From the Ledge

My philosophy of never taking no for an answer was severely tested two years ago when I was trying to get tickets for weeks for the sold-out run of Fiorello! at Timeline Theatre.  In the spring of 2006, “no available tickets” really meant “no available tickets”, and no amount of groveling, coercing, begging, flirting, and flattering, or using any of the tricks I usually employ to get my way, could produce a ticket. And so I miserably failed to see the highly-acclaimed production of this seldom-produced classic of American musical theater.  I kicked myself even more when a couple of months afterwards, Fiorello! garnered several Jeff Awards including Best Musical.  How could I, self-proclaimed musical theater diva, have missed this show?  Ugh. So when I heard late last year that Timeline was re-mounting the production in the spring/summer of 2008, I resolved that unless there was a tsunami striking the land-locked Midwest, or a plague of locusts, or a space satellite falling on Damen Avenue (yeah, cougars on the loose in Roscoe Village didn’t count), I was going to be one of the first in line to see the remount.  Last week, during the second-to-the-last preview, as I was valiantly trying to restrain myself from singing along to the wonderfully lush “When Did I Fall in Love?”, I decided that the two year wait was definitely worth it. 

Fiorello! is the Pulitzer Prize winner from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (best known as the creators of that other American musical classic, Fiddler on the Roof) and chronicles the rise of Fiorello LaGuardia (yes, of that infamous New York City airport where I’ve spent much molecular energy waiting for delayed flights, being bumped off flights, trying to get on to new ones, and in one indelible memory from the late 1990s, sitting in a plane that overshot the runaway during take-off).  LaGuardia rose from being a lawyer and crusader for public causes to being a New York congressman to being the mayor of New York during the Depression.  He was a colorful and complex character - loud, opinionated, emotional, ambitious, passionately advocating for the downtrodden, but also cagey and street-wise enough to navigate the complicated landscape of New York City politics.  It’s a larger-than-life role, and I think Timeline’s Artistic Director PJ Powers for the most part delivers.  I think his very emotional, all-over-the map, wildly expressive performance and the very noticeable fact that he isn’t a musical theater singer takes a little bit of getting used to at the beginning, but he grows on you as the night progresses.  The cast is excellent, with very memorable supporting turns by Michael Kingston (who won a Jeff Award for the previous outing) as LaGuardia’s harried associate, Morris, and the marvelous Rebecca Finnegan, whom I have admired tremendously in her Porchlight Theater performances in Company and Sweeney Todd, as Marie, LaGuardia’s secretary who is secretly in love with him.  When she sings “The Very Next Man”, pitch-perfect, radiant, clearly living and loving Harnick’s topnotch lyrics, she demonstrates what great musical theater is all about.

The terrific score (which also contains the classics “Politics and Poker” and ”Home Again”) is so wonderful and engaging that the company could have performed it in the middle of Soldier Field or in front of a dumpster and the audience would still have swooned.  But this production of Fiorello! is excellently designed (Timeline’s small black box theater is creatively used for sets- offices, balconies, living rooms- stacked on top of one another) and evocatively lit (the lighting design by Keith Parham, whom I admire a lot, gives many scenes this look and patina that makes them feel like scenes straight out of a 1940s movie).  It’s been a great season for musicals in Chicago so far (Carousel and Nine have also been superlative) and here’s hoping that the trend continues.

Over the weekend, I also saw a play about another kind of top dog- the grasping, despotic, paranoid Thane of Caldor, Macbeth.  GreasyJoan & Co.’s “futuristic” staging of one of the greatest plays in the Shakespearean canon is full of surprising directorial touches from Artistic Director Julianne Ehre.  I like the stark staging, bathed with expressive lighting, which really puts Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and their raw emotions front and center. I think the interesting, unexpected takes on the supporting roles - the Porter as a hedonist/druggie, Hecate as a transvestite (!), the Three Witches as mummy-like brides, Lady Macduff as a 1940s Katherine Hepburn-type socialite - give a lot of fresh insights into these characters.  As is the case with GreasyJoan productions, the young cast is pretty good, with a lot of very intense, from-the-gut acting.  I wish, though, that there is more consistency in how the language is delivered (there are times when the Shakespearean rhythms are in full-swing, and times when the actors seem like they are emoting in a play reading).  Although both are often riveting, there could have been more shading, a little bit more ambiguity, in the performances of Dana Wall as Macbeth and Sharina Martin as Lady Macbeth.  Overall though, I think this Macbeth proves once again that you don’t need big-budget sets and costumes and stentorian voices to deliver a worthy Shakespearean production.  Our storefront Shakespeares are as good (if not sometimes better) than those at that theater on the pier.

Catch Macbeth first at the Atheneum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, since it runs only until May 25.  You can then hop on over to Fiorello! at the Timeline Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.  It’s there till June 15 (but performances are beginning to sell out, yet again!).

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Tags: GreasyJoan & Co., Timeline Theatre