The Screwtape Letters At
the Mercury Theatre By Dan Zeff CHICAGO—“The
Screwtape Letters” has been extended into next year at the Mercury Theatre.
That means there is a local audience for a play dedicated to promoting
Christianity. At
the weeknight performance I attended, the audience included numerous young
people who apparently represented Christian schools and youth groups. After the
show I saw a large bus that was loading spectators, clearly a theater party. So
the play is being marketed successfully to Christian groups. “The Screwtape Letters” should be an easy sell to religious
oriented customers. The theology is entertaining and accessible, with some
laughs and plenty of spot-on satire. It runs about 85 minutes without an
intermission, so the evening won’t take on the burdensome length of an overlong
sermon. The show should also attract playgoers beyond the Christian base who
will be intrigued by a stimulating evening that explores ethical and
theological problems with urbanity and wit.
The play is an adaptation of a book of fictional letters
written for a British newspaper in 1941 by the English intellectual C. S.
Lewis. The letters were collected into a book in 1942. The author created the
figure of Screwtape, a kind of middle management devil in Hell who exchanges
correspondence with his nephew, a young protégé devil in training named
Wormwood. In the letters, Screwtape instructs Wormwood in methods of ensnaring
a Christian soul on earth. The play is really a long one-man show. Screwtape does all
the talking and he’s the only figure on stage except for an imp called Toadpipe
costumed like a mummy. Toadpipe slithers about the stage, making noises, miming
actions, and collecting and delivering the letters between Screwtape and Wormwood. Screwtape starts off like a rather elegant middle-aged
professor at a prestigious English university (which was what Lewis was). Max
McLean, who also co-adapted the Lewis original with director Jeffrey Fiske,
plays Screwtape in a rich, loquacious manner. For most of the evening McLean’s
Screwtape is very much the droll sophisticate, educating Wormwood in the
subtleties of spiritually corrupting their human target. The play explores matters of good and evil from the viewpoint
of the bad guys, who gives the discussion a fresh and entertaining spin. The
personality of Screwtape calls to mind the aphorism that Heaven is great for
climate but Hell is for company. The
play provides much amusing satire of human attitudes, and some points that are
still relevant today. For example, Screwtape mocks the materialism that tempts
their human quarry in terms familiar to today’s audiences well acquainted with
the excesses of our celebrity driven culture. He lectures on war (the book came
out during the darkest days of World War II) in a manner that connects firmly
with current events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Screwtape’s description of
earthly concepts of female beauty—boyish figures and a fear of aging—hits the
bull’s-eye in 2008. Gradually,
Screwtape deteriorates from the urbane professorial gentleman of the opening
scenes into a driven and disheveled devil howling in rage over the probable
loss of his human prey to the forces of God, much to the injury of Wormwood.
Screwtape does not forgive failure when it comes to competing for human souls. McLean
makes fine company as Screwtape, though I lost a number of his words throughout
his unctuous delivery, to my loss. Hopefully other viewers had better luck
grasping all of McLean’s verbiage. This is a play that requires a clear head
and a strong attention span from the viewer. The show is all language and the
audience needs to concentrate to absorb all of Screwtape’s arguments. The
language may be wry and often humorous but the subject matter is still dense
and needs the customer’s full focus. Yvonne
Gougelet plays Toadpipe as a kind of nasty reptile. The character is mostly on
stage to provide visual variety from an otherwise all-talk, little action
drama. Gougelet gets maximum mileage out of her character, given that she has
no intelligible lines. She displays the supple body of a gymnast and
contributes some nice physical exclamation points to the evening’s satirical
thrusts. Cameron
Anderson’s set consists basically of a leather easy chair on a raked stage,
with a metal runged ladder at the rear for Toadpipe’s use in clambering up and
down to drop off and pick up the Screwtape-Wormwood correspondence. Tyler
Micoleau’s lighting is increasingly dramatic and, well, Hellish. Michael Bevins
designed the costumes and Bart Fasbender the sound.
“The Screwtape Letters” runs through January 4 at the Mercury Theatre, 3745 North Southport Avenue. Performances are Wednesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $29 to $48.50. Call 773 325 1700 or visit www.ScrewtapeOnStage.com.
The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. Oct. 2008
Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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The Kid from Brooklyn
at the Mercury Theatre
By Dan Zeff
CHICAGO—For people of a certain age, Danny Kaye could be the most affectionately remembered entertainer of his time. Kaye was a one of a kind comedian and actor, at his best in person but also a major star of motion pictures and television.
Kaye came across as a totally likable personality, and he carved out a notable reputation for himself as a humanitarian, both with UNICEF and as a fund-raising guest conductor with symphony orchestras. Audiences loved his tongue twisting vocalizing and gibberish songs and in England he was more popular than the queen. So the public Danny Kaye was a joy. The private Danny Kaye was a darker sort, temperamental and a womanizer.
A new musical called “The Kid from Brooklyn” at the Mercury Theatre tries to present both the public and private Danny Kaye. But the talents of the public Danny Kaye are so unique to the man that they defy accurate recreation, and the private Danny Kaye is a mostly unsympathetic person of no great interest. Besides, people attending the musical probably don’t want to watch a Danny Kaye as adulterer and neurotic, which may render half the show unappealing for many viewers.
To attempt a biographical stage piece on Kaye, an actor is required to can channel Kaye’s charisma and performing skills. “The Kid from Brooklyn “ has found its man in Brian Childers, who sounds like Kaye, at certain angles looks like Kaye, and makes a good run at replicating Kaye the entertainer, especially in his tongue-twisting patter songs. Childers delivers a performance of great exuberance (the public Kaye) and some emotional coloring (the private Kaye). I can’t imagine a performer coming closer to recreating the Danny Kaye the public loved from the 1940’s to his death in 1987.
Unfortunately it’s difficult to extract Kaye’s genius from his live appearances and TV and movies. He wasn’t a joke telling stand-up comic who could be re-created in isolation. Childers does soar in a couple of terrific set pieces, one a double talk number about getting drafted during World War II and the other a take on his famous “Minnie the Moocher” song. There are a couple of renditions of the “Tchaikovsky” tongue twister that launched his career in the musical “Lady in the Dark” in 1941, a good try but not up to the Kaye originals. So audiences do get a taste of the unique Kaye style, but once removed.
The musical is structured as a flashback, starting with Kaye in 1968 and going back to his start in show business as a Borscht Belt comedian named David Kaminsky in 1938. During the course of more than two hours of playing time, we get cameos of a flood of show business personalities who crossed Kaye’s path, like Laurence Olivier (for whom Kaye reportedly had a gay passion), Vivien Leigh, Cole Porter, Moss Hart, and Cole Porter.
Karin Leone is superb as Sylvia Fine, who managed his career, wrote most of his material, and as his wife endured his many infidelities. Christina Purcell and Adam LeBow play a huge gallery of show business characters who filtered through Kaye’s life. Both demonstrate exceptional versatility, and the ability to change costumes and wigs off stage in the blinking of an eye. Purcell is particularly effective as Eve Arden, Kaye’s main lover during his marriage to Sylvia Fine. And her Kitty Carlisle is spot-on.
The musical does not have an original score. Many of the numbers are associated with Kaye, though his classic “Anatole of Paris” unaccountably is omitted. A couple of songs are interpolated, “Hooray for Hollywood” and “It never Entered My Mind.” The result is a collection of tunes that give the show no particular musical identity.
The physical production is limited by the restricted Mercury Theatre stage space, much of it occupied by a fine quartet who provides the instrumental accompaniment. Shon Le Blanc’s costumes have an authentic 1940’s through 1960’s look. Peter Loewy directs and also wrote the show’s book with Mark Childers. It’s not a strong book. Too many of the real life characters are caricatures (like Gertrude Lawrence) and the comedy too often is lame. The show ends on a touchy feely note that may be true to Kaye’s marriage late in his life but seems rushed and forced in the show.
Judging from the large audience at my performance, “The Kid from Brooklyn” will attract a senior citizen audience with fond memories of Kaye. Childers’s bravura impersonation may satisfy these customers, but I left the theater feeling that I could have spent the evening more profitably watching Kaye in “Knock on Wood,” still the funniest movie I’ve ever seen.
“The Kid from Brooklyn” runs through August 24 at the Mercury Theatre,3745 North Southport Avenue. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $42.50 and $48.50. Call 773 325 1700.
The show gets a rating of three stars. June 2008
For more information, visit www.thekidfrombrooklynmusical.com.