Hot Mikado At the
Drury Lane Theatre By Dan Zeff Oakbrook Terrace – David H.
Bell, the choreographer of “Hot Mikado” at the Drury Lane Theatre, needs to
talk to David H. Bell, the director. Bell’s choreography is a joyful display of
energy, athleticism, rhythm, and precision. But all that good work is severely
undermined by a production awash in shtick, mugging, and a desperate grab for
laughs through low comedy excess. “Hot Mikado” is Bell’s jazzed up
adaptation of “The Mikado,” the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera of 1885. Bell
updates the setting of the Japanese never-never city of Titipu to the swing era
of the very American 1940’s. Sir Arthur Sullivan’s songs have been basically
retained along with William Gilbert’s libretto. But now the male characters
wear zoot suits and the dancers are jitterbugs. It’s unlikely that many spectators at
Drury Lane are familiar with the Gilbert and Sullivan original, but the show is
still easy to follow as a stand-alone exercise in hot dancing, pop and blues
singing, and extravagantly comic characters. The plot is one of Gilbert and
Sullivan’s silly romantic stories about the path of true love not running
smooth, until a ludicrous twist at the end makes everything right. In “Hot Mikado,” as in the original, the
lovers are Yum Yum and Nanki-Poo. They are surrounded by comic figures like Ko
Ko, the Lord High Executioner of the city of Titipu, the Mikado (the
traditional name for the Japanese emperor), and assorted supplementary
characters with names like Pooh-Bah, Pish-Tish, Pitti-Sing, and Peep-Bo. There
is also a ferocious woman named Katisha who competes with Yum Yum for Nanki-Poo
as a husband. A sensible storyline is the least of the
comic opera’s concerns. Gilbert and Sullivan provide a framework for lots of
singing and dancing and comic byplay. And that should be good enough to give
audiences a grand time, especially with the mostly solid cast employed by Drury
Lane. The production gets off to a rousing
start with some high stepping swing dancing by an ensemble of hoofers who
distinguish themselves all night. And the singing is well up to the mark,
mostly by the women—Summer Smart as Yum Yum, Aurelia Williams as a
blues-shouting Katisha, and that veteran treasure Susan Moniz rattling the
rafters as Pitti-Sing.
Where things go wrong is the
production’s relentless grab for easy laughs through smirking, double takes,
silly body language—seemingly anything that might pry a giggle from the
audience. The chief repository of this anything-for-a-laugh nonsense is Stephen
Schellhardt’s Ko Ko. The performance hits its nadir with Ko Ko’s massacre of
the charming song “Tit Willow” near the end of the show. But all the principals
join in the shtickfest at one time or another. What makes all the low comedy so
dispiriting is that “Hot Mikado” doesn’t need it. The show is a hoot without
all the dumb embellishments. A production at the Marriott Theatre several years
ago was a continuous pleasure taking the laughs as they came without forcing
the issue. But viewing the production as half full
instead of half empty, the Drury Lane production has much to recommend it,
starting, of course, with the singing and dancing. Summer Smart is a vivacious
Yum Yum and Devin DeSantis has a good tenor voice and pleasing stage presence
as Nanki-Poo when he isn’t submerged in strained comic absurdities. As typical
Gilbert and Sullivan one-dimensional lovers, they do very well. Ted Louis Levy makes his entry halfway
through the last act as the Mikado and provides a first rate demonstration of
tap dancing. The ever reliable Andrew Lupp delivers his typically strong song
and dance performance, this time as Pish-Tish. At its best, Bell’s adaptation is
audacious and hugely entertaining. And just being in the company of Summer
Smart, Aurelia Williams, and Susan Moniz when they are vocalizing is a total
pleasure. The physical production is excellent,
starting with the scenic design by Marcus Stephens that replicates a
traditional Japanese print. Jeremy Floyd’s gaudy costume designs plunk the
viewer back in the swing era (and would be just right for a revival of “Guys
and Dolls”). The lighting by Jesse Klug and the sound design by Cecil Averett
complement the visual staging nicely. The small accompanying band gets off some
hot licks under Jeremy Kahn’s conducting
and jive piano playing. In the interest of fair reporting, it
must be noted that the opening night audience ate up the show’s humor. I also
admit to a very low tolerance for pratfall comedy unless accomplished by Laurel
and Hardy or the Three Stooges. So maybe it’s a matter of taste. This is a show
that urgently wants to be liked. If the performers just doesn’t work so
feverishly for audience appreciation. “Hot Mikado” runs through October 3 at
the Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30
p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30
p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $31 to $45 with lunch and dinner
packages available. Visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com
or call 630 530 0111. The show gets a rating of three stars. August 2010 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com Follow Dan on
Facebook. ******************************************************************************** At the
Drury Lane Theatre By Dan Zeff Oakbrook Terrace – Give director/choreographer Jim
Corti credit for his brave and creative attempt to turn a mediocre musical into
a genuine crowd pleasure at the Drury Lane Theatre. The musical is “Sugar,” an
adaptation of the 1959 Billy Wilder movie comedy “Some Like It Hot,” one of the
most affectionately remembered films in American motion picture history. The
musical opened on Broadway in 1972 to tepid reviews and worse, but managed 505
performances before closing and virtually disappearing from the musical theater
landscape .
Sugar
“Some Like It Hot” is a farce about
Joe and Jerry, two musicians in Prohibition-era Chicago who accidentally are
present during a Saint Valentine’s Day-like mass gang killing in the Windy
City. To escape the pursing killers, who want to whack the witnesses, Joe and
Jerry masquerade as women and join an all-girl swing orchestra traveling to
Florida. In the movie the musicians were played by Jack Lemmon (Jerry/Daphne)
and Tony Curtis (Joe/Josephine). The female star was Marilyn Monroe, playing
the orchestra’s lushly formed vocalist, Sugar Kane. It’s extremely difficult to render a
movie farce effectively on the stage. The camera can go anywhere, a limitation
the stage rarely can overcome, in spite of Corti’s creative bright ideas. A
score that is scarcely memorable doesn’t help the project. Corti makes some bold decisions to
enhance the original. He scales down the playing time into a zippy 100 minutes,
plus one intermission, a quickie by modern musical comedy conventions. Corti
retains the basic elements of the plot, but streamlines the action,
concentrating on the laughs that emerge from the gender confusions, where most
of the movie humor resides. Recognizing that the musical version
is stage-bound, Corti makes a virtue of necessity by presenting the action with
considerable artifice. Stagehands wearing “Sugar” coveralls move the sets on
and off stage in full view of the audience. Stagehands operate the spotlights
on stage and banks of lights are raised and lowered from the rafters. The
staging facilitates the fluidity of the action and scene changes without
distracting the audience from its involvement in the storyline. Best of all, Corti’s production
never camps up the action with silly visual or verbal drag jokes. This is a
superbly acted production, a statement that can’t be made with all musicals.
The acting accolades start with the pinpoint casting in the leading roles—Alan
Schmuckler as Daphne/Jerry, Rod Thomas as Joe/Josephine, and Jennifer Knox as
Sugar. Schmuckler and Thomas are a splendidly matched team. Their
transformation into females is startling in its credibility. Knox is superb as Sugar Kane,
carving out a three-dimensional character from the stereotype of a ditzy blonde singer. Knox sings well and
beautifully executes a barefoot solo dance that has nothing to do with the
story but provides a fine showcase for her hoofing chops. The storyline pairs Joe with Sugar
Kane and Jerry with a lecherous old millionaire named Osgood Fielding, who
courts Jerry as Daphne. In a daring bit of interpretation, Schmuckler’s Daphne
goes so deeply into his female impersonation that he actually falls for the old
goat, leading up to the movie’s famous final line, preserved in the musical. The only other supporting characters
of significance are the female orchestra leading, played by the swinging Tammy
Mader, and the orchestra’s harried road manager, played by Stef Tovar. But this
is a big budget cast of almost two dozen performers, the latest testimony to
the Drury Lane policy of rfeaching deep into its pockets to present the most
professional productions. Brian Sidney Bembridge designed the
multiple sets, Melissa Torchia the colorful period costumes, Jesse Klug the
lighting, and Cecil Averett the sound. Credit also goes to Greg Isaac for his
witty property designs and Ora Jewell Busche for her wig designs, essential elements
in transforming Joe and Jerry into their female counterparts. Ben Johnson directs
the typically strong Drury Lane orchestra. Thanks to Corti’s concept,
directing, and choreography, “Sugar” ascends into a lark of a show. The
production demonstrates how fine singing, acting, and staging can help mask glaring
deficiencies in a show. “Sugar” will never be a great musical theater
experience, but in its Drury Lane incarnation as a deliciously giggling way to
pass a summer afternoon or evening, it works delightfully. “Sugar” runs through August 1 at the
Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.,
Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m.,
and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $31 to $45 with meal packages available.
Call 630 530 0111 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. June 2010 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com. Visit Dan on Facebook. Ragtime At
the Drury Lane Theatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE--The
Drury Lane revival of “Ragtime” is so exceptional on so many levels that a
reviewer is tempted to just urge playgoers to see the show and let it go at
that. But why deny the cast, the directors, and the designers their proper due?
They have combined to create a production that virtually redefines excellence
in Chicagoland theater. “Ragtime” has a claim to be the Great American Musical of our
generation. Set during the early years of the 1900’s, it follows three streams
of American life—the established WASP society, native African Americans, and
eastern European immigrants, and how their paths eventually intersect. The story blends fictional characters with
real life personalities of the time—financier J. P. Morgan, industrialist Henry
Ford, explorer Admiral Perry, entertainer Harry Houdini, and Evelyn Nesbit,
perhaps the first pop culture celebrity in modern American life. “Ragtime” combines Terrance McNally’s superb book with a
wonderful score by Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics). They
combine to tell the individual stories while assembling a fascinating mosaic of
American society from the turn of the last century to the start of World War I.
The white Anglo Saxon Protestant sector is represented by a
family living the American dream in their upscale and respectable New England
community. Black life is portrayed by a cultured ragtime pianist named
Coalhouse Walker Jr. The immigrant element is evoked by Tateh, a widower who
comes to America with his little girl to rebuild a life shattered by the
prejudices of the Old World. The original Broadway production was a high tech marvel, with
the theater interior reconstituted to accommodate the spectacular staging.
Drury Lane’s revival includes a massive ensemble of 33 performers, an enormous
financial commitment for the theater, especially a theater charging remarkably
low ticket prices. The cast is supported by an augmented pit orchestra,
conducted by Ben Johnson, the best I have ever heard in an area theater. The local presentation doesn’t wisely attempt to match the extravagant look of the
Broadway show. Drury Lane makes a virtue of necessity by shrewdly reducing the
scale of the physical production. The enhanced intimacy illuminates the human
qualities of the several storylines while individual characters emerge with
greater humanity and clarity. Not that the Drury Lane physical production is skimpy. The
designers retain the essence of the Broadway “Ragtime” production. Kevin
Dupenit’s sets are endlessly resourceful in guiding the story through countless
interior and exterior locales. He is aided by projections designed by Sage
Marie Carter and the properties deigned by Michelle Warner. Jesse Klug’s
lighting bathes the production in a mellow autumnal glow. The costumes by Santo
Loquasto and Brenda Winstead perfectly capture the look of the period. The
sound design by Garth Helm and Ray Nardelli further enhances the physical
production. The acting and singing are uniformly outstanding. The leading
performers are all familiar to Chicagoland theatergoers and all have done fine
work in the past, but they have collectively raised the bar to a new level at
Drury Lane. We can start with Larry Adams and Cory Goodrich (a wonderfully rich
performance) as the WASP father and mother. Quentin Earl Darrington has been
imported to play Coalhouse Walker and he gives a majestic performance. Mark
David Kaplan is brilliant as Tateh, the symbol of every European immigrant who
struggled to make a place in the New World. The smaller roles are no less inspired. Max Quinlan is
terrific as the WASP family son with the fire of revolution burning in his
belly. Valisia LeKae plays Coalhouse Walker’s star-crossed sweetheart with
great eloquence, both in her acting and singing. The historical characters are
vividly evoked by Don Forston (J. P., Morgan), James Earl Jones II (Booker T.
Washington), Stef Tovar (Harry Houdini), Jonathan Weir (Henry Ford and Admiral
Perry), Summer Smart (Evelyn Nesbit), Michael Aaron Linder (in several roles,
notably a perfect cameo as the Irish bigot Willie Conklin), and Catherine Lord
(exceptional as radical Emma Goldman). Let them honorably stand for all 33
members of the ensemble. Rachel Rockwell better clear off her mantle piece for the
flood of awards she will win for her directing and choreography. This immensely
complex show flows with an inevitability that reflects Rockwell’s intelligence
and theatrical command. She instantly promotes herself into the top rank of
directors in this area and perhaps nationally. Roberta Duchak’s music direction
partners Rockwell’s brilliance. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Drury Lane revival is
demonstrating just how good a show “Ragtime” really is. The musical’s virtues may
have been obscured a bit by the pageantry of the Broadway original. Drury Lane
doesn’t deny the show its spectacle, but it places greater emphasis on the
historical immediacy of those few pivotal years in American life before World
War I when American life was changing forever. Society was struggling with the
stress of race, culture was revolutionized by innovations like the movies, and
class conflicts between the rich and the poor were on a collision course. That
makes the production as informative and stimulating as it is entertaining. What
more could a theatergoer ask? “Ragtime” runs through May 23 at the Drury Lane Theatre, 100
Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8
p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $31 to $45. Call 630 530 0111 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of four stars. March 2010 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com
. *************************************************************************** At
the Drury Lane Theatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—Maybe
it’s time we stopped viewing “Funny Girl” as the show that made Barbra
Streisand famous. It’s been more than 45 years since the musical opened on
Broadway, and a large percent of today’s audiences either weren’t born then or
were too young to take notice of Streisand’s emerging superstardom. So minus the Streisand mystique, how does “Funny Girl” shape
up as slice of musical theater? On the evidence of the superior revival at the
Drury Lane Theatre, very well indeed. “Funny Girl” is based on the life of vaudeville star Fanny
Brice, a popular and affectionately regarded figure in American show business
during the first half of the twentieth century. The story follows Brice as she
rises from the lower east side of New York City to become a star in the
Ziegfeld Follies. During her rise she meets dashing gambler Nick Arnstein and
their troubled marriage dominates the second half of the show.
************************************************************************************
Funny Girl
The book by Isobel Lennart is serviceable but from first to
last “Funny Girl” is a star vehicle. The performer who plays Fanny Brice better
be a terrific singer, a good actress, a decent dancer, and an irresistible
comedienne. The score does provide a couple of Broadway standards in “Don’t
Rain on My Parade” and “People,” but without a star turn in the leading role
the musical can be just an average night for the audience. Which brings us to Sara Sheperd as Fanny Brice at Drury Lane.
Sheperd is terrific, bringing Brice to life personally and professionally. She
sings wonderfully and makes us laugh, yet when the show turns serious she still
holds the stage with the credibility of her acting. Best of all, Sheperd
doesn’t fall back on ethnic shtick to extract easy laughs from Brice’s lower
middle class New York City Jewish background. Sheperd is the jewel of the show, but Drury Lane has built a
superb production around her. Just a couple of years ago Drury Lane was
plodding along as a competent suburb theater dispensing adequate versions of
light comedies and musicals. But with the ascent of William Osetek as artistic
director Drury Lane is now a major force in Chicagoland theater, easily on a
par with the Marriott Theatre in the quality of its musical stagings. Co directors Osetek and Gary Griffin have mounted a
resourceful physical production for “Funny Girl.” Jack Magaw’s set designs
creatively take us in and out of the vaudeville theater world. Elizabeth
Flauto’s costumes perfectly place us in the early part of the last century. Magaw and Flauto manage to re-create the spectacle of a
Ziegfeld Follies revue with a comparative minimum of singers and dancers.
Certainly the original Follies numbers with their exotic costumes and sets must
have dazzled audiences, and there is no way Drury Lane could replicate
Ziegfeld’s opulent visual presentations, but the Drury Lane production numbers
are good enough to make their musical and dramatic and comic points within a
realistic budget. “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” and “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat”
demonstrate how far imagination can take a production number without breaking
the bank. The supporting performances are well up to the mark with one
exception. Paul Anthony Stewart makes a pallid Nick Arnstein. Stewart doesn’t
evoke Arnstein’s swagger, vivacity, and charisma, so his conflicts with Fanny
Brice are too one-sided in their emotional impact. Stewart has the looks for
Arnstein and has a quality voice. He just needs to pump up the romantic alure
and dramatic edge.
Otherwise the complementary performances are first rate.
Catherine Smitko plays Fanny’s Jewish mother with plenty of humor but
mercifully avoids the stereotypes that consign the stage Jewish mother to the
depths of low comedy. It’s a very strong performance in what could be a
throwaway role. Iris Lieberman is good as always, this time as the humorous
busybody Mrs. Strakosh. Jameson Cooper is fine as Eddie Ryan, Fanny’s long time
show business friend who carries a torch for the woman with no hope of
reciprocity. Marc Grapey plays the flamboyant Ziegfeld with a delightful droll
touch. Matt Raftery’s choreography nicely recreates the look of
vaudeville dancing during the early 1900’s.
The chorus is excellent, led by Jarret Ditch and Anne Acker. And a
hearty solute to the nine-piece Drury Lane orchestra who sound much bigger and
play with Broadway level professionalism. The Drury Lane artistic brain trust stated they had wanted to
revive “Funny Girl” for a long time, but waited until they found the right
performer for Fanny Brice. Their patience has paid off. Sara Sheperd is worth
the price of admission alone, and the outstanding physical production and most
of the supporting performances round off a thoroughly entertaining audience
experience. “Funny Girl” runs through March 7 at the Drury Lane Theatre,
100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8
p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $29 to $38 with meal packages available. Call 630 530 0111 or
visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of four stars. Jan. 2010 *********************** Thoroughly Modern Millie At
the Drury LaneTheatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—“Thoroughly
Modern Millie” isn’t a good musical, but it does allow a theater opportunities
to entertain a tolerant audience. All that’s required is plenty of enthusiasm
from the performers, some high stepping choreography, a hefty budget for
costumes, and a charmer in the leading role. Fortunately the Drury Lane Theatre satisfies all these
requirements in abundance. The result is 2½ hours of intermittent pleasures,
which is about all any successful production can hope to provide. “Thoroughly Modern Millie” is a 2002 Broadway musical that
was based on a 1967 movie musical that had a great cast (Mary Tyler Moore,
Beatrice Lillie, Carol Channing) and almost no artistic or amusement
merit. The stage version preserves the
Roaring Twenties background and inserts a new score by Jeanine Tesori and Dick
Scanlan, who borrowed without embarrassment from Tchaikovsky, Victor Herbert,
and Gilbert and Sullivan, garnished with a touch of Offenbach and Al Jolson. The story follows young Millie Dillmount from her arrival in
New York City from Salinas, Kansas, through all kinds of relentlessly madcap
adventures, many of them structured around a white slavery ring operating out
of a hotel for aspiring actresses operated by the sinister faux Chinese lady
Mrs. Meers. Millie comes to the Big Apple to strike it rich by marrying her
rich boss, though she doesn’t have a job yet. Millie’s innocence clashes with
her gold digger game plan, but depth of character is not an issue with this
cartoon of a show.
The narrative lurches along, alternating Millie’s romantic
problems with the white slavery scam. A
sweet young thing from California named Miss Dorothy Brown becomes Millie’s
instant best friend at the hotel. The character makes no sense but does allow
Dara Cameron to soar out the operetta golden oldies “Sweet Mystery of
Life” and “Falling in Love” with her first rate soprano voice. This is a show eager to do anything for a laugh. Some of the
shtick is funny and some just desperate. The most effective comedy comes from
Mrs. Meers and her two Chinese assistants at the hotel, not perhaps politically
correct in its ethnic stereotyping but broadly humorous enough to disarm any
touchy sensibilities. The show shamelessly exploits a beefy battle-ax office
manager named Miss Flannery (Sharon Sachs) for broad comedy, but the audience
ate her up and in this kind of show that’s the ultimate goal. Drury Lane has imported Holly Ann Butler to play Millie and
she is the real deal—cute, a good singer, a splendid dancer, and as decent an
actresses as her character will allow. With Butler cast as the lead, the
production is halfway home. The other outstanding performance of the night
comes from Paula Scrofano as the menacing Mrs. Meers. At one time in her
Chicagoland career Scrofano would have played Millie. But time’s winged chariot
races on and Scrofano has done very nicely in more mature character roles. She
has a great time with Mrs. Meers and her vaudeville Chinese accent and
altogether makes the lady an almost endearing villain. There are only two principle male roles, Randall Dodge as
Millie’s boss and Mark Fisher as Millie’s love interest. Both roles are two
dimensional, with Fisher singing well and Dodge playing his character for too
many easy laughs. A character named Muzzy Van Hossmere is dropped into the plot
for no reason other than to allow the performer a chance to knock off some
potent blues and ballads (Muzzy is a famous cabaret singer). The role at Drury
Lane is played by an African American singer/actress named Melody Betts, whose
color stimulates some genially inoffensive comic moments. Betts goes into an E.
Faye Butler/Felicia Fields mode to knock the audience out with her high
intensity belting. Unfortunately, she is also saddled with some grimly
saccharine bromides about life and love that fairly make the teeth ache. The production profits enormously from Tammy Mader’s
choreography, which goes in heavily for 1920’s “Charleston”-related hoofing and
lots of tap dancing, including a couple of clever numbers involving the chorus,
Millie, and rows of typewriters in an office. Mader melds the exuberance of her
choreography with the athleticism of the dancers to give the evening repeated
boosts of much needed energy. Tatjana Radisic’s period and mostly pastel-colored costumes
are a pleasure to look at and once again do credit to Drury Lane’s respect for
a show’s production values. Kevin Depinet’s scenery leaves the stage empty
except for Greg Isaac’s multiple mobile props, enclosing the action with a
floor to ceiling abstract diorama of the Manhattan skyline. There are effective
theatrical flourishes from Jesse Klug’s lighting and Ray Nardelli’s sound
design. The small orchestra directed by Ben Johnson accompanies well and
William Osetek directs with a canny awareness that ebullience and an all-out
willingness to please are the keys to masking the show’s frailties and selling
it to the audience as an evening of high-spirited fun. “Thoroughly Modern Millie” runs through December 20 at the
Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.,
Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m.,
and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $29 to $38 with meal packages available.
Call 630 530 0111 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of three stars. October 2009 Contact Dan atzeffdaniel@yahoo.com *************************** Cabaret At
the Drury LaneTheatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—By
the time I caught up with “Cabaret” at the Drury LaneTheatre,
the critical word was out that this was an exceptional production. And so it
is. Any fan of the show better catch this staging, not only for its brilliance
but because it’s unlikely any area company will attempt its own revival, at
least in the near future. The Drury Lane version sets such a high bar that it
should intimidate Chicagoland theaters for seasons to come. Director/choreographer Jim Corti has rethought “Cabaret” into
a virtually new show. The master of ceremonies (called the emcee at Drury Lane)
no longer minces about in a conventional campy star turn. The production
recognizes the storm clouds of Germany at the dawn of the Nazi tyranny, but it
doesn’t wallow in the decadence that dominates most productions. Heroine Sally
Bowles is now a vulnerable human being, played in a perfect pitch low-keyed
style by Zarah Mahler, not the brazen party girl established as the norm for
the character by Liza Minnelli in the movie version. The improvements roll on. For the first time, the romance
between Sally and struggling American author Cliff Bradshaw (Jim Weitzer) seems
real. Their breakup at the end of the show left a lump in my throat. That’s
never happened before. The subplot romance between Bradshaw’s landlady Fraulein
Schneider (Rebecca Finnegan) and the gentle Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz
(David Lively) is both moving and dignified.
For once we see two decent people torn apart by the rising tide of
Nazism, not just a couple of endearing old fogies played for condescending
humor.
Corti focuses on the Kit Kat Club cabaret as the emotional as
well as narrative heart of his production. The emcee weaves in and out of the action,
a haunting, wistful performance by the slender Patrick Andrews instead of the
grotesque white face impersonation popularized by Joel Grey. The club interior
encloses the characters, with the dancing girls and the emcee silently
observing events taking place elsewhere in Berlin. Bradshaw himself frequently
watches from his desk in Fraulein Schneider’s rooming house. Corti’s choreography is sprightly and professional, rejecting
the sleaze look of previous renditions of the Kit Kat floorshow. The result is
a musical that tells real stories about real people, not just a string of
garish production numbers. Consider Sally’s delivery of the familiar title
song. It’s no longer a defiant anthem belted out by a hedonistic party girl,
it’s a cry from the heart, dramatically enhanced by Jesse Klug’s lighting
design, a major component of the show’s success all night. The other significant characters have been elevated from
caricatures to human beings. Ernst Ludwig (Brandon Dahlquist) is Bradshaw’s
friend and a genial young man until one grasps the vicious Nazi beneath the
hearty cheer. The prostitute Fraulein Kost (Christine Sherrill) is a person and
not just a figure of vaudeville fun. Drury Lane opened up its pockets for the revival. The
ensemble counts 25 performers, all first rate, from the principals on down. The
ladies of the chorus dance superbly, especially in Corti’s tap dancing numbers.
Tatjana Radisic’s countless costumes provide a spot-on look for the early
1930’s period. The set design by Brian Sidney Bembridge creates a perfect
abstraction of the Kit Kat Club interior, with a balcony connected to the stage
by a curved iron staircase. The orchestra, superbly directed by Doug Peck, is
semi visible at the rear of the stage, reinforcing the cabaret environment.
The Corti production removes all the clutter of previous
stagings, virtually reinventing the Kander-Ebb original. The revival has whiffs
of Kurt Weill and Stephen Sondheim in the music, and is all the better for it.
But mainly this is now a show about recognizable individuals, all trying to
enjoy themselves or at least survive as their world crashes down on them with
the rise of the Nazis. We don’t get the sizzle and flash of a gaudy emcee or a
Sally Bowles in the strident Liza Minnelli image. But we do get the privilege
of enjoying a flawless ensemble operating within a brilliant physical
production. Jim Corti has converted “Cabaret” from a hit show to a masterpiece
and created the most important local musical theater event of recent seasons. “Cabaret” runs through October 11 at the Drury Lane Theatre,
100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8
p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $29 to $38. Call 630 530 0111 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of four stars. September 2009 ************************* Pump Boys and Dinettes At
the Drury LaneTheatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—During
the 1980’s and 1990’s productions of “Pump Boys and Dinettes” were everywhere.
The show seems to have fallen off the theatrical radar in the new millennium,
maybe because musicals centered on a gas station aren’t as inviting today with
the price of gasoline pushing three dollars a gallon. But “Pump Boys” can still pack a lot of fun as an
easy-to-take summer show, especially for audiences with a tolerance for good
ole’ boy humor and country music. Drury Lane has put together a snappy
production that runs about 100 minutes including an intermission, just right
for a musical that doesn’t have a thought in its head except entertaining the
folks out front.
The pump boys of the title are four lads who operate a garage
and gas station “on Highway 57—somewhere between Frog Level and Smyrna.” While
L. M., Eddie, Jackson, and Jim take care of the automobile trade, sisters
Rhetta and Prudie Cupp operate the Double Cupp diner next door. The exact
location of the garage and diner aren’t specified but presumably it’s somewhere
in North Carolina. In any case, we are deep in Hee Haw-Dukes of Hazzard-Andy
Griffith territory judging from the “you all come” southern dialect and the
references to catfish and other elements of southern fried culture. “Pump Boys” doesn’t have a plot. It’s just a string of songs
separated by some banter, mostly directed at the audience. The show is more of
a concert than a traditional musical with 18 original songs cooperatively
written by the six original members of the show who started this cash cow back
in 1981. The music is a mix of country, light rock, pop, a dab of
zydeco, and a bit of gospel. There are novelty songs, romantic ballads, and the
whining self pity tunes that distinguish country music. The program says the
time is the present but an aura of nostalgia hovers over the show. The diner’s
special of the day costs only $4.75 and the signs and posters that decorate
Christopher Ash’s marvelously detailed set suggest a time a generation back
when gas stations actually pumped gas for the customers and diners had real
waitresses before they were replaced by impersonal mini marts. For all its laid back informality, “Pump Boys” is a tricky
show to stage. It requires four men who can sing, act, and play proficiently on
several musical instruments. The pump boys provide their own live musical
accompaniment, no faking and nothing recorded. Eddie has to play both acoustic
and electric bass. L. M. needs to be a professional pianist who can also do a
turn on the accordion. Jim and Jackson play the guitar and also trot out a
harmonica (Jackson) and a violin (Jim). It’s not easy to assemble a cast who meet the special “Pump
Boys” qualifications, but Drury Lane hits the bull’s-eye, at least in
musicianship. Alan Bukowiecki (L. M.), Brian Burke (Eddie), Jesse Kazemek
(Jackson), and Shaun Whitley (Jim, the unofficial master of ceremonies) can all
pick and pluck and saw away. I’ve seen productions that define their on-stage
personalities more clearly but none that were more musical. The waitressing Cupp sisters are played with saucy high
spirits by Liza Jaine (Prudie) and Tammy Mader (Rhetta and the show’s
choreographer). They sing and sashay around the stage and provide lively rhythm
accompaniment for the boys, employing whatever kitchen utensils are at hand.
The ladies could have been more aggressive with the “Tips” number, going
further up the aisles soliciting tip money from the audience. I had my dollar
ready but the gals never got as far as my row.
The Drury Lane proscenium stage isn’t the ideal setup for
“Pump Boys.” The intimacy and geniality of the vehicle profit from an
in-the-round stage where the performers can interact more closely with the
spectators. Still, the opening night patrons responded enthusiastically to all
the pleas for audience participation and seemed totally charmed by the breezy
good feeling flowing from the stage. Director Shawn Stengel has carved out a nice career
performing in and directing “Pump Boys” and he finds the right meld of
sentimentality and cheeky humor for the Drury Lane production. He knows he’s
directing a delightfully corny show and not Shakespeare and the songs and
chitchat come across as spontaneous fun, just like they should. The technical credits begin with Ash’s marvelous set,
enhanced by his lighting and projections, including a busty giant photo of
Dolly Parton. Kristin Ligeski designed the appropriately blue collar costumes
and Dan Mead designed the sound. “Pump Boys and Dinettes” runs through August 2 at the Drury
Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday
at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and
Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $29 to $38 with dinner packages available.
Call 630 530 0111 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. June 2009 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
********************* Curtains At
the Drury LaneTheatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—“Curtains”
at the Drury LaneTheatre
is a pretty good musical that should be better. The raw materials are there, a
murder mystery to provide suspense, some appealing young people to add romance,
and a backstage setting to rev up the evening with satire and snappy one-liners
about show business.
“Curtains” was a modest hit after it opened on Broadway in
2007 and Drury Lane snared the first regional theater rights after the show
closed in New York City. Drury Lane
draws from the top of the line in area musical theater talent and the
production does have its moments, but I sat there thinking that the show should
be funnier and edgier. The musical had a long gestation period marred by some tragic
speed bumps. The estimable team of John Kander and Fred Ebb were commissioned
to do the score and Peter Stone to write the book. But Stone died in 2003 and lyricist Ebb in
2004. Rupert Holmes was brought in to fill the void. Maybe the original artistic
team would have reached greater heights. We will never know. The show takes place in 1959 during a pre Broadway tryout of
a dreadful musical about Robin Hood in the Wild West. The scene is a theater in
Boston and the story is stuffed with stereotyped stage characters, like pompous
director Christopher Belling and the overbearing leading lady, Jessica
Cranshaw, who is the first to go, poisoned early in the show. The body count
increases with two more murders before Boston police detective Frank Cioffi unravels
the convoluted and improbable crimes. On Broadway, the show was carried by David Hyde Pierce in a
breakout performance as the stage-struck Cioffi. At Drury Lane, the stalwart
local actor Sean Fortunato takes the role. He’s OK but he yields the show’s
center of gravity to John Reeger as Christopher Belling and Nancy Voigts as
Carmen Bernstein, one of the producers. Those two characters hoard most of the
script’s best bitchy lines and both actors have a ball. Reeger in particular
tosses off an insult or a wisecrack with impeccable droll understatement.
Voigts is not only funny as the hard-boiled producer lady but she displays a
blast furnace Ethel Merman-esque voice. Christine Sherrill plays Georgia Hendricks, the show’s
lyricist pressed into taking over the role of leading lady following Cranshaw’s
demise. James Rank is Aaron Fox, her ex husband and still smitten composer
partner. Jessie Mueller is Nikki Harris, the ingénue who turns into Cioffi’s
love interest. Jeff Cummings is powerful Boston drama critic Daryl Grady, and
Jim Corti is Voigts’s caustic husband and co producer, Sidney Bernstein. The production gets a refreshing and winning performance from
Nicole Hren as Bambi Bernet, a dancer in the chorus with ambitions to move up
in the cast, impeded by her mother, who happens to be Carmen Bernstein. Paula
Scrofano isn’t around long as the poisoned leading lady, but she makes the most
of her talentless character. The rest of the 24-member ensemble is well up to
the mark. Like any backstage musical, this one is peppered with
reference to other shows. Patrons who like to consider themselves among the in
crowd at such self referential theatrical events should spot allusions to
“Oklahoma,” “A Chorus Line,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Guys and Dolls,” and “Forty-Second
Street.” Cioffi’s interrogation style is
a blend of Columbo and “Shear Madness.”
The score is adequate, but only one number points to what the
musical could have achieved, at least as satire. The number is called “It’s a
Business,” in which Carmen Bernstein thumbs her nose at arty theater and opts
for shows that bring in the money. It’s a witty, name-dropping song and we
needed more like it. Rank sings the show’s best ballad, “I Miss the Music,” but
the number impedes the show’s momentum as a comic suspense tale. That’s the
fault of the book, not Rank’s lovely tenor voice. The choreography by Linda Fortunato is energetic, though a
duet by Cioffi and Mueller goes on far too long. Indeed, 2 hours and 40 minutes
of “Curtains” is about 30 minutes too much. Razor sharp show business send-ups
like “The Drowsy Chaperone” accomplish much more in much less time. The director is William Brown, a brilliant man around a
comedy of manners. It may be Brown’s penchant for tart verbal humor that allows
Reeger and Voigts to dominate the show with their acidulous wit. The set by Keith Pitts is outstanding, either
in creating the backstage atmosphere or in rendering the hokey Wild West show
within a show. Doug Peck directs the strong seven-piece orchestra and even
contributes a brief song and a few lines of dialogue from the pit. Charlie
Cooper designed the lighting, Debbie Baer the costumes, and Dan Mead the sound. The opening night audience seemed to enjoy “Curtains” and it
should be a crowd pleaser throughout its run. For one thing, it’s a new show, a
rare commodity among the welter of familiar and over familiar revivals that
flood the area musical scene. And the show is in extremely capable comic hands
whenever Reeger and Voigts are allowed to speak. Beyond that, it’s hit or miss. “Curtains” runs through May 17 at the Drury Lane Theatre, 100
Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8
p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $29 to $35 with dinner packages available. Call 630 530 0111
or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of three stars. Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com. March 2009 ************************ Miss Saigon At
the Drury LaneTheatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—In
the past couple of seasons the DruryLaneTheatre
has elevated itself from an adequate regional theater to a major player on the
Chicagoland music theater scene. Revivals of “The Buddy Holly Story,” “Sweet
Charity,” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” set new standards for professionalism for
this western suburban house. Still, Drury Lane hadn’t attempted one of the serious musical
blockbusters that had made the Marriott Theatre so preeminent in the northern
suburbs. Now Drury Lane is staging “Miss Saigon,” one of the great
international pieces of musical theater of the 1990’s, a show that presents
daunting technical and performing challenges, The result is triumphant and
earns Drury Lane a seat at the table of the major theater companies in the
area. “Miss Saigon” is loosely based on the 1904 Puccini opera
“Madama Butterfly,” the story of a tragic love affair between an American naval
officer and a Japanese geisha. French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg and his
colleagues Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby updated the story to the Vietnam
War in 1978 and its aftermath, with an American soldier named Chris and a
Vietnamese prostitute named Kim as the lovers. The creators wrote the musical version of “Les Miserables”
and “Les Miz” musical motifs flow through the score of “Miss Saigon.” Like the
earlier show, most of the dialogue is sung. The original and road productions of “Miss Saigon” were rich
in spectacle, which director Rachel Rockwell and her design staff couldn’t hope
to reproduce in the same scale on the smallish Drury Lane stage. Epic numbers
like “The Morning of the Dragon” had to be reduced in size and the famous
helicopter scene is conveyed through light and sound effects. But the Drury
Lane show makes a virtue of necessity. The big production numbers still look
plenty rich, thanks to the colorful costumes, dramatic lighting, and the
turbulent energy created by a vast cast of 30. Indeed, the production compensates for the pageantry
limitations with the persuasive intimacy of its exploration of show’s emotions.
The passion between Chris and Kim really comes alive, and we are exposed up
close and personal to the emotional and psychological conflicts the men brought
home from the war. Schonberg and colleagues save the story from descending into
a morass of operatic emotionalism by introducing the character of the Engineer,
an Asian wheeler-dealer of uncertain ethnic background who finds a way to
batten on a war like an indestructible parasite. The Engineer represents one of
the eternal verities of war—the profiteers and manipulators who always seem to
land on their feet. Drury Lane employs Joseph Anthony Foronda as the Engineer,
a role Foronda played with distinction on Broadway, on the road, and at the
Marriott Theatre. Foronda captures the humor, cynicism and live-by-his-wits
genius of a sleazy pimp and con artist. But the Engineer is a survivor, and in
his shadowy and dangerous world, that’s the bottom line. The Vietnam War may have receded a bit in the national
consciousness, but “Miss Saigon” still cuts close to the bone, probably because
too many later wars have picked up the thread of the Vietnam disaster. The “Bui
Doi” number that calls attention to the plight of unwanted children born of
Vietnamese women and American soldiers is even more disturbing now. These
haunting children from 1978 are now entering early middle age and one wonders
what’s happened to them, those that made it out of childhood. The Drury Lane revival casts Melinda Chua Smith as Kim. She
has considerable experience in the role internationally and brings out the
girl’s steely resolve beneath her innocence and unrelenting love for Chris.
Smith also sings very well, overcoming some opening night sound glitches early
in the show. Kevin Vortmann makes an ideal Chris, an honorable young man trying
to do the right thing in the moral corruption that stained both Saigon and
Bangkok after the war. Evan D’Angeles gives a dominating performance as Thuy, Kim’s
cousin. The two had been promised in marriage while children before Kim ran
from her burning village to the fleshpots of Saigon. D’Angeles is a kind of
villain but he is eloquent in his proprietary love for his cousin and almost
sympathetic in his hostility towards the cultural rape inflicted on his country
by the Western military operation. The exemplary casting of secondary roles continues with fine
performances by John Sanders as Chris’s friend John and by Melissa Dye, too
long absent from the local theater scene, as the American woman Chris marries
after he returns, mentally scarred, from the war. The chorus of B-girls and American soldiers and Vietnamese
citizens makes an essential contribution to the evening’s success. They all
sing and act well and their dance numbers, choreographed with dramatic and
theatrical flair by Stacy Flaster, meld into the narrative fluidly. Rachel
Rockwell presides over the complex production with an unerring eye and ear. 
I had no idea the Drury Lane contained so many high level technical
facilities. Maybe this was the first musical to fully test them. In any case,
the sets by Kevin Depinet, the costumes by Tatjana Radisic, the lighting by
Jesse Klug, the sound by Ray Nardelli and Joshua Horvath, and the projections
by Mike Tutaj combine to make this the most creative and resourceful production
I’ve ever seen at this theater. And musical director Roberta Duchak gets a true
Broadway sound from her skilled pit orchestra. “Miss Saigon” will stretch a Drury Lane audience accustomed
to lighter and less demanding fare. And the theater budget certainly is being
stretched by the huge cast and impressive production values. But the results
are there for everyone to appreciate and admire. “Miss Saigon” runs through March 8 at the Drury Lane Theatre,
100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8
p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $29 to $35 with dinner packages available. Call 630 530 0111
or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com. The show gets a rating of four stars. Jan.2009 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
********************* The Boys from Syracuse at
the DruryLaneTheatre By Dan Zeff
OAKBROOK TERRACE—A
huge chasm divides Broadway musicals of the 1920’s and 1930’s from the musicals
of the modern era that tradition says began with “Oklahoma”
in 1943. That chasm has nothing to do with the music of the earlier shows,
which gloried in scores by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and other composer
all-stars. The gap between the two eras was created by the books of the
earlier shows. Even the biggest hit shows from the pre-”Oklahoma” era are
virtually unplayable today because the plots and dialogue are too sappy and
lame for contemporary audience consumption.
A case in point is the Rodgers and Hart 1938 musical comedy
“The Boys from Syracuse.” The score is loaded with standards like “This Can’t
Be Love,” “Falling in Love with Love,” and “Sing for Your Supper.” The show was
the first American musical adapted from a play by Shakespeare, the Bard’s early
comedy “The Comedy of Errors.” But the 1938 book to today’s sensibilities is inane
vaudeville that makes the Three Stooges look like Chekhov. David Bell recognizes that there is much theatrical gold to
be mined from “The Boys from Syracuse” if only the book could be made palatable
for today’s audience tastes. So he has supervised a major adaptation of the
musical for the Drury Lane Theatre, including adding Rodgers and Hart hits from
later sources. Unfortunately, Bell didn’t go far enough in refurbishing the
show’s low humor. There is still too much shtick and too many “Please laugh at
this” knockabout antics. It must be conceded that “The Comedy of Errors” does not
inspire subtlety in its staging. Shakespeare’s original deals with the farcical
adventures of two sets of twins separated as infants by a shipwreck and thrust
back together as young adults in the Sicilian city of Ephesus. Two of the twins
are named Antipholus and each is served by a twin named Dromio. One Antipholus
has been living with his Dromio in Syracuse. He is on a seven-year quest to
locate his separated brother. As soon as the Syracuse-based twins arrive in Ephesus,
slapstick confusion reigns as mistaken identities take over the show. Everyone
is reunited at the end and the visiting Antipholus even wins a wife, the sister
of his brother’s wife in Ephesus. The Drury Lane production is strongest and surest in its
singing and high-energy dance numbers. Bell, serving as both director and
choreographer, updates the setting from the classical world to the swing era of
the 1930’s. A large cast of 28 performs within a sun baked town square in
Ephesus, where the citizens start jitterbugging at the drop of the orchestra
conductor’s baton. Bell has assembled a talented and exuberant ensemble and they
are in good shape as long as they sing and dance. But there is too much pratfall
comedy, climaxed by an interminable chase scene in the second act. Physical
comedy is always tricky, and the sight of one man jumping into the arms of
another man in fright is a tiresome way to dredge laughs from the spectators,
though the audience at my performance seemed to enjoy the rough and tumble well
enough.
The two Antipholuses are played by Rod Thomas (Ephesus) and Ryan Reilly
(Syracuse).
served by the Dromios of Devin DeSantis (Ephesus) and
Andrew Keltz (Syracuse). The physical
resemblance between the actors playing the two pair of twins is as convincing
as any I’ve seen in the Shakespeare original. The audience really can share the
confusion and perplexity of the Ephesus characters who are unaware that an
extra Antipholus and Dromio have unexpectedly dropped into their midst.
Vocal honors go to Susan Moniz as the wife of Antipholus of
Ephesus and Tiffany Topol as her sister. Moniz has been active in Chicagoland
theater for many years and she remains charming, youthful, and attractive and
the possessor of considerable singing skills. Topol not only sings and dances
well but she actually milks some real emotion out of her role as a woman who
suddenly falls in love with a man she fears is her sister’s husband. The broadest of the show’s comedy gushes from Melody Betts as
the zaftig and horny wife of the Ephesus Dromio. Joey Stone also has some nice
comic moments as the town’s hip ruling duke, inspired by Little Richard. The visual production is dominated by the functional and
detailed outdoor set by Sally Weiss. Tatjana Radisic designed the colorful
1930’s costumes and Jesse Klug the lighting. Keith Dworkin adapted the score
and serves as music director. “The Boys from Syracuse” runs through September 28 at the
Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.,
Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m.,
and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $28 to $33. Meal packages are
available. For tickets, call 630 530 0111. For more information, visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.
The show gets a rating of three stars. August 2008
************************
Buddy:
The Buddy Holly Story
at the Drury LaneTheatre
By Dan Zeff
OAKBROOK TERRACE—“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” has played the Chicago area several times in recent years, so playgoers may be entitled to presume that the Drury Lane revival is just the same old same old. Not a bit of it. The Drury Lane staging redefines the show, elevating it from a nostalgia piece to high level musical theater with production values audiences rarely enjoy an a local stage.
Oddly, Buddy Holly is the only rock and roller to inspire a successful musical. There have been compilation jukebox shows celebrating other rockers, from Elvis Presley to Billy Joel and ABBA, but Buddy Holly is the only one honored with a book musical, covering less than two years of musical life before Holly died in that Iowa plane crash at the age of 22, “the day the music died.”
Holly was part of the pioneering first generation of rock and roll, with Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Holly recorded a handful of hits before his death, but his musical legacy strongly influenced decades of future rock musicians. The Beatles named themselves as a spin-off of Holly’s backup group the Crickets. “Buddy” actually achieved its greatest box office success in London.
“Buddy” is part biography and part concert. The storytelling part begins in Lubbock, Texas, where Holly is a teen-ager making a name for himself as a country singer. But Holly despises country music, an understandable attitude, and wants to play that new rock and roll music. The narrative has a familiar arc, starting with the hero clawing his way to success in the face of fierce resistance. Once he gets to the top his ego takes over and he turns his back on the people who helped him on his rise.
And that’s where the story ends because that’s where the real Buddy Holly ended, in the wreckage of an airplane near Clear Lake, Iowa. We will never know if Holly’s best years were ahead of him or if he would have been just another Golden Oldie by the age of 25. But one leaves the theater will a sense of loss.
The triumph of the Drury lane production starts with Justin Berkobien as the title character. Berkobien makes a decent stab at physically resembling the real Buddy Holly, with his rumbled curly hair and horned rimmed glasses. He also captures Holly’s vocal style exceedingly well. Best of all, he plays Holly like a teenager and young man, eager and impatient and impulsive and driven and, later in the show, insensitive and ungrateful. It’s a physically demanding role that calls for some strong electric guitar playing by the star and Berkobien brings it all off.
Drury Lane employs an astoundingly large cast of 21 performers who give the production a full Broadway-like presence. This is especially true in the final concert scene in Iowa when Holly is backed up by a large on-stage orchestra and two large choruses of male and female backup singers.
The score covers all the Holly hits—“That’ll Be the Day,” “Everyday,” “Peggy Sue,” and “Oh Boy” among others. The show also tosses in additional early rock hits, like “Chantilly Lace” by the Bip Bopper, “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens, “Who Do Fools Fall in Love” by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. This was rock and roll meant for the masses—irresistibly rhythmic and musical.
The storytelling portion of “Buddy” is artless to say the least. Most of the book by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson is delivered off stage by disc jockeys of the time. There are a few dramatic moments, like Holly’s whirlwind wooing of future wife Maria Elena and his conflicts with the music industry establishment. There is also a funny scene at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, where Holly and the Crickets are mistakenly booked as a black group but win over the suspicious black audience with a combination of their music and their innocence.
But it’s the infectious music that carries the evening, and the performers don’t hesitate to urge the spectators to join in, a form of audience participation I normally abominate, but it works in the ebullient atmosphere of “Buddy.” The customers fairly leaped to their feet to give the show a standing ovation after the finale. The curtain call revved up the crowd with the performers taken their bows to the beat of “Johnny B. Goode” and “Oh Boy.”
Berkobien carries the show but there are significant supporting contributions from Derek Hasenstab as a Lubbock disc jockey and an early Holly supporter; Michael Gerhart as Norman Petty, the producer who guided Holly on his first hit recordings; Jennifer Loftus as Petty’s feisty wife; Tempe Thomas as Maria Elena; Casey Campbell as the Big Bopper; Tony Sancho as Ritchie Valens; Dieterich Gray as the master of ceremonies at the Apollo; Bernie Yvon as the comical MC at the Clear Lake concert; and Joe B. Mauldin and Jerry Allison as the original Crickets.
Director/choreographer Tammy Mader keeps the show moving fluidly. This isn’t a dancing musical, but she drilled her choruses in those unison choreographed movements associated with Motown that bring the songs alive visually. The pace of the production is enhanced by Brian Sidney Bembridge’s set designs, which mostly consist of chunks of scenery propelled on and off stage to represent a recording studio, an apartment interior, and the like. Tatjana Radisc’s costumes charmingly evoke the look of the late 1950’s. Rich Norwood designed the lighting and Garth Helm the sound.
Drury Lane is bragging about its new sound system, installed
for this show, and rightfully so. The music and dialogue come through with
crystal clear fidelity, just another ingredient in a wonderfully professional
and entertaining evening.
“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” runs through July 27 at the Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $28 to $33 with dinner packages available. Call 630 530 0111.
The
show gets a rating of four stars
May 2008
For more information visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.
Contact
Dan: zeffdaniel@yahoo.com
*********************** Sweet
Charity at
the Drury Lane Theatre By Dan Zeff OAKBROOK TERRACE—The
big buzz these days in Chicagoland theater is coming from the DruryLaneTheatre,
which has elevated itself from a competent local home for musicals and light
plays to a major player on the metropolitan scene. Indications that Drury Lane had upgraded its work to Loop
level quality came with its recent fine revival of “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Now
the theater has validated its position as a top tier organization with its
current revival of “Sweet Charity,” one of the best song-and-dance shows
we have enjoyed in this area in recent seasons. The components of the Drury Lane hit are easily identified.
The company has found a terrific leading lady with the delectable name of Summer
Smart. The theater has hired the best dancing chorus I’ve seen in Chicagoland
in a long time and put them to good use with superior choreography by Mitzi
Hamilton. Director Jim Corti rewards audiences with a production that is high
energy but also delivers plenty of heart. “Sweet Charity” is basically a riff on that most traditional
of heroines, the hooker with a heart of gold. Neil Simon adapted the book from
Federico Fellini’s movie “Nights of Cabiria,” a considerably harder edged story
about a naïve and vulnerable prostitute who has terrible luck with men. In “Sweet Charity,” Charity Hope Valentine has been softened
to a dance hall hostess, though there are intimations that she’s lapsed into
prostitution in the past. But Charity remains an upbeat and optimistic lady who
has an unfailing facility for picking losers in her love life.
The musical is really a collection of incidents rather than a
coherent narrative. We meet Charity in her seedy dance hall surroundings, along
with the hard-boiled ladies who sell their time for dances and conversation
with lonely men. Then Charity goes out into the world of modern New York City,
encountering a famous Italian movie star for a night and meeting a shy and
neurotic accountant in a stalled elevator. The elevator incident blossoms into
an improbable relationship that promises to escalate into the true love Charity
has been seeking all her adult life. The merits of “Sweet Charity” reside in its big production
numbers, originally staged by Bob Fosse, and its score by Cy Coleman (music)
and Dorothy Fields (lyrics). The score was undervalued when the show opened in
1966 but several of the tunes stick happily in the audience’s mind, like “Big
Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” and “I’m a Brass Band.” The biggest production numbers are “Rich Man’s Fugue” and
“The Rhythm of Life.” Both are really just cadenzas dropped into the show to
allow Fosse and the chorus to strut their stuff. Neither advances the story or
the characters but they are great to watch, even though “The Rhythm of Life”
spoof of hippie churches of the 1960’s is a little dated. Guest choreographer Hamilton injects plenty of Fosse quotes
into her dances, but delivers a startlingly original take on the first major
number, “Big Spender.” This song introduces the hostesses of the Fan-Dango
Ballroom and is generally performed tongue in cheek. Hamilton turns “Big
Spender” into a harsh expressionistic group portrait of a collection of
cynical, illusion-free women who earn their living in a most degrading manner.
“Big Spender” instantly establishes the bleak, loveless world that encloses
Charity. There are light scenes to follow but the “Big Spender” piece is always
the reference point that underscores the big-hearted but unlucky Charity’s
desperate search for a better life. The fetching Summer Smart is on stage virtually the entire
show. Her Charity is winsome, charming, ebullient, and yearning—somehow keeping
her hopes up despite life’s hard knocks. Smart conveys all of Charity’s hopes
and dreams and sings and dances up a storm.
We may not see a more complete performance on a musical stage this
season. The ensemble falls in behind Smart’s bravura star turn. The
production employs almost two dozen performers, including that remarkable
chorus of dancers. Smart gets solid supporting assistance from Nicholas Foster
as the Italian movie star who morphs into the nerdy accountant Oscar Lindquist,
the latest of many men who let Charity down. Ericka Mac and Vanessa Panerosa
play Charity’s best friends at the dance hall. This is the best physical production I’ve seen at Drury Lane.
Tatjana Radisic has designed a wonderfully colorful wardrobe of gaudy costumes.
The scenery by Brian Sidney Bembridge and especially the lighting by Jesse Krug
reveal technical capabilities at Drury Lane I didn’t think the theater
possessed. The nine-piece band under Tom Sivak’s direction manages to sound
much larger. “Sweet Charity” runs through May 18 at the Drury Lane
Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Thursday at
1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday
at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $24 to $54, with meal packages available. Call 630
530 0111. The show gets a rating of four stars. April 2008
For more information
contact: www.drurylaneoakbrook.com
*******************************
The Goodbye Girl
at the Drury Lane Theatre
By Dan Zeff
OAKBROOK TERRACE—“The Goodbye Girl” opened on Broadway in 1993 with a can’t-miss pedigree that virtually guaranteed a hit musical comedy. The show was based on a charming motion picture of the same name written by Neil Simon that earned Richard Dreyfuss a Best Actor Academy Award in 1977. Simon wrote the book for the musical adaptation and Marvin Hamlisch composed the score. The stars were Bernadette Peters and Martin Short. No wonder anticipation was high.
But somehow the show didn’t quite work. It limped through a decent run but was one of the disappointments of the season. The Drury Lane Theatre is reviving “The Goodbye Girl” and the show still doesn’t quite work, but director Gary Griffin has done everything he can to elevate the material into an evening that at least is decently entertaining.
The show is a very New York City show business romance. Paula is a 35-year old dancer coming to the end of her performing career. She’s a single mom raising a 12-year-old daughter named Lucy. Paula has had terrible luck with men. Her latest boyfriend walks out on her at the beginning of the story, secretly subletting her apartment to a Chicago actor named Elliott. The actor shows up one evening to claim his apartment and the two take an immediate dislike to each other. But out of mutual financial convenience Elliott moves in.
The storyline has provided the setup for countless movies and plays. Two eligible young people start off antagonizing each other but we all know that they will wind up in a clinch at the final scene. No plot in literature offers less suspense about the outcome. The challenge for the writers and performers is keeping the audience interested in a narrative that is totally predictable.
For Neil Simon, sustaining that interest means stocking Paula and Elliott with a vast repertoire of insults they fling at each other. Some of the wisecracks are funny and some are brittle and artificial, but they can’t fill up a plot that runs almost 2 ½ hours with an intermission.
Simon makes Paula insecure beneath her one-liners, a woman afraid of commitment and love after taking so many hits from faithless men. Elliott falls in love with her and it’s his job, abetted by the precocious daughter, to break through Paula’s emotional blockade. “The Goodbye Girl” starts off as Paula’s story but Elliott soon takes over, partly because he’s funnier and partly because he’s more sympathetic. Paula is kind of a whiner and the viewer grows impatient with the woman’s reluctance to grab onto Elliott as the best thing that ever happened to her, romance-wise.
The musical tries to enhance the evening with supplementary material to distract the audience from the thinness of the main narrative. Griffin and choreographer Tammy Mader create a delightful number called “Beat Behind” that spins off “A Chorus Line” in a dance rehearsal that demonstrates to Paula she’s definitely over the hill as a professional dancer.
The main set piece of the evening is a joked-up performance of Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” The play’s director is an east European pseudo-intellectual who wants Elliott to play King Richard as a woman playing a man playing a woman. In the movie, the director demanded that Elliott play King Richard as gay, a much more humorous concept. But in 1993, political correctness must have reared its ugly head and the gay attitude was jettisoned for the more laborious and silly woman-man-woman take.
The Drury Lane production features Susan Moniz as Paula and Bernie Yvon as Elliott. Yvon steals the show, partly because his role has more comic possibilities and partly because Moniz, one of Chicagoland theater’s finest divas, can’t quite make Paula as appealing as she needs to be to share the stage equally with Elliott. In addition, there isn’t much romantic chemistry between the two characters and that hurts.
Yvon is a master at tossing off Simon’s barbed witticisms, but he gives Elliott some depth and the man’s look of despair after the disastrous opening night of “Richard III” is the dramatic highlight of the evening. Yvon can’t sing nearly as well as Moniz (who endures some unnecessary over amplification) but he still can sell a song.
The only other characters who matter are Paula’s daughter, well played by young Theresa Moen, and Paula’s sarcastic landlady, acted in true Felicia Fields-E. Faye Butler style by Cherisse Scott. Richard Strimer has a fine scene as the choreographer in the “Beat Behind” number and Neil Friedman delivers a pair of comically broad character performances as the pompous “Richard III” director and the silly star of a Richard Simmons type television food show.
The dance chorus consists of Gary Carlson, Kelly Clark, Parrish Collier, Dina DiCostanzo, Ariane Dolan, Matt Raftery, Ryan Reilly, and Amanda Tanguay. They are all first rate executors of Tammy Mader’s sprightly dance numbers.
Brian Sidney Bembridge’s sets make good use of the Drury Lane revolving stage, the subject of some throw-away comic comments by Elliott that are among the funniest lines of the show. Jesse Klug designed the lighting, Janice Pytel the costumes, and Ben Johnson directed the excellent small band perched above and at the right of the stage.
“The Goodbye Girl” runs through March 2 at the Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane. Performances are Wednesday at 1:30 p. m., Thursday at 1:30 and 8 p.m., Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $22 to $41.50, with lunch and dinner packages available. Call 630 530 0111.
For more information contact: www.drurylaneoakbrook.com
The show gets a rating of three stars.
Jan. 2008
Contact us : zeffdaniel@yahoo.com