From the Ledge

When I first read that Sean Graney and his theater company, The Hypocrites, were going to do Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s musical masterpiece, The Threepenny Opera, as its inaugural show of the season, I started to sweat and salivate in delirious, lip-smacking anticipation, sort of like a Massai lion in the middle of a gazelle flock, or Kathy Griffin mistakenly surrounded by paparazzi. In my humble opinion, if there is one director in Chicago who can pull off a Brecht production to remember, it’s Graney, whose out-of-the-box thinking and fresh introspections into dramatic text has wowed me in the past, namely in his brilliantly mesmerizing promenade stagings of two works so disparate from one another, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis and August Strinberg’s Miss Julie, both with the Hypocrites, and his hip, marvelously antic production of Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw at the Court Theater. And with the first number of The Threepenny Opera, the famous jazz standard, “Mack the Knife”, which introduces the various crimes that MacHeath, the play’s lead, has committed, Graney delivers - the Steppenwolf Garage space literally explodes with frenetic, dazzling, contagious energy as his 17 actors run, crawl, jump, dance, belt, shimmy, contort, do everything short of Shawn Johnson’s balance beam routine, an opening number that jolts like an unexpected lightning shock, waking you up from the comfortable doldrums of your summer vacation. Although, I don’t think this production of The Threepenny Opera is perfect, with that opening number, the Hypocrites and the brilliant Sean Graney announce that they have the first must-see production of the fall theater season for all true lovers of original, creative, provocative, intriguing live performance (which seems to exclude the Jeff Awards committee members, but more on that later).

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Tags: Jeff Awards, The Hypocrites

Great news to start the month - most of the original Chicago/Broadway cast members of Steppenwolf Theater’s production of Tracy Letts’s monumental modern dramatic classic, August:  Osage County will be reprising their roles in the National Theater production which will run in London from November 21, 2008-January 21, 2009.  Tony winners Deanna Dunagan and Rondi Reed will be back, as well as Tony nominee Amy Morton (Bummer for us Chicago theater lovers that Amy has been away from our stages for so long, first on Broadway, and then now London, but it’s great for our community, and our global reputation, though.  I guess she won’t be directing William Petersen anymore in Dublin Carol at the Steppenwolf, since that play is supposed to run during the Christmas holidays).  I hope London’s a big enough city to contain the velocities created by having these three ladies on stage at the same time.  Original Chicago cast members Ian Barford, Steppenwolf co-founder Jeff Perry, Sally Murphy, Mariann Mayberry, Kimberly Guerrero, and Troy West are all going to London, as are Broadway cast members Michael McGuire and Molly Ranson.  Only Paul Vincent O’Connor is new to the London cast - he’ll be taking the role of Rondi Reed’s husband, Charlie, played magnificently in Chicago and New York by ensemble member Francis Guinan.  It would have been great if Guinan went too but he’s in the first two plays of the Steppewolf season:  Kafka on the Shore and The Seafarer, so we’ll have the pleasure of seeing him in town this year.  The role of the sleazoid boyfriend “Steve”, played in Chicago by ensemble member Rick Snyder and in New York by Brian Kerwin, still has to be cast.  The Broadway production is still in full swing, and so far, there’s been no news that it’s going to close any time soon, so later this year, there’ll be two productions of August running in two global theater capitals.  We should continue to be proud of August’s success- but wouldn’t we be so much prouder, and happier, if there is also a hometown production running simultaneously?  I’m still astounded by the number of people I meet who are kicking themselves for not seeing the original Chicago production.  The 2009 national tour is not soon enough to have August back where it started, and if we can have sitdown productions of gulp, Wicked and Jersey Boys, why not a play that was nurtured, and originally championed and embraced in Chicago?

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Tags: August: Osage County, Steppenwolf Theater

I’m in New York City this week for a three-day planning workshop with my client, but I can’t help but react to the flummoxing and flabbergasting news that are the Jeff Awards nominations for Equity theater in Chicago, which were announced this morning.  I have always had disagreements with the Jeff committee’s selections, but today’s announcements took the cake- I felt dismay, disappointment, horror, and an overall sense that maybe these theater awards were truly irrelevant to Chicago theater; that instead of encouraging and advancing Chicago theater, it’s pulling it backwards.  Have the Jeff nominating members seen the same plays that I did this past year?  I think any discriminating and sophisticated theatergoer would say that American Theater Company’s heartwarmingly funny production of Speech and Debate was one of the best productions of the year, and that Sadieh Rafai as the eccentric, complicated, outrageously lovable heroine, Diwata, gave one of the top performances, male or female, of the year, too, but both didn’t get a Jeff nomination, although director PJ Papparelli did.  Instead, for Best Production, there’s the Goodman’s Passion Play, which was excruciating to sit through (note to self:  three and a half hours and a huge budget does not make a good play make), and Remy Bumppo’s old-fashioned snoozer The Philadelphia Story.  A Red Orchid Theater premiered one of the most original, thought-provoking, and intriguingly complex new works last year, Brett Neveu’s Weapon of Mass Impact, but the Jeff folks didn’t give it a slot in the Best New Work category, despite the fact that there were seven other plays nominated, including the muddled, unexciting Wedding Play.  And why a big zero for Court Theater’s brazen, risk-taking, introspective take on Shakespeare’s Titus?  Charles Newell’s visionary direction was superb and unexpectedly breath-taking, the design was astounding, and the cast was flawless.  Other major, almost unforgivable, nominations oversights for me:  James Vincent Meredith’s riveting John Proctor in Steppenwolf Theater’s The Crucible; acting nominations for Court Theater’s brilliant What the Butler Saw, especially Michelle Moe; Peter deFaria’s intense turn as a cop in A Steady Rain (thankfully, Randy Steinmeyer’s brilliant performance as deFaria’s partner got noticed); Steve Pickering’s over-the-top lead performance in A Red Orchid Theater’s Fatboy; any nominations for Silk Road’s rockingly fresh and engaging Merchant on Venice or Gift Theater’s dazzlingly intellectual Last Days of Judas Iscariot.  Did anyone notice my descriptions of the shows and performances that the Jeff Awards overlooked?  Brazen, risk-taking, intellectual,original, rockingly fresh….uhmm, I guess shows that can be described in this manner don’t stand a snowball’s chance in Jeff Awards hell…which begs the question, why give these awards at all?  Breaking New York news:  My disgust and frustration at the Jeff nominations were nearly obliterated by the fact that during dinner at the Michelin-starred Sushi of Gari tonight with BFF extraordinaire Rene, his partner, the fabulous Johannes, and our friend, the lovely and unique Hedy, I sat beside the divine Kathleen Turner!  And I handed her the magazine she nearly left behind under her seat.  I thought my head had heatlamps on them, I nearly fainted, I am such a big fan!

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Tags: Jeff Awards

I finally had a reason to go and see Lookingglass Theater’s, well, Lookingglass Alice, yesterday, since I brought my six and half year old nephew (my cousin’s son) to see it.  I have resisted going during the multiple times it’s been staged at the Lookingglass over the years, despite knowing that it had received glowing reviews in its off-Broadway run at the New Victory Theater.  Call me jaded, cynical, snobbish, but I’m just not children’s play-friendly, I guess. Yes, I may not be in touch with my inner Abigail Breslin anymore (at my age, sweet peas, I should probably be trying to sniff out if there is an inner Bea Arthur waiting to come out); the times I have gone to see children’s plays, I’ve found them cloyingly uninteresting (although I did love Mabou Mines‘ production of Peter and Wendy, which I caught last year at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, maybe because it was so much more highly theatrical and stylized than most children’s theater). I don’t regret bringing my nephew to Lookingglass Alice, because he liked it a lot, but I sure won’t have any more similar plays on my viewing list soon.  I have to give props to adapter and director David Catlin- Lookingglass Alice is creative, original, fun, and vividly art directed, with lots of striking visuals such as the giant Red Queen on wheels.  I think the ensemble works really hard in physically demanding roles, and Lookingglass ensemble member Lauren Hirte, who has played Alice in all it’s productions, both here in Chicago and elsewhere, is a dazzling acrobat and an engaging presence.  I think infusing the play with hip-hop elements makes it contemporary and accessible.  However, I feel that the play is just a collection of set pieces and striking visuals.  So Alice is trying to move across a giant chessboard to become a Queen, and the play charts her encounters with various eccentric characters such as the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter, but there doesn’t seem to be a logic, a coherence, a tight dramatic narrative to it all.  If being Queen is a metaphor for growing up, then all the experiences Alice has on the various chessboard squares should be metaphors for experiences, for the learnings and insights, that she acquires as she completes her journey to adulthood.  But I don’t really see what she learns (other than breakdance, and deal with really precious, sometimes unintelligible, characters…uhmmm). Maybe I shouldn’t have been so adult-analytic, and just let the visuals and the music and the hard-working cast overpower me. By the way, I was aghast at the audience yesterday (ok, it was a matinee, so there were probably a lot of people who normally don’t go to the theater there), but just because it was a children’s play, they seemed to think that they had a hallway pass to talk and make noise- yeah, and it weren’t the kids yakking away, but adults who were with them.  Ugh- of course, I had to give the worst offenders my patented vicious shut-up-or-I’m-going-to-pull-your-hair-by-the-roots glare.  Really, people, learn how to go to theater, please.  Lookingglass Alice must close September 7; it’s playing at the Lookingglass Theater, 821 N. Michigan Ave.

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Tags: Lookingglass Theater

After recently grumbling that the dog days of August have brought with it a semi-drought of interesting events to check out, I suddenly had a deluge over the weekend, which saw me shuttling all over the place (well, actually, mostly around my neighborhood of Lincoln Square as well as New Caledonia, Illinois).  Be careful what you wish for, as the wise ones say….

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Tags: Angelic Organics Learning Center, Frozen River, GreasyJoan and Co., Neo-Futurists, Sunday Dinner Club

For me, the dog days of August seem to be almost interminably crawling by, with an overall hazy, languorous feel to them that makes me all the more want to stay cooped up in my air-conditioned apartment watching the men’s springboard diving at the Beijing Olympics (if cutting-edge NASA technology was used to develop the new aerodynamic Speedo body swimsuit the swimmers are wearing, I wonder what technological marvel could have come up with Alexandre Despatie’s diving trunks? Uhmmm…I’m sure you Halsted queen bees have a multitude of theories running through your, ahh, heads…). There hasn’t been a lot of arts and culture events to go to (or at least any that I am particularly interested in), so I have been catching up a lot on news of what’s coming up.

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Tags: Complicite, Public Theater, Route 66 Theater Company, Stephen Sondheim, Steppenwolf Theater