If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’d recall how a couple of years ago, I called into question the existence of a Jeff Awards for excellence in Chicago theater that ignored shows and performances that could be described as “brazen, risk-taking, intellectual, original, rockingly-fresh”. As a passionate and informed Chicago theater-goer, the Jeff Awards were about as relevant to me as a swim clinic was to Michael Phelps. I never felt that these awards consistently and impactfully honored the theater that passionate and informed Chicago theater-goers also embraced. Well, until today. I was so pleased to read the nominations for this year’s Equity wing awards that I nearly broke into a showtune in the middle of my three-hour conference call on defining HR system fields (yep, I live such a glamorous life!). I was especially thrilled that, after many, many years of being ignored, TUTA Theater Chicago, where I am currently a board member, was recognized for the flawless ensemble of Bertolt Brecht’s The Wedding. I was also excited that truly great Chicago productions of the past season, productions that could tower over any production in other theater capitals like New York City and London, such as Steppenwolf’s landmark, urgently resonant The Brother/Sister Plays, Victory Garden’s should-have-won-the-Pulitzer-masterpiece The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Court Theatre’s powerful Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and hilarious The Mystery of Irma Vep (with a special shout-out to the Best Actor nominations of its quick-changing, multiple-character playing lead actors, the priceless Chris Sullivan and Erik Hellmann), and Writer’s Theatre’s brilliant, nearly-definitive, David Cromer-helmed A Streetcar Named Desire, received well-deserved multiple nominations. Of course, the Jeff Awards wouldn’t be the Jeff Awards without any gasp-inducing oversights, and this year, the single, biggest, almost-criminal omission is that of Matt Hawkins’ fresh, inspired, little boy toughie take on Stanley Kowalski for Cromer’s Streetcar, a performance that metaphorically blew me out of the Glencoe theater and deposited me somewhere northwest of the train tracks by Writer’s, a performance so brilliant, the New York Times’ resident curmudgeon, Charles Isherwood, was slobbering all over it in a front-page review that was carried by both the New York and National editions of the paper. I guess Isherwood and Francis Sadac wouldn’t cut it as Jeff voters this year.
Yes, I am back in Chicago after eight really intense weeks commuting back and forth to the great Buckeye state for a client project (waiting to board that last flight from CMH to ORD tonight felt like the helicopter scene in Miss Saigon, but unlike Kim, I got out! Ha!). There’ll be lots more blog postings in the near future, although I’m taking a much needed break for a week or so, getting airdropped into a fabulous, undisclosed, inaccessible location for some cell rejuvenation (nope, I’m not going to show up in a VH1 reality show a couple of months from now!). My “welcome back to chi-town” gift was yesterday’s announcement of the nominees for last season’s Jeff Awards for Equity theater. Unlike last year, when I was pretty flummoxed, and then dismayed, and then angered, at what the Jeff committee came up with, I’m pretty impressed with their selections this year, and I’m glad to see that the Jeff committee’s theatrical taste has not totally gotten lost somewhere inside the Bermuda Triangle. I’m very thrilled with the nominations for Timeline’s The History Boys, Chicago Shakespeare’s Edward II, Court Theatre’s Caroline or Change (although where was Kate Fry’s nomination?), The Goodman’s pre-Pulitzer Ruined, and Drury Lane’s surprising, stripped down, Miss Saigon. These were some of the best theater you could have seen in Chicago, or arguably anywhere, last season – sophisticated, emotionally engaging, beautifully and imaginatively crafted. However, as it happens every year, the Jeff committee continues to perform heinous acts of nominations oversight. I find it particularly egregious that they failed to nominate Victory Gardens’ Blackbird, the best production I’ve seen this year hands down, for Best Play, despite the much-deserved acting nominations for its lead stars, William Petersen and Mattie Hawkinson. This is high-caliber, provocative, unshakeable, world-class theater, much better than some of the other nominees (say Twelfth Night). Speaking of Twelfth Night, the Jeff Committee predictably demonstrated once again that it likes it’s Shakespeare served traditional (maybe with scones and jam on the side?), otherwise why is there no Best Production nomination for Steppenwolf’s 21st century take on the Bard, The Tempest, despite a very justified Best Actor nomination for Jon Michael Hill? And where are the acting nominations for Francis Guinan, who gave impressively detailed performances in Kafka on the Shore and The Seafarer; for Ann Whitney, whose Big Edie in Grey Gardens, was both impressively strong-willed and heartachingly vulnerable. a performance that equally complemented and deepened Hollis Resnik’s nominated performance as Little Edie; and especially, for Carla Gugino who magnificently prevailed over boulders, a flying house, a mystifying Bob Dylan background score, Pablo Schreiber’s naked butt, and general excess in Desire Under the Elms, by vividly painting a train-stopping, defiantly contemporary O’Neill heroine?
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!
Recently Attended Events
- 2/04/2012: Six Characters In Search of an Author (The Hypocrites)
- 2/02/2012: Disgraced (American Theater Company)
- 1/29/2012: Time Stands Still (Steppenwolf Theatre)
- 1/28/2012: Ameriville (Victory Gardens Theater)
- 1/22/2012: Enron (Timeline Theatre Company)
- 12/21/2011: Penelope (Steppenwolf Theatre)
- 12/17/2011: Spring Awakening (Griffin Theatre Company)
- 11/12/2011: Red Light Winter (Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.)
- 10/16/2011: The Ugly One (Sideshow Theatre Company)
- 10/15/2011: Overweight, Unimportant: Misshape - A European Supper (Trap Door Theatre)
- 10/08/2011: Follies (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre)
- 10/02/2011: Elling (Redtwist Theatre)
- 10/01/2011: Becky Shaw (A Red Orchid Theatre)
- 9/25/2011: Violet (Bailiwick Chicago)
- 9/18/2011: Clybourne Park (Steppenwolf Theatre)
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