Because the beginning of this year’s fall theater season has been so busy, I’ve been going to a show almost every night since last week (thankfully, I’m in between client projects right now and temporarily off the road). Hey, I’m not complaining – I am grateful for this bountiful harvest, especially since it’s chockful of world premieres and original work emanating from a diverse set of really unique playwriting voices. But of all that is onstage in Chicago currently, I don’t think there are voices as unique, as singular, as jolting as those of former Chicagoans and Tony-winning creators of Urinetown, Neo-Futurist founder Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann. They’ve created a musical about yeasts, those unicellular fungi that we associate with breadmaking, beermaking, and certain delicate types of infections, and theorized that these cells are the forerunners of all living creatures. They’ve set this yeasty (sorry, couldn’t resist) musical under the sea, around 5 billion years ago, in some “primordial soup” ruled by an iron-fisted king who is starving his salt-eating citizens to prevent them from asexually reproducing, in what can be surmised as a primitive form of birth control. They’ve thrown in a Greek Chorus led by a blind yeast-seer, named, well, the Unnamed. They’ve set the story to a pop-rock score that contains such titular gems as “Stasis is in the Membrane”. Absurd? Yes. Insane? Absolutely. Ridiculously over-the-top? You got it, man. But Kotis and Hollmann’s Yeast Nation (the Triumph of Life), which is receiving its Midwest premiere at the American Theater Company (although it supposedly is quite different from its world premiere at Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre a couple of years ago, so we could possibly consider this a quasi-world premiere), is also thrilling, exuberant, imaginative, hilarious, so exhilaratingly alive. Yeast Nation is the one show that should make everyone want to go to the theater. In its energy, creativity, and mind-heart-gut pull, it proves why live performance will never be matched, or supplanted, by television, webisodes, Wii games, and all other media that cater to the 21st century’s short attention spans and instant gratification needs.
During the talkback that Kotis and Hollmann conducted at the performance I attended, they said that they started with the idea of satirizing the conventions of classical Greek theater using the most unlikely setting that they could come up with. Well, they’ve certainly surpassed themselves and then some. Sure, Yeast Nation has a cruel, vengeful autocratic king; a Greek chorus that is wackier and more drama queen-like than your usual regulation Greek choruses; a hero that is tragically flawed- despite being the King’s favorite son, he feels a pull to swim up to the surface of the sea and discover the bigger, better world that is lying in wait out there. But Yeast Nation is also cleverly meta-theatrical (characters call out dialogue that is beyond their “reference level” and sometimes address the audience directly by wondering what the “creatures who will come after us” do in a particular situation). It deliciously sends up evolution (the yeasts produce a creature from the ocean surface’s “muck” that they’ve ingested and they band together and evolve into multi-cellular organisms to protect themselves from extinction). It is also pretty contemporary, with its strong environmental focus (the yeasts, due to billions of years of excess and irresponsibility, have depleted their salt supply) and a Chief Executive who let the excesses happen but who refuses to take responsibility for the consequences and instead makes the people pay for them (hmmm…sounds familiar?). And Kotis and Hollmann pull this all together in one delightful, scintillating package with verbal and physical humor that is always belly-achingly funny, sometimes stand-uppy but never cheesy, and a terrific, hurtling-towards-you musical score that is original, electric, and, most importantly, hummable (sometimes even danceable…yes, people, in your seats!)
I could imagine the demands the material makes on the cast – they all have to be able to sing, dance, have perfect comedic timing, and have the ability to look dignified while wearing paint-splattered canvas ponchos or hot pink latex body suits (!). And the wonderful, strongly multi-cultural 15 person cast passes with flying colors, in what is possibly one of the strongest ensembles onstage right now in the city. Watching Barbara Robertson’s memorably hilarious blind seer, sort of a cross between a Monty Python character and Kathy Griffin, you’d never think she was a tragic Gertrude to Ben Carlson’s acclaimed Hamlet at Chicago Shakespeare a couple of years ago. Sandie Rosa, a fabulous, Sarah Jessica Parker look-alike with similar impeccable comedic and vocal skills who’s new to Chicago theater, is scorching, wickedly funny, and just the right side of sassy as the conniving Princess, Sly. But the breakout performance of this show comes from Andrew Keltz as the hero, the royal heir, Second. He is funny in a gangly, loose-limbed, deadpan way. He has a powerful voice that effectively straddles pop-rock-pseudo musical theater which is pitch perfect for Hollmann’s genre-defying score. And most importantly, as the hero, with his wide-eyed, life-affirming idealism, he effectively engages the audience’s empathy, making us want to root for him as he stands up to his father, the King, despite the fact that he, at the same time, enthusiastically eats the pink muck he has thrown from a bucket and on to the theater’s floor. Lovely!
I think Artistic Director PJ Paparelli’s direction admirably mines the humor in all ways possible, but he never plays for cheap laughs. I really like the spare production design and the use of a four person onstage band which gives this inversion of a musical guerilla-like chic. I think the lighting design effectively and delicately straddles those thin lines between musical theater, cabaret lounge act, and rock concert. If I have a quibble with this production, it’s probably that I wanted a little bit more dynamism and kinetic energy in Tommy Rapley’s choreography, which has a little bit of a stand-in-formation quality to it (which is quite surprising since I think his choreography for the Hypocrites’ Three Penny Opera last year was quite dazzling), and I wanted better harmonization among the voices of the Greek Chorus in some of the musical numbers. But again these are minor edits to a production that is single handedly responsible for opening this year’s Chicago theater season with a thunderous bang. And people, let go of your Tool Academy and Wii Sports Resort obsessions and your irrational fear of catching H1N1 in crowded places for one night – run and buy a ticket to Yeast Nation, you won’t be disappointed.
Yeast Nation runs at the American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron, until October 18.
Tags: American Theater Company
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