EDGE Media Network (Chicago Theater Reviews)

Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

FelderSeveral years ago, I had the first opportunity to appreciate the talents of Hershey Felder in his successful one-man show “George Gershwin Alone.” At the time I noted Felder’s gifts for dramatic storytelling, musical diversity and light comedy. They are too considerable to overlook.

However I don’t think it was until this week, during the Midwest press premiere of his latest success, “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin,” that I fully appreciated the artist as historian and archivist, as playwright, as versatile mimic. He owns the work completely. In the press materials distributed with my ticket, there are exactly two individuals credited with every nuance of the production: Director Trevor Hay (who previously collaborated with Felder on the Gershwin piece) and Felder himself. It is extremely rare to encounter a work of art so dependent on the vision and diversity of so few.

And “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin” is beautiful, biographical art that requires the intimacy of stage to fully deliver on its subtle force. Felder is note perfect (in every sense) as “America’s composer” in a medium he has mastered. He knows how to work an audience familiar with Berlin’s iconic canon, hits such as the rollicking “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Like the masters he inhabits, Felder needs no side man.

Using Berlin’s long 101-year life and career as a natural structure, Felder becomes the man born in 1888 Belarus as Israel Isidore Baline. Fleeing Jewish persecution in the region, Berlin’s family emigrated to New York City in 1903. After the death of his father at the age of 13, Berlin took to the streets, selling newspapers and quite literally, singing for his supper. The young busker was ahead of his time in understanding an audience’s short attention span, and developed a precocious talent for catchy refrains, puns and lightly ribald riffs. A star was born, as is often the historical case, of want, poverty and nothing to lose.

With a 90-minute running time, Felder thoughtfully and carefully covers a number of highlights from a musical career marked by breathtaking proliferation. Of Berlin’s 232 top-ten hits and 25 number one songs, audiences can’t fail to tap their toes to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” or feel the misty emotion of standards like “Always” and “White Christmas.”

On the subject of Christmas Felder, like his source of inspiration, displays a canny sense of marketing and timing. Originally the artist’s “I Found My Horn” was slated to run at the Royal George Theatre during the booking dates occupied by “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin.” However, sensing a unique and fitting opportunity to feature the work of an immigrant Jew who loved his adopted country and the holiday season, Felder made the programming change in mid-September. “I Found My Horn” will now make its debut next spring.

I commend Felder’s decision. As we took our seats, my companion for the evening remarked that given the recent shortening of days and advent of November, she hoped the performance would inspire the holiday spirit. I can confirm that we both thrilled at the production’s use of audio visual, which put Bing Crosby in the room for a few bars of “White Christmas.” It doesn’t get any more seasonally festive than that. The show’s flexible set also features a beautifully lit tree figuring in a number of the musical performances, as well as the stories of Berlin’s family life and long marriage to second wife Ellin Mackay.

The production’s press materials quote Jerome Kern, another iconic musical composer, as saying, “Irving Berlin has no place in American music — he is American music.” The same must be said of Felder. He’s in possession of rare talent for resurrecting the ghosts of our cultural past, breathing new life and relevancy into them, while stamping his own prodigious imprint. Berlin may have been a genius but I doubt he could have pulled off such a hilarious imitation of Ethel Merman, before pivoting to a heartbreaking chronicle of elderly widowerhood. The ability to evoke laughter and tears with equal, rapid effect should never be taken for granted.

It turns out for this critic, Hershey Felder, like the legends who inspire his work, grows more satisfying with each return experience. I’m already bugging my editor to assign me “I Found My Horn.”

“Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin” runs through Dec. 6 at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted, Chicago, IL. For info or tickets, call 312-988-9000 or visit the Royal George Theatre website.

Love and Information

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

love

Toward the middle of Caryl Churchill’s “Love and Information,” the 19th season opener for Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, a woman who is either hearing impaired, or attempting to communicate with someone who cannot hear, carries a box of Whitman Sampler chocolates. As she runs through the ASL gestures for “I love you,” actress and Bumppo Artistic Associate Linda Gillum pleads with her eyes. Understand me. It’s a lovely scene.

The Whitman’s Sampler is a handy metaphor for the play as a whole, another piece of fresh, interesting work from one of the best mid-size theater operations in Chicago. Directed by Shawn Douglass, the production is a study, per press materials, of “the ways in which the desire for information both distances and unites us.”

Douglass leverages a flawless cast of 10 to slip into the skin of 125 characters, each one part of a vignette that underscores the myriad ways in which knowing and not knowing cause pain and pleasure in human relationships. This might sound quite busy, and indeed Theater 3 at the Greenhouse Theater Center is hardly cavernous. Yet toward the end of the production’s opening night, I found myself comparing it with the recent Broadway in Chicago mounting of “Dirty Dancing – the Classic Story on Stage.”

That big budget effort was an awkward, vertigo-inducing attempt to leave out nothing at all from the beloved film that serves as its base. It just didn’t work. “Love and Information” has arguably more scenes than any stage production I’ve ever audited and yet, it’s a bullseye. Why is that? Because of the oh so light touch, the lack of wink-wink knowingness, the sheer poetry of the source material. A Whitman’s Sampler replaced with the finest, most delicate truffles.

Remy Bumppo’s Producing Artistic Director Nick Sandys observes of the play, “There are no settings, speech headings, or character descriptions in the text. All of those decisions… must come from the director and the design team.” And what a wonderful bunch of arrangements Douglass and his staff have made. It doesn’t hurt one iota that he’s assembled a beautiful cast with the ability to, quite literally, become different people in the blink of an eye. And we believe it.

In addition to Gillum’s work, which I have enjoyed across several seasons of Bumppo theater, I can’t say enough about the talents of yet another Artistic Associate, David Darlow. To watch him move through “Love and Information” is to laugh, have your heart broken, to feel everything in the course of the production’s one hour, 40-minute run time. Although he just one man in an immensely capable ensemble, it’s hard to move your eyes away when he’s on stage. Totally vulnerable yet commanding — the Darlow brand.

This show is different. Fans of linear plot, of context, of narrative arc might find themselves frustrated. I urge these theatergoers to try to get past it. As Sandys suggested before the first curtain rise, “take the ride.” Although one might not connect with every scene, you’ll find yourself nodding your head in silent agreement often. Who among us hasn’t been on the receiving end of pleas from a loved one — share with me, open yourself to me — only to feel the sting of rejection and regret when that data proved to be more than the listener really wanted?

If I have any quibble with the production, it’s this: that one hour, 40-minute running time has no intermission. While I completely understand the decision not to interrupt the “story,” the theater does serve beverages. Make sure you’ve visited the restroom before the curtain rises.

But really, that’s all I’ve got for criticism. “Love and Information” is another Remy Bumppo winner.

“Love and Information” runs through November 1 at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL. For information or tickets, call 773-404-7336 or visit the Remy Bumppo website.

The Lyons

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

The Lyons

The program distributed with each ticket to AstonRep Theatre Company’s 2015/2016 season kickoff, “The Lyons,” includes Director Derek Bertelsen’s interview with playwright Nicky Silver. Silver tells Bertelsen, in reference to the script, “I wrote it in four weeks. A few lines got changed around but for the most part, the play stayed as-is.

This confession is revealing in more ways than one. In press efforts, the creation speed is positioned as something of a precocious wonder. But in the experience, the joyless material has nothing to say. No humor, gratuitous profanity (and don’t get me wrong, there are few things I enjoy more than an intelligent cuss) and horribly unlikable characters played with all the wrong notes.

For the stage disjointedness, clearly Bertelsen and his cast shoulder some of the blame. After all “The Lyons” did receive multiple prestigious award nominations after its 2012 Broadway debut. But here’s the wrinkle. I’ve really enjoyed many of the players in other productions, so much that the heavy disappointment in seeing them so willingly ill-used here only underscores the flaws of the material. Why is this play so well-received?

The cognitive dissonance starts with the press description of the work: “Indomitable matriarch Rita Lyons is at a major crossroads. Her husband is dying, her son is in a dubious relationship and her daughter is barely holding it together… Worst of all Rita can’t figure out how to redesign her living room.”

For starters, I’m not convinced that Rita is the centerpiece of the story or the script. Cases could be made for all members of the Lyons family, but I’m also not convinced it matters. Literally nothing matters in this play, and not, as other critics have suggested, in a delicious, literate Wildean fashion. The characters are dark, nasty and soulless, except perhaps for the dying patriarch, who seems most alive in the afterlife.

A few funny lines of dialogue notwithstanding, you can’t root for any of these people. And not in an addictive anti-hero, Walter White kind of way. There were many (this critic included) who couldn’t be stopped from seeing Walter’s story through to the bitter end. But I cared as little about any of “The Lyons” as I am certain they would be indifferent to me if existent.

And this is where furious writing inside a month-long cocoon can lead, to insulation between the individual phrases and the finished product, which is just not good or interesting on any human level.

As I said, I have liked members of AstonRep’s cast tremendously in other endeavors. Scott Olson, who plays father Ben Lyons, is coming off a ferocious turn in Prologue Theatre’s “Porcelain.” Susan Fay (Rita) displayed excellent, desperate comedic timing in Remy Bummpo’s recent “The Clean House.” And Amy Kasper, who plays the Lyons’ long-suffering Nurse, scared the crap out of me in previous AstonRep offering, “The Water’s Edge.” I mean that as a complete compliment.

Why is such a talented cast rendered so brittle, unfunny and obnoxious? Most definitely a troubled script devoid of self-awareness. However I also have to question Bertelsen’s direction. These actors should be able to make an instruction manual sound snappy and vibrant. Instead, for confusing reasons, it’s as though they were instructed to go Method and drink the listless, nihilistic Kool-Aid offered by their characters.

I think it’s pretty clear. I’m not a fan of AstonRep Theatre Company’s season premiere, “The Lyons.” But the group has a good track record and plenty of time to recover from an awkward, dreary beginning.

“The Lyons” runs through September 27 at the Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St. in Chicago. For information or tickets, call 773-828-9129, or visit the AstonRep Theatre Company website.

 

Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I am an unironic fan of 1987 coming-of-age film classic “Dirty Dancing.” In my humble opinion, there have been but two actors within the last 30 years able to pull off a seamless transition between the best in song and dance, and the virile masculinity of a rugged action star. Those two actors are the gone-too-soon Patrick Swayze, and the thankfully still-kicking Hugh Jackman.

There are, of course, many other reasons to love the movie. That soundtrack. Jennifer Grey’s beautiful curly hair. The nostalgia for the early 1960s. But really? “Dirty Dancing” turned Swayze into an icon — deservedly so.

And yet, the film is not without its problems, one of them being its virtual disregard of the Civil Rights era. Sure, heroine Baby Houseman has vague notions of joining the Peace Corps and making a difference, challenging her father to walk the walk of upper middle class white liberalism by accepting her relationship with dancer Johnny Castle. But as Baby herself notes in the movie, as well as in Broadway in Chicago’s production of “Dirty Dancing,” “You told me you wanted me to change the world, to make it better. But you meant by becoming a lawyer or an economist, and marrying someone from Harvard.”

The stage musical, directed in this limited Windy City run by James Powell, attempts to address the sociopolitical shortcomings of the source material in its first act. Making much over Neil Kellerman’s revisionist humanity (in the film, the character is a proud one percenter), actor Ryan Jesse gawkily and charmingly plans a Southern Freedom Ride with several members of the resort staff. There is a community listening of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech around the vacation bonfire. The scene enriches the fun and frothy experience of the production’s striking and sustained song and dance display.

Alas, those attempts at serious conversation ultimately go nowhere at all in the second act. They are lost in a bewildering rotation of scenery and set pieces, interspersed with small snatches of dialogue from characters who would probably break the metrics functionality of their Fitbits in 2015, there’s so much walking on and offstage. That’s a fair metaphor for my overall assessment of “Dirty Dancing” the stage production: Too busy and unfocused, too much green screen and too much promenade.

The show does have a full awareness of its camp, which is a plus. In an amusing dance training montage, the terrific Gillian Abbott and Christopher Tierney, as Baby and Johnny, move through a series of natural events (swimming, rain, etc.) that simply can’t be staged believably with only lights and moving parts. So the technical team and actors give up entirely and hand the audience a knowing wink, infused with affectionate warmth and respect for its inspiration.

The work is nothing if not faithful to the ’80s cultural phenomenon of “Dirty Dancing.” Most of Baby’s classic wardrobe is carefully re-created by Costume Designer Jennifer Irwin. In fact Irwin does a spectacular job overall capturing the trends and style of the “Mad Men” era, with a modern stage nod to vibrant color. The dialogue is purposefully intact, not withstanding some edits and the addition of scenes that as mentioned, beef up some side characters and attempt to provide historical context.

True fans of the film will enjoy Broadway in Chicago’s mounting of “Dirty Dancing.” And they will be positively overwhelmed by the vocal talent of Jennlee Shallow and Doug Carpenter, who evenly distribute subtlety and show-stopping power in new renditions of standards like “In the Still of the Night (I’ll Remember)” and “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.”

But the show has its limits, despite trying to be everything. And that won’t be enough for “Dancing” newcomers. This becomes painfully apparent throughout the production’s second act. A lot less of everything would amount to more.

“Dirty Dancing” runs through August 30 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph, Chicago, IL. For information or tickets call 800-775-2000 or visit the Broadway in Chicago website.

Feast

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
Source: http://www.goodmantheatre.org

The Albany Park Theater Project describes itself as a “multiethnic, youth theater ensemble that inspires people to envision a more just and beautiful world.”

At the curtain drop of the troupe’s latest production, a remounting of its 2010 “downtown debut,” “Feast,” ANTP Artistic Director David Feiner confessed to pride in the college attendance rate of the program’s graduates equal to satisfaction with the show. Many of the company’s committed children matriculate and become first generation university students from hardworking immigrant families. It’s an inspiring accomplishment and message in a post-Great Recession country where the American Dream often feels more elusive than ever.

APTP is a worthy non-profit, deserving of the Chicago theater community’s patronage. It would be so even if it produced mediocre artistic offerings. Luckily for all parties, including fans of good work, Albany Park Theater Project offers some of the most exciting, visceral, rhythmic storytelling in the Windy City. “Feast” marks the company’s fifth straight partnership season with the legendary Goodman Theatre.

Having been privileged enough to see and review the group’s 2013 foreclosure crisis-themed stunner, “I Will Kiss These Walls,” as well as a later examination of the nation’s broken immigration system, “Home/Land,” I have long admired the intersection of bold socioeconomic commentary, good writing and go-for-broke performances that are the hallmarks of an APTP experience.

Moreover, the results are completely unforced. With “Feast,” billed per press materials as “a 90-minute piece that explores food’s role in nourishing individuals and communities,” the group’s 2010 class did their research. Collaborating with adult theater mentors, the young artists “conducted more than two dozen interviews,” resulting in a script that asks a briskly paced series of existential questions. How does hunger (or abundance) affect personal security, the soul, the creative spirit, pride and family?

Though the APTP vision and mission is bigger than any one year’s cast, the quality of the performances in “Feast” is simply overwhelming — in all the right and sometimes purposely painful ways. A prime example occurs in the Link Card vignette. Featuring three young ladies with diametric views of the digital food stamps, the script is brave enough to consider Link as an application process fraught with bilingual tension, a source of well-fed joy, however brief, and a bottomless source of social shame. There are no wrong interpretations and no judgment.

But there are amazing acrobatic feats, a child’s soliloquy and an angry, defiant determination to break the cycle of poverty. Three voices and a full picture of an issue that is finally gaining the increased attention it deserves with this decade’s Occupy Wall Street movement, the rise of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s voice and the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.

Income inequality is having its moment, but as “Feast” makes clear, issues of hunger and want go back generations — to the fields of the Philippines and the villages of Mexico, as well as the cities, suburbs and towns in the United States. Food is wrapped in ritual, in love, in opportunity, in perceived success. However the weight of these concerns are nicely balanced in the production through stylistic APTP trademarks that lighten the load.

The kids transition in and out of the performance with a unified percussive display that demands their feet, hands and copious energy to make a joyful but large statement. We are here. This issue is here. And none of us are going anywhere until we figure it out. Because people who work hard and dream should have enough in their bellies to sustain their bodies and spirits.

It’s tough to single out any one performer from the harmoniously accomplished cast of 25. There are beautiful but haunting voices, dancers, drummers, gymnasts, physical comedians and touching dramatists. The tapestry of an imperfect reality held up for our collective examination. Albany Park Theater Project’s triumphant “Feast” is a deliberately hungry celebration of the company’s past, in the critical present, that deserves a very popular near future. See it.

“Feast” runs through August 16 at the Goodman Theatre, 1170 N. Dearborn, Chicago, IL. For information or tickets, call 312-443-3800 or visit the Goodman Theatre website.