It has been “all-theater, all-the-time” during the month of January. Hey, I’m not complaining – the extraordinary, singular, multi-month Eugene O’Neill Festival at the Goodman Theater, for one, is worth every single freezing minute on the Brown Line “L” platform painfully waiting for a train to arrive. This city’s cultural audiences owe a huge debt of gratitude to Goodman Artistic Director Bob Falls for devising, curating, and tirelessly promoting this fantastic Chicago cultural event of the season, if not the year. But there were also a lot of other must-see productions to go to in the Chicagoland area, some of them immensely satisfying, others gravely disappointing, some of them flawed but still a great night of live performance. Here are impressions on other plays I’ve seen during the last month:
Companhia Triptal’s Longa Viagem de Volta pra Casa (The Long Voyage Home) and Cardiff (Bound East for Cardiff) at the O’Neill Festival- Overheard at the Goodman Theater’s men’s bathroom last weekend right after a performance of the Brazilian theater company Triptal’s Cardiff: “Hey, dude” (schlubby aging former Lincoln Park Chad to his friend), “Why did Eugene O’Neill write a Portuguese play?” Normally, I would have shot a withering, you’re-lower-than-pond-scum look at the perpetrator of such a lunkheaded comment, but at that time, I just wanted to hug the idiot but restrained myself in time (the Goodman men’s room wasn’t probably the place to be doing any man-on-man bearhugging). I think the comment reflected the astonishing, immersive impact that Triptal’s unique, visionary adaptation of O’Neill’s Sea Plays had on its audiences. I already wrote about the power of the first one-act play they staged, Zona de Guerra, and I was very thrilled that Longa and Cardiff continued the excellence that the first play promised. I felt so lucky to have seen these stylized plays, ones which had never been performed outside of Brazil (despite receiving numerous accolades in its home country, Triptal was making not only its US, but also world, debut at the O’Neill Festival). Each one was so meticulously conceived and had a different, overarching quality to it. Where Zona came off as claustrophobic and suspenseful, Longa felt almost dream-like, but with a touch of Fellini-style grotesqueness. I also liked the fact that Longa had really strong, riveting female characters, which the other two did not have with their all-male casts. Cardiff, on the other hand, the longest of the three one-acts, was more haunting and emotionally-charged than the other two, probably because of it’s subject matter, a sailor slowly dying at sea while his friend looks on helplessly, and also probably because of how it was staged. This play was the most notable for me, from an audience perspective, not least because it was performed in Portuguese without any English surtitles, unlike the other two, with just an English summary which the audience was encouraged to read prior to the beginning of the performance. The audience also joined the actors on-stage for several minutes (responsible for a really stunning theatrical moment when the large male cast stood face to face, startled and seemingly fearful, with the audience members squeezed into one corner of the stage) and then journeyed with them, so to speak, into the “bowels” of the merchant ship (actually, the third floor Goodman rehearsal hall, transformed into a performance space). It affirmed for me the power of theater – with striking visuals and actors deeply inhabiting their roles, theater could bridge any cultural or language gap. I didn’t need to be a Portuguese speaker to get the toughness of merchant sailor life as well as be touched by the sailors’ camaraderie, devotion, and shared memories. I wished Triptal stayed longer in the city to give us more nights of moving theater (Cardiff closed last Sunday, February 1). Here’s hoping that they return soon.
American Theater Company’s True West - The last time I saw a production of Sam Shepard’s True West, it was in the early 2000s in New York starring future Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffmann and future Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly, at that time, although already acclaimed, both were just regular, working New York theater actors. It was a shattering experience, both figuratively and literally, since as those who’ve seen the play know, there’s a lot of things that are shattered, destroyed, thrown around in the course of this explosive (pun intended) story of sibling rivalry. PJ Paparelli’s production updates the 1970s setting to the 21st century with Macs, cell phones, screen projections, and plasma televisions, which seems somewhat distracting to me. But the performances of the traditional cast, Stephen Louis Grush and Matthew Brumlow, two of Chicago’s most exciting young actors, are just as powerful, as raw, as no-holds-barred as Hoffmann’s and Reilly’s, which makes the play as fresh and relevant to me today as it did when I last saw it. I am particularly very impressed with Grush, who admittedly has the showier role, but whose magnetic personality I felt was obscured in the drabness that was Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol at the Steppenwolf last year. He has a field day with Lee, the ne’er do well, grudge-filled brother who turns out to have as much staggering ambition as his brother Austin, swaggering around ATC’s in-the-round stage, swearing and taunting up a storm, at turns malevolent, insecure, and seductive (his line readings in the scene with the oily movie producer Saul who eventually buys the film script he pitches unearths so much more homoeroticism and sexual manipulation that I don’t remember John C. Reilly even hinted at in the Broadway staging). Brumlow has the more reactive role, but he is equally riveting, especially in the toasters scene when his brother’s incessant goading and bullying finally makes him snap (unfortunately the audience is the recipient of many of the toast pieces flying around in this scene – so don‘t sit in the front row, if you don‘t want random objects ending up in your lap). I am very surprised that some Chicago critics have given this production middling reviews and complained about the emotional ferocity of the performances – I mean this is Sam Shepard and True West, not a knitting circle. What did they expect? Or were they nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking? True West, by the way, is part of this really intriguing collaboration with Congo Square Theater, in which it runs in repertory with Suzan-Lori Park’s Topdog/Underdog, about a pair of alpha male, African-American siblings. In the middle of the run, the casts switch (the non-traditional casts) so Grush and Brumlow tackle Topdog/Underdog and Anthony Irons and Daniel Bryant, who play the brothers in the other production, take on True West. It should be an interesting theatrical exercise, and I’m planning to write about it soon after I see all four plays. The plays run in repertory until March 8 at the American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron St.
Drury Lane Oakbrook’s Miss Saigon – There are very few things that will make me hightail it over to the land of suburban nirvana (or is it angst?) that is Oakbrook Terrace, and I hate to admit it under fear of tarnishing my culture vulture credentials, but, heck, Miss Saigon is one of them. I have a love-hate relationship with this musical, which really ranks up there as one of my favorites – I am uncomfortable with its stereotypical, borderline fetishistic portrayal of suffering, submissive, weak-willed Asian women (and men), but I am enthralled by its telling of a story that is particularly Asian in origin and flavor, even if it is simplistic and superficial, and also by its continuing ability to give Asian actors a showcase for their talents (not to mention continued employment). And let’s face it, some of the songs may be cheezy, but Alan Boublil and Claude-Marie Schoenberg, and their lyricist Richard Maltby, has crafted some of the most hummable music in the Cameron Mackintosh canon. Drury Lane Oakbrook’s production also probably has one of the best performances currently on view in the Chicago theater scene – Joseph Foronda’s captivating, mesmerizing, tough-as-nails The Engineer, a role he has already performed, and perfected, on Broadway and on the national tour. His rendition of the paean to conspicuous spending and avarice, the eleven o’clock number, “The American Dream” is both worshipful and ironic, and packs a potent punch in our woeful economic times (brought about by the same greed the Engineer is praising). I didn’t see Melinda Chua Smith (also a Broadway Miss Saigon veteran) in the role of Kim, a role created and made famous by Tony winner, the Philippines’ pride, and my schoolmate in Manila all those years ago, the great Lea Salonga, but her understudy Katie Boren is pretty good. Chris is usually played as this bland, infuriating wimp, but Kevin Vortmann’s take is sexy, anguished, and extremely well-sung. One thing I must really commend this production for is director Rachel Rockwell’s creativity (and nerviness) in staging a musical which had always been hyped for its gargantuan, scene-stealing effects: the Cadillac rolling in, the flags waving, the helicopter landing, effects that are not practical within the regional theater economic model. Rockwell does a lot with lighting, blocking, and sound effects, and boy, they’re so effective, I forgot that there were Cadillacs, flags, and helicopters in the Broadway stagings I’ve seen. In this stripped-down, character-driven, clearly visualized production, there’s a lot of heart and soul, it’s a Broadway musical so in-tuned with our recession-weary, entertainment-hungry, heart-heavy times. Please brave the trip to Oakbrook terrace (and ignore the annoying suburban patrons who seem to have Tourette’s syndrome, blurting out anything they want loudly, while some hapless soul on stage is trying to reach a high C) for a wonderful, revelatory, high-caliber production. It’s running until March 8.
Tags: American Theater Company, Companhia Triptal, Drury Lane Theater Oakbrook, Goodman Theater
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