Actor and playwright Sentell Harper feels trapped. As a gay black man, he’s disinterested in “throwing shade,” lip syncing for your life or being on the DL as a way to survive within this marginalized minority. He’s searching for answers, but coming up with more questions about what it means to just simply be yourself.
Harper’s Seek and Ye Shall Find, presented by Mortar Theatre Company, works so well because of two key things: 1) an engaging and naturally entertaining actor who’s 2) telling an honest, revealing and necessary story. We encounter a whole host of characters, all played with ease and finesse by Harper, who encompass what it means to be gay, black and male in America. Using the clever device of a gay parallel universe, Harper is given permission to jump through time, place and character to tell his self discovery story. Through Harper we meet a sassy barista who will put you in your place with a finger snap and a head roll, a pop artist who uses song to charm his way out of a tight situation, and an elderly father figure who challenges Harper (here, called “Gussy”) to overcome his emotional barriers — among many others. Read the full review here >
Have you ever been so enraged that you’ve almost lost it? I’m talking the kind of red-hot rage that creeps behind the eyes, makes you tense and sweaty, brings you right up to the boiling point.
You’re at the knife’s edge. If you act on this anger, there will be consequences. Life, as you know it, will change drastically. Or, you could simply passively sit back without intervention.
In Dana Lynn Formby’s thought-provoking new play, If You Split a Second, the hot-headed but good-hearted Mick (Dylan McGorty) doesn’t bite his tongue. It’s not of his nature. He acts out, and the cost is prison time. While behind bars, his wife and daughter (both played by the standout Stephanie Chavara) continue on, with varying degrees of success. To rub salt into the wound, Mick’s wife goes on to marry his high-strung lawyer bother Patrick (also played by McGorty).
Formby asks some smart questions about the choices one makes and how those choices impact those you love. With a flair for natural, character building dialogue, Formby is a master at creating real, and really flawed characters. Luckily, her work is buoyed by excellent performances from this two-person cast under Ilesa Duncan’s unfettered direction. The scenes between the incarcerated Mick and his emotionally distant daughter are particularly compelling.
If there’s anything I missed in Pegasus’s production, it’s the unsettling sense of “what if?” Yes, our actions have consequences – as they should have. However, in Second, we already see where the play is going well before it gets there, which muddles the otherwise powerful final moments. I get the sense Formby and company want us to feel that life is driven by our of-the-moment choices. However, I walked away feeling life offers a predetermined ending point – which doesn’t always make for compelling drama.
“If You Split a Second” plays through June 2 at Leo Lerner Theater, 4520 N. Beacon Street. More info here >
Anything Goes is one of those shows that never takes itself too seriously. It isn’t afraid to get a little bawdy and bend the rules — but it always comes out on top, full of class, champagne bubbles and loads of style.
In describing the show, I’m also describing the show’s star. Rachel York is an actress whom I’ve admired for years. I bet dollars to donuts if she were working during the golden age of Broadway, she’d be a household name in the likes of Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell. A winning smile, comedic chops, a voice as comfortable belting out a Cole Porter showstopper as it is crooning a Sondheim ballad and legs for days, York is a star in every sense of the word. And as the evangelist-turned-nightclub-singer Reno Sweeney, York has landed a role that fits as snug as her gorgeous Martin Pakledina-designed gowns.
I was lucky enough to catch the 2011 Broadway revival, on which this national tour is based, starring the wholesome and eager-to-please Sutton Foster. While I enjoyed Foster (who’s a better hoofer than York, but York fakes it damn well), she seemed to be working hard playing against type. York already has the glamour part down, and she plays with it by making her Reno a bawdy, wise-cracking affair.
In most cases when a star this bright leaves the stage, the show sags. Not here. In this first-rate national tour, the colorful supporting cast keeps all the balls in the air,which is essential when dealing with a musical comedy as madcap as this one. Read the full review on The Huffington Post >
Susie McMonagle in Porchlight Music Theatre’s “Pal Joey”
“They just don’t write ‘em like that anymore!”
That classic turn of phrase kept running through my head watching Porchlight Music Theatre’s seductively charming production of Pal Joey — a classic yet rarely produced 1940 musical comedy. Set in late 1930s Chicago, the musical, written by John O’Hara with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, presents the life of Joey Evans, a charismatic, second-rate nightclub performer who uses his manipulative charms to win over the wealthy and married Vera Simpson (or, it could be argued, Vera sees through Joey’s tricks and traps him as her toy).
Either way, Joey and Vera get what they need from each other — she some good sex and a few laughs, he a chance at a flashy nightclub career. Both learn that engaging in such dangerous risk taking is bound to result in hard knocks. But as someone who’s dusted himself off and started from scratch dozens of times before, Joey’s game for anything. And Vera? Well, she knows how to play the game. Read the full review on The Huffington Post >
Who doesn’t enjoy a good story? It’s why we love the theatre. Through words, music, dance and imagination, theatre helps shape a shared moment. It transports us to another place and time — or helps us sort out our sobering reality. It’s magical.
The pre-Broadway musical Big Fish, based on the novel by Daniel Wallace and the 2003 movie of the same name, offers huge potential to explore the power of storytelling. Edward Bloom, played by the predictable but often excellent Norbert Leo Butz, is a small town man with big dreams. He’s the kind of guy who, in his quest to track down the love of his life (the radiant Kate Baldwin), he travels cross-country with the circus for three years, and is ultimately shot out of a cannon to request her hand in marriage.
Or did he?
Edward’s pragmatic son, Will (the excellent Bobby Steggert) has had enough. A hard-hitting journalist, he craves honesty and sincerity. “He’s a stranger I know well,” says Will when describing his father. Sick of being a footnote in his father’s tall tales, Will removes himself from the plot. But when Edward faces a grim diagnosis that threatens to cut short his destiny, Will returns with the goal of unlocking the mystery — to see if Edward’s stories are, in fact, a smoke screen concealing something dark within.
Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman with a score by Andrew Lippa and book by John August, Big Fish has a long way before it finds the story it wants to tell. Is this a love story? A story about the innate need to pass on one’s legacy? A wacky, episodic journey? All of the above? Right now it’s not entirely clear.
The good news is the show ends so strongly, you almost forgive the shoddy first act. With tears in my eyes following a highly charged final moment, I knew the creators had huge potential for a unique and powerful new musical.
However, as Edward Bloom would no doubt attest to, a good story demands a compelling opener. And right now, Big Fish flounders its way in hooking into a narrative through-line, only finding its footing somewhere in act two.
That’s not to say the creators should throw this Fish back into the water. Excellent moments pepper the first act, including a beautiful number between Edward and Sandra when they first lock eyes, “Time Stops.” In fact, Lippa’s best contributions are the quiet, introspective moments. Despite all the spectacle (though I think the creative team could go much further with the fantastical elements), the most spine-chilling moment takes place when Baldwin sings a simple song to her dying husband, “I Don’t Need a Roof.” The reason it works? It’s excellent storytelling.
In short: Big Fish needs to find its story.
“Big Fish” plays through May 5 at the Oriental Theatre. More info here >
Brutal honesty. That’s playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s razor-sharp focus in his deeply significant play, The Whale. And through Charlie, a 600-pound gentle giant played by the superbly understated Dale Calandra in Victory Gardens’ uncompromising production, we see brutal honesty: in the flesh.
At Monday’s press opening, there were audible “tsks” and sighs of disapproval from the audience as the couch-ridden and morbidly obese Charlie reached for a non-diet 20 oz soda and tore into a tub of KFC provided by his well-intended but enabling caregiver Liz (Cheryl Graeff). But by this must-see production’s powerful conclusion, the snap judgements are wiped clean and you’re simply left devastated by Charlie’s unrelenting honesty and humanity. Read the full review on The Huffington Post >
Sometimes all you need is a star-making performance to make a show. The fresh-faced and ideally cast Stephen Anthony, who plays infamous con man Frank Abagnale Jr., offers such a performance in the first national tour of Catch Me If You Can which is playing through April 14 at the Cadillac Place Theatre. While Anthony takes a while to find his footing, mostly due to the inherent problems with the show’s structure, by act two we are firmly rooting for this kid, criminal or not.
This is my first time seeing any incarnation of this musical, which is based on the 2002 film and had a short life on Broadway. However, I feel I’ve seen this show before — at least the music gives that impression. Songwriting duo Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) know how to write a bouncy, jaunty tune, filled with clever pop culture references and brassy horn sections. However, large chunks of it sound like material from their big hit, Hairspray and, more recently, their work on NBC’s Smash. In fact, a duet between Abagnale Jr. and his father had entire musical phrases lifted from the duet between papa and mama Turnblad in Hairspray, “You’re Timeless to Me.”
Another core problem with the show is the creators’ decision to use a late 1950s variety show format to present Abagnale Jr.’s high-paced con life. It’s a fun, musical concept that offers moments for Jerry Mitchell’s kick lines and William Ivey Long-clad chorus girls, but the inherent slickness glosses over those rare, meaningful moments that should pull us into what drives Abagnale Jr. to became one of the world’s most sought-after imposters at the age of 16. Read the full review at The Huffington Post >
Hi. My name's Bob Bullen and I'm a Chicago Theatre Addict [CTA]. Learn more here. Please leave comments — I'd love to hear what you think, and promise to do my best to reply.
