story building.  I’ve climbed the equivalent of the Hancock twice this week – the first time a breeze, the second a real test of character.  And in between we did two theater matinees, with the other gray hairs.  Our theater pair was not the sort you would associate with matinee goers:  The Motherf**cker with the Hat (TMWH) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (BTBZ).

TMWH was staged at Steppenwolf.  Not an ensemble piece, but directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Anna Shapiro, who directed August: Osage County on Broadway and in London.  BTBZ was at Lookingglass, lately one of our favorite Chicago venues and only six blocks from home in the old Water Tower. 

If they were competing plays, BTBZ wins hands down.  Compelling drama about the war in Iraq from the pov of good and evil Iraqis, crazed Marines and dead zoo animals.  My only hesitation about awarding further kudos to the play is that the tiger cursed.  He cursed man, god, zoos, his appetite – using human swear words.  Tigers would not stoop so low.  It demeaned the character. Most people swear because they cannot formulate more appropriate words to express their frustration.  A tiger would be more thoughtful and deliberate.

Caged "tiger" guarded by Marine

TMWH is about low-life, recovering and non-recovering addicts.  Yes, it’s full of foul language, but consider the source.  These characters are frustrated all the time.  And in the morass of addiction and the fragility of recovery, they sling foul language like laser lights – lots of display, but no one hears or reacts to the hurt.  It’s just the way they talk.  Sad.  The play was well acted (remember its Steppenwolf, so it’s scream theater), but not really memorable.  Just sad. 

©annboland.com 2013

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

You don’t go to Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago looking for comedy, romance or musicals.  You go to find intense theater, radiating dysfunctional families, friends and strangers in conflict.  DBH and I call it “scream theater” because there was hardly a Steppenwolf production where the cast did not end up screaming, hitting, shooting and shouting.  And we loved them all.

My history with Steppenwolf goes back to 1982 when I moved solo to downtown Chicago and could walk to the ensemble’s home at Hull House on Broadway.  I saw just about every production, climaxed by Laurie Metcalf’s stellar performance in Balm in Gilead in 1982.  In Balm, written by Lanford Wilson, I imagine that the script is a symphonic score.  Twelve denizens of a shabby café (think Broadway and Lawrence in Chicago) all in dialogue at once – some talking to others, others talking to themselves.  Out of this cacophony, a spotlight moves from table to table, and the lighted characters speak crescendo and the rest of the diners speak decrescendo.  Then the spotlight finds Darlene (Laurie Metcalf) and for the next 15 minutes she speaks to the audience, wins and breaks their hearts.  You can see a few minutes of this in a tribute to Lanford Wilson where Laurie Metcalf reads part of this soliloquy. 

Why is this important to August: Osage County?  Because there is so much theatrical history and baggage behind this play, written by Tracy Letts, a Steppenwolf Ensemble Member since 2002, and first performed at Steppenwolf in 2007.  August: Osage County tears the guts out of 13 characters who figure in a family trauma featuring a meanest of mean mommas manipulating her family following the suicide of the husband/father.  We loved it!  Scream theater at its best.  Steppenwolf comes to Tucson.  And under the stewardship of Winding Road Theater Company, who produce plays by living American playwrights.  It’s our first time at a Winding Road production – and we will be returning.  They stage the plays at Beowulf Alley Theater – so intimate with its 65 seats. 

Toni Press-Coffman as Violet

No theater company could attempt August: Osage County without strong actors.  The scenes are dialogue and tension laden.  One even harks back to Balm in Gilead when the actors grouped into four separate areas on the stage, all engaged in simultaneous conversations for a minute and then one scenario erupts bringing the action into its milieu.  The role of Violet the Mother is vicious, funny, awesome in its intensity.  Toni Press-Cauffman, a WRTC founder, lives the role.  Violet’s daughter, Barbara, requires an equally strong actress and Maria Caprille is up for it in both talent and physical presence.  Evidently the Weinstein brothers are making a film, with Letts writing the screenplay.  Meryl Streep will be Violet and Julia Roberts, Barbara. 

August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and picked up 5 Tonys for its Broadway production in 2008.  WRTC’s production is the first in Arizona, and a significant coup for such a small ensemble to successfully stage such a big play. 

For a more in-depth review of this production from the Tucson Weekly, click here. 

©annboland.com 2013

Mother Courage and Her Children by Berthold Brecht

In 1990 I was privileged to experience Glenda Jackson as Courage at the National Theatre in London.  I remember it being rough, with Jackson shouting, cannons bombing and flashing and pots, pans and drums creating cacophony.  So much for my Berthold Brecht education.

Flash ahead 30+ years to Tucson and The Rogue Theater which embraces a genre of theater not often found here, e.g. Brecht, Faulkner, Beckett, Pinter, Albee…  The Rogue’s production of Mother Courage brought the 30 Years’ War between Sweden and Germany in the 1600’s alive on a 30 x 30 stage, complete with a manually rotated platform on which Courage’s wagon moved through the scenes.  When Brecht wrote the play, most scenes included lyrics for songs, but they were not scored.  Tim Blevins of The Rogue wrote original scores and voila, you have a war musical – and a cynical comedy as groaning one-liners pierce the dialogue – a bit of 17th century vaudeville. 

I could not begin to compare the two productions, but Cynthia Meier’s Courage was a gruesome testament both to how to survive a war and how to rationalize the death of your children.  More than the horrors of war, Mother Courage is about the horror of the business of war and how it profits the very rich, feeds off the poor and provides employment for the industrious.

©annboland.com 2013

Sins of the Mother

Originally posted May 5, 2012

Little ol’ Tucson is finally getting big time theater – and it isn’t coming from Broadway in Tucson with their road shows.  For years, DBH (Dearly Beloved Husband) and I have been avid theater goers.  Not the several times a year variety, but several times a month.  We call it “toad kissing”.  We are happy to see the no-name performers and writers to find the prince that sometimes lurks in a theater with no curtain, folding chairs and “Pay what you can Thursdays”. 

Beowulf Alley Theatre has had a rough season.  Play selection has been spotty, acting inconsistent within a production, direction and timing off in plays that require spot-on action.  But we have stayed with it – mostly because we sometimes find princes.

Sins of the Mother by Israel Horovitz is a prince.  The production features four talented performers – one of them wickedly so, Ken Beider.  His role is twin brothers, cast asunder by the sins of their brawling parents.  No, he does not play them simultaneously through the miracle of digital imaging.  One brother, central to the first act, is murdered.  The other brother carries the second and third acts, resolving and dissolving the family feud. 

The situation, pacing and dialogue reminded me of Arthur Miller, though Horovitz says he is strongly influenced by Samuel Beckett (remind me to see more Beckett).  There is a lot of drama, humor, violence, a few strong words, but mostly an engrossing unfolding of tragedy – and mysteries that are not all neatly tied up by the end of the evening.

We also enjoyed returning to a favorite downtown eatery, The Hub.  Great food, excellent service, very reasonable prices and two blocks from the theater.  There were four in our party and we fell upon the “French fries (cooked in lard, of course) topped with blue cheese, served au jus” for our appetizer.  $7.  Magnificent.  I always get their souped-up hot dog, served with home-made sauerkraut and lean pastrami.  DBH chose to dine solely on mac and cheese with bacon.  There are no “cheap and cheerful” beers at The Hub (like a Bud Lite), only brew-pub styles.  I’m not too fond of most of these, as I enjoy lagers.  Our waiter recommended (and brought me a taste of) Scrimshaw, a pilsner on draft from North Coast Brewing in CA.  Delicious.  The Hub also make over 30 flavors of ice cream.  We ended our meal with a taste of Bourbon Brickle. 

©annboland.com 2013