Category: Leah A. Zeldes
REVIEW: Travels With My Aunt (Writers’ Theatre)
‘Travels’ a fun journey if a dated theme
| Writers’ Theatre presents |
| Travels With My Aunt |
| Adapted by Giles Havergal From novel by Graham Greene Directed by Stuart Carden Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon, Glencoe (map) Through March 27 | tickets: $45–60 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Written at the height of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" era, Graham Greene’s 1969 novel, "Travels with My Aunt",now being staged in a whimsical, well-theatrical adaption by Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, has not aged well. And not only does its theme — a decorously straight-laced man discovering the enlightening aspects of kicking off the traces of comfortably respectable morality — come across as dated in these straitened times, when comfort, respectability and morality seem both highly desirable and all too rare. but the notoriously philandering Greene’s depiction of women is unflattering, chauvinistic and antediluvian in the extreme.
There are four female characters of any significance in Greene’s novel, and all but one of them is relentlessly pursuing a man. First and foremost, we have Aunt Augusta — who for all her vigorous unconventionality, can’t travel without a man beside her — bent on reuniting with Mr. Visconti, the war criminal who has already once relieved her of a fortune. Then, there’s the hippie girl Tooley, bound for Kathmandu in the wake of a boyfriend who walked out on her in anger because she got pregnant. And Miss Patterson, so taken with her brief encounter with a married man that she’s spent her lifetime drooping beside his grave. Only Miss Keene, a kind of wistfully idealistic figure in the novel, holds back from degrading herself for the sake of a man, and that seems mainly because she’s too timid to do otherwise.
In his clever, 1989 theatrical adaptation, Giles Havergal tries to solve this flaw by doing away with women altogether: The female characters are still there, but they’re all played by men. Four male actors, identically clad in three-piece, gray, pin-striped suits and derby hats, portray some 25 characters, male and female, minor and major, as well as alternating as the retired-banker antihero, Henry Pulling. Pulling, a mild-mannered stay-at-home, encounters his elderly and surprising Aunt Augusta for the first time in more than 50 years at his mother’s funeral, and winds up led by her on a series of unlikely adventures across England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Argentina and Paraguay, bending his mind and his morals.
While sticking rather closely to the novel, Havergal nevertheless freshens the story by decentralizing Pulling’s emotional journey and the then-shocking-now-bland aspects of Greene’s mildly salacious novel and putting an emphasis on the ridiculous. He doesn’t quite fix the problems, but watching Travels with My Aunt becomes much more entertaining than reading the book. At Writers’ Theatre, Director Stuart Carden and his fine cast give us an intimate journey with sharp staging and wonderfully nuanced comic acting.
While each of the four players — LaShawn Banks, Sean Fortunato, John Hoogenakker and Jeremy Sher — portray Henry at various times, sometimes rapidly switching off from one to another, each also portrays multiple other characters, and specializes in one of the major roles.
Banks gives us Wordsworth, Augusta’s often buffoonish African valet and lover, whom she cruelly dismisses for Visconti. His performance in that role sometimes seems tentative, as if he’s uncomfortable in it. He’s terrific, though, as a Cockney cabbie, a fortunetelling friend of Augusta’s and in other roles.
Fortunato stumbled over a few lines on opening night, but that scarcely impaired his wonderfully evocative performance as Augusta, a switchover he accomplishes seemingly effortlessly, just by body posture, even before he opens his mouth. Hoogenakker’s comic switches run more deadpan as he portrays Tooley with a flat Midwestern accent and her father, the CIA man, with a sort of Texan twang that contrast ideally with the British tones of the other characters.
Perhaps funniest of all, the stone-faced Sher’s mostly voiceless primary role is one of onstage sound-effects man, using everything from wine glasses to an umbrella to enhance the on-stage action. (Kudos also to sound designer Mikhail Fiksel.)
The foursome travels together brilliantly, making this a trip worth going on, even if you don’t care for the journey’s final destination.
| Rating: ★★★ |
REVIEW: The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Project 891 Theatre)
What does it mean to be Jewish at Christmastime?
| Project 891 Theatre Company presents |
| The Last Night of Ballyhoo |
| By Alfred Uhry Directed by Jason W. Rost North Lakeside Cultural Center, 6219 N. Sheridan (map) Through Dec. 19 | tickets: $15 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Should a Jewish Christmas tree be topped with a star? That argument launches The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Alfred Uhry’s delectable examination of Southern Jewish culture in the mid-20th century, now playing in Project 891 Theatre Company’s nearly perfect site-specific production at Edgewater’s historic, 1914 Gunder Mansion (North Lakeside Cultural Center).
The year is 1939 and the place is Atlanta, where the film "Gone with the Wind" is having its premiere, while Hitler has begun his rampages in Europe.
Hitler seems remote to most of the Freitag family, complacent, long-established, well-to-do Southern Jews of German heritage, as they trim their Christmas tree. They’re part of an ingrained culture so assimilated they barely know what being Jewish is, other than to chafe at the bigotry of the gentiles who keep them from mixing in the South’s highest society. So they create their own, "a lot of dressed-up Jews dancing around wishing they could kiss their elbows and turn into Episcopalians," in turn manifesting their own anti-Semitism against "the other kind" — Jews more recently arrived, more religious, more obviously ethnic.
Uhry mined the true history of the South and his own upbringing here. The play’s name, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, refers to the big society event of the season for the well-heeled Southern Jewish younger set, a cotillion at the exclusive Standard Club.
At the outset, anxious, flighty Lala Levy, one of the daughters of the house, doesn’t yet have a date for this important night. Sensitive, prickly and awkward, Lala is a grave disappointment to her bossy, ambitious mother, Boo, who fears her daughter will never "take." Lala suffers in comparison to her prettier, brighter, collegiate cousin, Sunny Freitag, who shares the family home along with her fond, slightly vague mother, Reba. Boo’s bachelor brother, the long-suffering Adolph Freitag, nominally presides over the household, supporting them all in comfort with the family business, Dixie Bedding Co.
Into this mix comes handsome Joe Farkas, a new and highly valued employee at the firm, Brooklyn-born and unmistakably "one of the other kind." He sets the family at odds on a number of levels, ultimately challenging their perception of what it means to be Jews.
Commissioned for the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, was revised for its Broadway opening the following year. It deservedly received both the Tony and Outer Critics Circle awards for best play, as well as nominations for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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Skillfully staged in the mansion’s wood-paneled front parlor, with seating for just 23, this intimate production features superb acting, notably from the senior members of the cast. Darrelyn Marx excels as the acerbic Boo, pushing and goading her daughter with tough love, portraying this unlikable character with power and empathy. Lori Grupp charms as Reba, and Larry Garner puts in a wonderfully wry performance as Adolph.
Liz Hoffman captures Lala’s painful gracelessness beautifully. Sarah Latin-Kasper makes a serene Sunny, and Jason Kellerman gives Joe a perfect balance between brashness and bewildered sensitivity. His smile when Sunny agrees to a date lights up the room. Austin Oie is hilarious as redheaded Peachy Weil, the well-born Louisiana wiseacre whom Boo hopes to capture for Lala.
For those who prefer their December entertainment without cloying overdoses of sentiment and good cheer, The Last Night of Ballyhoo offers everything a holiday show should have: Great performances, depth, humor and pathos.
| Rating: ★★★★ |
Note: Allow time to find street parking
REVIEW: A Klingon Christmas Carol (Commedia Beauregard)
Fun, fresh retelling of Klingon holiday classic
| Commedia Beauregard and the Klingon Assault Group presents |
| A Klingon Christmas Carol |
| By Christopher O. Kidder and Sasha Walloch Directed by Christopher O. Kidder Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln (map) Through Dec. 19 | Tickets: $32 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Charles Dickens’ enduring holiday ghost story, "A Christmas Carol" has been translated into scores of languages since he wrote it in 1843, but by far the oddest has to be the tongue in which Minnesota-based Commedia Beauregard stages its surprisingly successful production at Greenhouse Theater Center in Lincoln Park. A Klingon Christmas Carol is performed almost entirely in Klingon, the artificial language invented by linguist Marc Okrand for the "Star Trek" movies.
Projected English subtitles and narrator provide context for those of who don’t speak the language, and the storyline has been adapted somewhat. Klingons don’t celebrate Christmas, so a festival called the "Feast of the Long Night" substitutes, a time when the warlike race holds tournaments to uphold clan honor and put their young through a grueling coming-of-age ritual. Scrooge is not only the antisocial skinflint he is in Dickens’ original but also a coward — a plot better fitting the context of the warrior culture of the Klingons, as developed in the TV series and films.
While there are plenty of in-jokes and references to delight the "Star Trek" buffs, you don’t have to know much about Klingons or the series to follow along. Klingons have evolved some since I last paid attention. When the 1960s-era "Star Trek" TV series began, during the height of the Cold War, Klingons resembled Russians. For the films, they got a remake to be more exotic and ugly, a transformation that was only explained much later in the canon. Except for the old-style Ghost of Kahless Past (Zach Livingston), the play presents latter-day, bumpy forehead Klingons.
Written by Christopher O. Kidder and Sasha Walloch and translated into Klingon by Kidder, Laura Thurston, and Bill Hedrick (who also designed the Klingon heads), with help from Chris Lipscombe, (who attended the opening clad in full Klingon regalia), the play has been performed in Minnesota for the past three years. This marks its Chicago premiere.
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I’m not qualified to comment on how good the translation is — they could be repeating "inka binka" for all I know — but the show works well on many levels. A broad acting style, coupled with the unknown language and masklike makeup give the show an intriguing similarity to Kabuki, the traditional Japanese theatrical genre. The adapted story fits into that convention as well. It’s convincingly foreign and yet familiar. Kevin Alves shines as SQuja’, the Scrooge character, cringing and ducking and crawling under tables.
Sara Wolfson, who plays the pointy-eared Vulcan narrator offering context, strikes me as a bit too animated and expressive to be one of the supposedly emotionless race exemplified by Leonard Nimoy, but it’s a minor flaw. The rest of the large cast all play multiple roles ably, though the actors sometimes rely too obviously on the floor-height teleprompters they’re using for cues.
Jeff Stoltz’s costumes would win prizes at any "Star Trek" convention. I’d have liked to have seen more exciting fight choreography and a less sketchy set, and the subtitle operator needs to keep pace better with the action.
Overall, though, A Klingon Christmas Carol provides a fun, fresh approach to an old classic. If you ever enjoyed "Star Trek," you’ll want to see it.
| Rating: ★★★ |
All photos by Guy F. Wicke
REVIEW: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Steel Beam)
No miracle in Christmas movie makeover
| Steel Beam Theatre presents |
| It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas |
| By Meredith Willson Directed by Donna Steele Steel Beam Theatre, 111 W. Main, St. Charles (map) Through Dec. 19 | Tickets: $23-$25 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Christmas, for many, is all about tradition. Familiar holiday rituals, from the Christmas dinner menu to the ornaments on the tree to time-honored Christmas carols and, yes, those old movies you watch on television every year. That’s why so many theaters play it safe with holiday shows adapted from the same old stuff.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas is another one: the plot of the 1947 Oscar-winning film "Miracle on 34th Street" re-imagined as a stage musical. Steel Beam Theatre’s earnest production offers a big cast full of cute kids and highly attractive adults, and I wish I could say this live show offered better Christmas entertainment than staying home with a bowl of popcorn and watching the movie on TV, but I can’t.
The familiar Christmas story follows young Susan Walker, who is being reared by her divorced and disillusioned mother, Doris, in a no-nonsense way that doesn’t include believing in Santa Claus. Their comforting pragmatism becomes shaken by Fred Gaily, the ex-marine turned attorney next door , and a bearded fellow who calls himself Kris Kringle, who shocks New York by telling Macy’s customers to shop at Gimbel’s.
The concept, from composer and adapter Meredith Willson, the man behind The Music Man, ought to have a lot of potential. It includes, among other things, a complete Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on stage.
Alas, this is no Music Man, and little about Willson’s score adds to the movie’s story. Few of the songs will leave you humming, and a couple are downright painful. The compacting and stylization necessary to fit the music into a stage-length show robs the plot of spice and leaves it cloying. Elements like a grown man, unknown to her mother, squiring around a little girl and a chauvinistic song about how long it takes a woman to ready herself to go out seem badly dated.
Originally called Here’s Love, the musical opened on Broadway in 1963 and ran less than a year. Its latter-day title change explains why, rather than being central, the show’s namesake tune, Willson’s famous "It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," written in 1951, gets medley treatment. Blended into something called "Pinecones and Holly Berries," it’s one of the better musical numbers, especially in its first iteration with a dance sequence performed by Jamey McDunn as Kris Kringle, Amy Steele as Doris Walker and Will Nifong as Marvin Shellhammer, a Macy’s marketing assistant.
Nifong’s wonderfully comic performance, here and throughout, forms a principal highlight of the show. This number also constitutes one of the brighter spots in Cynthia Hall‘s largely lackluster choreography.
The very pretty Amy Steele sparkles as Doris, but wobbles some in the vocals. A stalwart, smooth-voiced Greg Zawada portrays Fred, while McDunn’s perfect Santa Claus appearance is marred by a curiously tentative and soft-voiced performance. Lauren Freas did a charming job as Susan the day I saw the show; she’s spelled in alternating performances by Christina Zaeske.
Kara Blasingame is sweet as a little Dutch girl, alternating with Kathleen Miulli. Dean Dranias makes a stiff R.H. Macy. Adoniss Hutcheson, alternating with Mikey Taylor; and August Anderson; Brian Burch; Terry A. Christiansen; Haleigh Hutchinson; Andrew Kepka; Katie Meyers; Amy Moczygemba; and Emily Whaley fill out the ensemble.
The centerpiece of the second act comes in a zanily inane number, "My State, My Kansas," which has so little to do with the storyline that it recalls the quirky "Hernando’s Hideaway" of The Pajama Game. Sadly, it isn’t nearly so good a song as that, though this production points it up with a fun banjo solo by Gary Patterson, playing the judge in Kris Kringle’s insanity trial.
The cast, colorfully clad in Kim Maslo’s nice costumes, clearly has a great time and tries hard. But weak singers exacerbate the score’s dullness. A five-piece orchestra, borne up largely by trumpeter John Evans, does its best to support the vocals but sometimes overwhelms them. Overall, Director Donna Steele’s production fails to give us the pageantry and grandeur necessary to make a parade full of "Big Clown Balloons" come alive.
| Rating: ★★ |
REVIEW: It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (NobleFool)
If you love the movie, you’ll adore the play
| Noble Fool Theatricals presents |
| It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play |
| Adapted by Joe Landry from screenplay by Goodrich, Hackett, Capra, Swerling Directed by Rachel Rockwell Pheasant Run Resort, 4051 E. Main, St. Charles (map) Through Dec. 26 | tickets: $29.50–39.50 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Frank Capra’s 1946 film, "It’s a Wonderful Life," starring James Stewart, tends to provoke extremes of reaction.
Like the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play offers upbeat, family-friendly Christmas entertainment, in which you can count on a happy ending. If you adore the original, you’ll likely feel the same about the perfectly sweet production at Noble Fool Theatricals in St. Charles. If the movie gives you the bah humbugs, nothing about this live version — which, if anything, amps up the cuteness — will change your mind.
Of course, there’s no suspense left whatsoever. Except for his one lapse into despair, George remains saintly and forbearing; Mr. Potter remains money-grubbing and evil-minded; and Angel Second Class Clarence still twinkles.
This 1996 stage adaptation by Joe Landry frames the story of small-town do-gooder George Bailey as a 1940s radio show, replacing the movie’s dozens of characters with a cast of five. They portray radio actors performing a Christmas Eve broadcast of "It’s a Wonderful Life" before a live audience.
New fun comes in the logistics of the radio performance on Kevin Depinet’s convincing stage set and the versatility of the actors. Director Rachel Rockwell has assembled a talented cast, who sing such songs as "Button Up Your Overcoat" and "Merry American Christmas" along with performing the play within the play.
Jack Sweeney doubles as sound-effects man and actor, rushing back and forth with earnest fervor. George Keating, as the lead actor portraying George Bailey, offers a resemblance to Stewart with a less laconic style. Dev Kennedy plays the slightly irascible station manager and a variety of voice parts with verve. Anna Hammonds and Jessie Fisher give freshness to the female roles. Tom Clear ably plays multiple roles, including Clarence, as well as accompanying beautifully on piano, a highlight of the show.
Rockwell’s production shifts the frame’s setting from Manhattan to Chicago and heightens the cuteness factor with some youthful additions, including a schoolgirl singing ensemble with their teacher (Laura Eilers). Two alternating groups of adorable little girls sing a holiday song and stand in as the Bailey children (Emily Leahy, Kelsey Pettrone, Rebecca Roy, Marie Turner and Melissa Wickland and Leikyn Bravo, Megan Graal, Amelia Kuhlman, Annamaire Schutt and Madysen Simanonis).
This production also gives the soundman a young nephew. Stirling Joyner is appealing, but the role doesn’t add much to the plot. The local adaptation also adds some straightforward commercials for Fox Valley businesses to Landry’s comic, period-style advertisements for hair tonic and soap.
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Based on Phillip Van Doren Stern’s short story, "The Greatest Gift," Capra’s idealistic film about how one man can make a difference and goodwill can triumph over material wealth was not a great critical or box-office success at its premiere. The New Yorker described the movie as "so mincing as to border on baby talk," and it drew only $3.3 million in ticket sales, $8 million less than "The Best Years of Our Lives," released at the same time.
"It’s a Wonderful Life" is a fantasy, and not just because of the angel. If that’s your taste in Christmas entertainment, you’ll enjoy it.
| Rating: ★★★½ |
REVIEW: Winter Pageant 2010 (Redmoon Theater)
TV-inspired ‘Pageant 2010′ pales next to previous editions
| Redmoon Theater presents |
| Winter Pageant 2010 |
| Created and directed by Seth Bockley Redmoon Central, 1463 W Hubbard (map) Through Jan. 2 | Tickets: $10–22 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Redmoon Theater’s nearly annual, alternative take on an all-ages family holiday show, Winter Pageant, typically showcases the progression of the seasons and celebrates the return of spring, while avoiding religion, hackneyed holiday themes and Christmas commercialism. This year, alas, it also avoids innovation and runs short on pageantry.
A takeoff on the early-1970s TV sitcom "The Partridge Family," the show, just over an hour long, follows Rita and the Seasons, a family band consisting of Rita (Kasey Foster) and her four children, Summer (Eric Prather), Fall (Alex Knapp), Winter (Carly Ciarrocchi) and Spring (Matt Rudy, played on opening night by understudy Felicia 
Bertch). It’s 153 years after their ’70s success and the family are now all cotton-wigged, doddering geriatrics — depicted with a full complement of cheap, stereotypical jokes about dimwitted, disabled old people, from shaky Rita in orthopedic oxfords and pastel print housedress to Summer in unzipped plaid pants to an unfocused Fall with a walker. Still the ruling matriarch of her clan, Rita receives an unexpected package one day, which proves to be a magical box of memories of the group’s heyday that temporarily restores them to youthful vigor.
Each band member then reenacts his or her personal hit. The original music by Mikhail Fiksel, with lyrics by Creator/Director Seth Bockley, takes us on a mini-tour through 1970s musical styles, with Rita’s funk, surf rock from Summer, folk-rock from Fall and Winter and bubblegum pop from Spring, the baby of the family. The songs are bouncy and the singers good — these are the best parts of the production — but the show’s creativity seems to have stopped there.
More intimate than Redmoon’s usual spectacles, this show is mainly set on a small stage with only a few props. It’s all done with artistry, but there’s little here we haven’t seen before. No marvelous new gadgets or impressive puppetry mark this year’s pageant. It features such typical Redmoon tropes as scrolling cantastoria, shadow puppets, a few rod puppets and some ugly quilted soft toys, which carry out the cartoonish theme of the appliqued fabric backdrop. The glass-headed astronaut costume makes its inevitable appearance, accompanied by a cute space cow and the inexorable bubble machines.
"This year, we have been inspired by the sounds of classic rock and roll, and influenced by vintage cartoons and nostalgic T.V. shows," wrote Bockley in the program. "These forms of entertainment are a common language across generations."
Maybe so, but they’re a tired one. It’s disappointing to see Redmoon, which has produced such magical and creative performances in the past, turning to television for its inspiration, and such tiresome TV at that. Even its star, teen heartthrob David Cassidy, thought "The Partridge Family" was silly and saccharine.
If you’re willing to expose your kids or grandkids to TV-based comedy that mocks the elderly, they’ll likely have a good time. Nostalgic Baby Boomers who aren’t sensitive to digs about aging may enjoy it, too. I’m not sure what’s there for the generations in between, except amusement at the quaintness of the entertainments of their elders and reinforcement of youth’s smug conviction that they’ll never get old.
| Rating: ★★ |
REVIEW: The Water Engine: An American Fable (Theatre 7)
Suspenseful Mamet play recalls 1930s Chicago
| Theatre Seven presents |
| The Water Engine: An American Fable |
| By David Mamet Directed by Brian Golden Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln (map) Through Dec. 19 | Tickets: $12–25 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Set in Chicago in 1934, David Mamet’s rarely mounted 1977 drama, The Water Engine: An American Fable, currently in a beautifully nuanced production by Theatre Seven, takes us back in time to the Century of Progress World’s Fair. Charles Lang, a punch-press operator in a factory by day, dreamy inventor by night, has created an engine that runs on pure water. He dreams it will put an end to factories and bring him a peaceful life in the country with his unworldly sister.
Chicago history buffs, alternate-history fans and anyone who enjoys great, intimate theater should take this show in. While it’s set too late to be steampunk, this arguably science-fictional play has a similar feel. Brenda Windstead’s 1930s costumes and John Wilson’s sound-stage set transport us to another time, one that almost-but-not-quite existed.
But "autres temps, autres moeurs" does not apply here. In fact, it’s business very much as usual. In his effort to patent his invention, Lang runs afoul of a scheming shyster who tries to sell him and his creation into nefarious corporate hands. I don’t doubt that many would-be world-shaking discoveries meet similar fates today.
Although the plot is stridently black and white, it’s also edge-of-the-seat suspenseful, and Mamet brings in all sorts of fascinating sidelines, such as a recurring theme about a chain letter, period-style advertising and the world’s fair itself. The action cris-crosses Chicago, from the fairgrounds to still-extant spots such as the Aragon Ballroom and Bughouse Square.
Mamet originally wrote this short script, which runs about 80 minutes without intermission, as a radio play, and Director Brian Golden’s exciting staging effectively blends radio-style performance with more animated action in imaginative ways. His cast includes Theatre Seven company members Dan McArdle, Cassy Sanders, Brian Stojak and George Zerante, as well as Brett Lee, Lindsey Pearlman, Cody Proctor, Alina Tabor, Jessica Thigpen and Travis Williams.
Each cast member plays multiple roles in this play within a radio play. In fact, the 10 cast members portray over 40 parts, skillfully depicting radio actors, principals in the radio play and random Chicagoans in wonderful character sketches.
In the longest role, Proctor plays Lang with well-executed, nervous nerdiness. Zerante smarms as the crooked lawyer, and Williams menaces as the corporation muscle. Pearlman delightfully segues from refined actress to ranging street-corner orator to gruff storekeeper. Newcomer Tabor adds wide-eyed youthful charm.
The whole ensemble works together like a well-oiled machine.
| Rating: ★★★★ |
All photos by Heather Stumpf
REVIEW: To Master the Art (Timeline Theatre)
Delectable Julia Childs biography feeds the soul (if not your belly!)
| TimeLine Theatre presents |
| To Master the Art |
| By William Brown and Doug Frew Directed by William Brown TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington (map) Through Dec. 19 | Tickets: $28–38 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Don’t go hungry to see To Master the Art, TimeLine Theatre Company’s sparkling, heartwarming play about culinary icon Julia Child. Director William Brown and co-author Doug Frew have created a masterful, multi-layered experience that excites all the senses. Its tasty imagery and food talk, the loads of fresh ingredients displayed and the onstage cookery that wafts the scent of sauteed onions out to the audience will leave you ravenous.
This world premiere covers the decade Child wrote about in ‘My Life in France’, beginning with her first exposure to French food and cookery, when she and her husband, Paul, lived in Paris while he worked for the United States Information Service. We see Child’s sensual pleasure in her first French lunch. We learn with her how to choose vegetables and cook the perfect scrambled eggs. We see her frustrations as she works on the manuscript that would ultimately become the seminal “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.
Brown’s staging is impeccable, and his cast first-rate. Though a little young for the part — Child is 39 at the start of the play, and 50 by the time her first cookbook is published — Karen Janes Woditsch has Julia down, voice and mannerisms all exactly right. As her husband, Paul, Craig Spidle appears a bit more than 10 years his wife’s senior, but there’s plenty of sizzle between them. This is a love story, not just a food history.
It also touches on politics. Set in the 1950s, when the Red Scare was in full swing, the play chronicles the difficulties that even Americans abroad had with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Amy Dunlap expressively plays the Childs’ bohemian and possibly Communist artist friend, Jane Foster Zlatovski, persecuted by the witchhunt, and a dramatic scene shows an interrogation Paul Child underwent. We also see Paul’s increasing dissatisfaction with his government overseers. And, sometimes, his impatience with what becomes his wife’s sometimes overwhelming obsession. Spouses of food writers, chefs and other avid cooks will empathize with his heartfelt cry at yet another iteration of onion soup: "How many gallons of this stuff do I have to eat?"
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You needn’t be a foodie to enjoy this show. But those who love to cook and to eat will find lots to delight them. Designer Keith Pitts has created a quaint and workable Parisian kitchen that forms the backdrop for much of the action, complete with antique stove and pots hanging on the wall. (A culinary friend of mine spotted a ringer in the kitchenware, but it doesn’t matter.)
Terry Hamilton doubles in a delightful performance as Child’s mentor Chef Max Bugnard and her conservative, xenophobic father. Jeannie Affelder gives French fire to Child’s collaborator Simone Beck.
Ann Wakefield portrays the stuffy Madame Brassart, who balks Child’s progress at her cooking school, and wonderfully, Child’s wildly enthusiastic penpal Avis DeVoto. (In a minor flaw, the origins of the correspondence between DeVoto and Child, who had not met when they began writing to each other, is explained only in the program: Child had written to DeVoto’s husband, Bernard, about a magazine article he’d penned about knives — and received an answer from Avis, who had inspired the piece.) In an excellent piece of staging, Wakefield appears to act out DeVoto’s letters to Child. Juliet Hart also appears in an epistolary role as Judith Jones, the editor who ultimately shepherded Child’s work to print.
Ian Paul Custer, Joel Gross and Ethan Sacks fill out the cast, each ably playing a variety of roles.
TimeLine waited a long time before it commissioned a play — To Master the Art is the first in the 14-year-old company’s history — but it certainly started out with a flourish. Kudos also to dramaturg Maren Robinson and others who provided the excellent information about Child and her world contained in the program and lobby displays.
My only quibble: The show runs roughly two and half hours. It’s tough to sit through such a long, delectably food-centric play with nothing to eat. It ought to be dinner theater. At least, they should serve a snack at intermission!
| Rating: ★★★★ |
Note: Free post-show discussions take place on selected Thurdays and Sundays. An hour-long panel discussion will occur on Sunday, Nov. 14.
Extra Credit:
- download TimeLine’s 29-page study guide
- download Timeline’s Julia Child’s To Master the Art lobby display
- watch video excerpts from the production
- more interesting Julia tidbits on Timeline’s blog
REVIEW: Bubble Tea Party (Stir-Friday Night)
Stir-Friday Night celebrates 15 years
| Stir-Friday Night presents |
| Bubble Tea Party |
| Written/Performed by the Company Directed by Pat McKenna Chicago Center for the Performing Arts 777 N. Green St., Chicago (map) Through Nov. 20 | Tickets: $15 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
It’s been 15 years since the late Quincy Wong and Keith Uchima founded Stir-Friday Night. The troupe got its start after a group of Asian-American actors met through Jade Monkey King, a musical Uchima created in 1995. The duo decided that Asian-American writers, directors and actors needed a bigger showcase.
"When you saw Asians on stage, they were the doctor guy, the second-banana guy," Uchima recalled at opening night of Stir-Friday Night’s 15th-anniversary revue. So the two men worked to found a company that would feature exclusively Asian-Amerians. Ultimately, that evolved into the sketch-comedy and improv troupe that’s still going strong – Stir-Friday Night.
This current group includes artists, mostly U.S.-born, who trace their heritage to India, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. Their 15th-anniversary show, Bubble Tea Party, doesn’t show everything this company is capable of. Sketch-comedy revues tend to be uneven by their very nature — this one is more so than most.
The cast members all perform very well — when the show suffers, it’s in the writing. Some of the skits are lame — such as a recurring business about Olympic-style "Geisha Games" and an overlong, elaborate sketch of crude puns set in historic England; blue humor doesn’t seem to be this troupe’s strength. Other sketches start with interesting premises but never manage to come together, as in an odd piece that lampoons the Tea Partiers with an Alice in Wonderland theme and one in which a guy tries to convince his friend to eat 25 tacos in 60 seconds.
Undeniably, the company does its best work when it concentrates on the Asian-American experience. Two hilarious skits feature Amrita Dhaliwal playing an immigrant South Asian mother interacting with her American-born offspring.
The show follows up the scripted pieces with some improv, also with mixed results. The lineup isn’t set yet, but the company expects a few alumni to make guest appearances as well.
Stir-Friday Night deserves congratulations for its 15 years, and this show has enough funny moments to be worthwhile, but the troupe isn’t tapping the talent pool of Asian-American comedy writers deeply enough.
| Rating: ★★ |
Ensemble: Melissa Canciller, Amrita Dhaliwal, Samantha Garcia, Erica Ikeda, Jin Kim, Christine Lin, Harrison Pak, Avery Lee and Jasbir Singh Vazquez
REVIEW: The Dinner Detective (Knickerbocker Hotel)
Murder mystery lame but the food’s good
| The Dinner Detective presents |
| The Dinner Detective |
| Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago 163 E. Walton Place, Chicago (map) Open run | Tickets: $59.95 (includes dinner) | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
"My partner and I have never successfully solved a crime." That’s the way Det. Teddy Hugs introduces himself at the The Dinner Detective. So I can’t say its producers have achieved their goals: The Dinner Detective was founded on three simple ideas: We wanted to create a show with NO hokey costumes, NO lame scenarios and NO campy dialogue," say promoters of the interactive murder-mystery dinner show newly opened in Chicago after playing in Los Angeles since 2004.
"Hokey," "lame" and "campy" are exactly the words to describe this raucous comic mystery where actors are disguised as members of the audience and you get to solve the crime. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun if you go into it with the right spirit (and enough spirits).
As you file into the dining room, you’re asked to choose your name for the evening — "something that’s not boring." Nametags at my table bore such names as Double Nickles, Coppertop, Shady and Zippy.
A host starts off the action with some introductory rules. During a meet-and-greet period, audience members are asked to interview each other in an effort to scope out who the criminal will be. The most creative question someone asked me was, "Have you ever wanted to kill a boss or an employee?" The person sitting next to you might be another theater goer, or one of the cast. (Hint: There are three public cast members and three ringers. The show doesn’t release the actors’ names or photos so as not to spoil the mystery.)
The food starts coming around next. Along with the show, your ticket buys you a full dinner starting with a couple of passed hors d’oeuvres, a tossed salad, a choice of entrees — grilled chicken breast with Dijon demiglace, grilled salmon with cucumber-dill relish or angel hair pesto primavera tossed with roasted vegetables, garlic oil, butter and pesto — with sides, dessert and coffee. The dinner, among the best food I’ve had at an event of this type, makes the package almost worth the ticket price. My plate featured perfectly cooked salmon and wonderful pureed potatoes. Drinks, at additional cost, range from $5.50 for pop to $11 for cocktails.
The action alternates with the courses of meal. After the appetizers, the host starts interviewing various audience members who may or may not actually be actors, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Hugs and his partner, Det. Sam Cisco, who make an exaggerated swagger around the room.
Then the murder victim bursts in, dying with extreme hamminess. During the rest of the evening, amid assorted histrionics, the detectives interview and accuse various audience members, asking about what they do for a living, their hobbies and other such details. A woman who said she was an actress was urged to present a scene. Other audience members were prompted to reenact the death scene.
Periodically, the lamebrained detectives uncover a clue, which is passed around to the audience on photocopied sheets. Ultimately, everyone gets a chance to guess the murderer and the one who guesses right wins a prize.
If you go to this show with the idea that it’s going to be less intellectually challenging than a game of Clue, bring a group of friends and indulge liberally at the cash bar, you’ll likely have a great time.
| Rating: ★★ |
REVIEW: Stalk (La Costa Theatre)
Grim fairy tale never lightens up
| La Costa Theatre presents |
| Stalk |
| By Stephen Gawrit Directed by James Wagoner La Costa Theatre, 3931 N. Elston, et al. (map) Through Nov. 28 | Tickets: $15–25 | more info |
Reviewed by Leah A. Zeldes
Uncomfortable topics have been the subject of many musicals, but rarely one so agonizing as Stalk, a world premiere by Stephen Gawrit currently at La Costa Theatre. This very dark story uses the fairy tale of "Jack and the Beanstalk" as a metaphor for child abuse.
That Stalk isn’t an ordinary musical becomes apparent right from the beginning … more than 10 minutes go past before we get to the first song. Instead, we hear young Jack’s parents engaged in a bitter off-stage argument, full of invective and foul language, and watch him sneak away with his grandmother to a strange circus where an odd, Bradburyesque barker tells the familiar story of the boy who traded the family cow for a handful of magic beans.
Cleverly conceived in many ways, the show features larger-than life puppets and masks conveying the fairy-tale characters. Gawrit employs interesting characterizations and intriguing uses of fantasy to emphasize his point.
But it never, ever lightens up. Stalk is a downer from start to finish. We watch Jack grow up in fear and pain with his brutal father and drug-addled mother, two bitterly disappointed souls forced to give up their youthful goals to be a musician and actress to return to their hometown, where he works in an abattoir and she waits tables. We witness a vicious beating and worse. Poor Jack’s only solace is his fey and ineffectual grandmother, and she dies in a pretty ugly way in front of him.
Hamlet has more bright notes than this show. There’s almost no comic relief. Other musicals, The Who’s Tommy, for instance, manage to deal with such very serious themes in far more entertaining and less depressing ways.
The pop/soft-rock tunes of Gawlit’s often dirgelike score underscore the grim mood. The music’s pleasant and well-performed, but after a while it all sounds the same. There’s not an upbeat song in the bunch.
Even "I Shine for You," a love song that Lily and Gregory, Jack’s parents sing to each other, has dark edges. "Edge of My Horizon," a song the then-teenaged Jack and his friend, Greta, sing at the start of the second act is lighter and more charming than most, but it isn’t enough to provide a lift. The score needs a few sparklers.
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The cast sings and acts well. Helene Alter-Dyche puts in a beguiling, if not always comprehensible performance as the grandmother. Scott Danielson terrifies as Gregory, the gruesome father/giant, and Meghan Phillipp seems suitably vacant as Jack’s mother, who metamorphoses into an ugly witch. Jacob Carlson creates a barker full of sinister mystery, really a highlight of the show.
Melissa Imbrogno portrays Greta, a friend of Jack’s who isn’t very well explained, but may live in a similarly abusive household. Jordan Phelps imbues Jack with terror and confusion.
The brightest spots in the whole show, though, are Lauren Michele Lowell’s fanciful costumes, particularly those of Jack and Greta in the second act.
Only sadists enjoy watching this much relentless pain. As important as the musical’s message is, Gawlit and company need to remember that they’re creating entertainment, and take this back to the drawing board to add happiness and hope, not to mention some stand-out songs.
| Rating: ★★ |
 Stalk the Musical - La Costa Theatre[12].jpg "View album")
