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).
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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