EDGE Media Network (Chicago Theater Reviews)

A Kid Like Jake (February 17, 2015)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
(Source:Michael Brosilow)

A blizzardy Sunday afternoon is a tough time to get pumped for traveling via public transportation to a play opening. This is the situation in which I found myself last weekend en route to About Face Theatre’s Chicago premiere of “A Kid Like Jake” at the Greenhouse Theater Center. Despite six years of reviewing Windy City productions for EDGE Media Network, somehow I’d never been exposed to the work of About Face. The promise of novelty was enough to get me to bundle up, trudge outside and hope for the best.

My goodness. “A Kid Like Jake” is worth braving the elements and then some. And now that I’ve popped my About Face cherry, I can’t wait to see what the company has in store next.

About Face is committed to an ambitious mission: “to create exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world.” For many artistic companies, the tension between fomenting sociopolitical change and developing quality material often leads to compromise at one end of the spectrum. The result is often preachy but dull, or energetic but vacuous.

The About Face team knew what it was doing when it selected “A Kid Like Jake,” playwright Daniel Pearle’s “contemporary dramedy about parenting, gender and fitting in (per press materials).” Directed with a patient, even hand by Keira Fromm, “Jake” is a painfully riveting experience in which there are no villains. Everyone means well and yet there’s plenty of hurt to go around. It’s transfixing reality brought to life by a cast that understands the gravity of the material and its goal.

What’s so interesting about the script — involving a never seen but omnipresent four-year-old Jake, a precocious boy with a passion for the Disney Princesses and skirts – is its intended audience. Pearle appears to be speaking to the presumably converted: the well-heeled, moneyed, liberal arts educated parents who believe they’ve opened all vistas to their precious ones. There is nothing he or she can’t study, experiment with or become — with no judgment. Right?

Well maybe. Harried stay-at-home mom Alex (Katherine Keberlein) gave up a meandering law career to be young Jake’s everything. As Alex and her psychologist husband Greg (Michael Aaron Lindner) struggle to expand their family, Alex’s commitment turns into an obsession with getting Jake into one of Manhattan’s top, competitive kindergarten programs.

On the advice of family friend and education expert Judy (Cindy Gold), Alex seeks to highlight that what makes Jake special. But how comfortable is she really with the idea that her intelligent, emotional son is showing early signs of gender identity anxiety? Is Alex enlightened enough to answer the question, “Why can’t a boy be a princess?” without experiencing identity threats of her own?

Keberlein, who wowed audiences including this critic, in Goodman Theatre’s recent “Smokefall,” knows from playing conflicted, guilt-ridden, stressed mothers. She is a master at using her face to add unspoken torment to already emotional dialogue. While her Alex frequently comes off as spoiled and unlikeable, it’s a testament to Keberlein’s work in the last scene that the audience is left with the impression that we, like she with Jake, may have never understood at all.

Lindner plays Greg as a patient, loving semi-doormat on the surface. But once again, all is not as it seems. Greg is more than capable of breaking a damaging silence and reversing Alex’s spin when needed. Linder weaves this nuance with fluidity. He never sacrifices the character’s steadiness even as he lets Alex know with certainty that they have collectively taken a wrong turn.

Gold rounds out the big three of “A Kid Like Jake,” as Judy, a compassionate child advocate and family friend who eventually bears the brunt of Alex’s unraveling. The role could easily function as a supporting character with not much story of her own. However owing to Gold’s terrific, measured delivery, we receive intriguing hints into Judy’s particular connection with the child. Remarkable work.

At one hour and 45 minutes with no intermission, the production is a long stretch without a break. But to experience the voyeuristic work of family implosion is to lose oneself completely in its emotional, uncertain denouement. The work offers no easy answers. Because there aren’t any one-size-fits-all solutions to raising a happy, healthy human being in the 21st Century. Why can’t a boy be princess indeed?

 

First Date (February 16, 2015)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
(Source:www.broadwayworld.com)

In the 21st Century, the prototypical “meet cute” dating story tends to experience its genesis online. Where singles bars, church gatherings and personal ads used to serve as the launch pad for connecting with members of the opposite (or same) sex, today we have OKCupid!, Match.com, eHarmony, Tinder, Grindr and many other niche sites targeting specific demographics (seniors, Jews, etc).

From that perspective, “First Date,” the fabulous romantic musical comedy featuring a book by Austin Winsburg (“Gossip Girl”), with music and lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner, feels right on time. With a nod to several knowing artistic devices (the inner monologue, the breaking of the third wall), the work offers highly entertaining development of a thesis well accepted by most single adults: with so much baggage, differing agendas and misunderstandings, it’s a wonder couples bond at all. Who has the time? And when that connection is miraculously made, we must grapple with the eternal tension between fear and hope before we can move forward.

Per press materials, the plot is as follows: “When blind date newbie Aaron (Charlie Lubeck) is set up with serial-dater Casey (Dana Parker), a casual drink at a busy restaurant turns into a hilarious high-stakes dinner… In a delightful and unexpected twist, Casey and Aaron’s inner critics take on a life of their own when restaurant patrons transform into supportive best friends, manipulative exes and prospective parents who sing and dance them” through the evening.

That description, while accessibly simple, obscures “First Date’s” profound and prescient awareness, a consciousness often lacking in the rom-com genre. For example, what does it say that Casey’s best friend Reggie (Adam Fane) and the Waiter (John Keating) meet, become smitten and run offstage to explore their burgeoning relationship in the span of less than three minutes? Is author Winsburg telling us something about the layers of complication that many hetero couples pile onto a first meeting, versus the streamlined, cut to the chase dynamic of homosexuals who can’t afford the bullshit?

I certainly didn’t expect to wonder. And I’m almost glad I don’t know the answer. Nearly 100 percent of the time, nothing is left open-ended in this genre. There’s not much to take home with you after the show. “First Date” bucks a predictable trend.

Across the board, the performances are winning. The players are gifted with good material, comic timing and serious singing/acting chops. That said, I feel a need to highlight the work of Shea Coffman. In the quadruple role of Aaron’s best friend Gabe, Jewish Chorus, YouTube and Edgy British Guy, he kills it. Absolutely hilarious. I could say more about the singular cast of characters he is asked to inhabit, but don’t think I could do it justice in print. It must be seen.

Other standouts include Cassie Slater, who sings her tail off in vocal deliveries that strike the right alternating notes (literally) between hilarity and poignancy. And I am fairly certain that Fane serves up the most bizarre and delicious rap performance to grace the stage in 2015. I’m calling it now.

With a running time of 90 minutes and no intermission, “First Date” gives the deceptive impression of an easily digestible lark. It can certainly fill that need — a fun, airy night out for groups of friends, couples and lovers of musical comedy. But there’s more — much more. More layers of pop cultural scrutiny and human reflection than one might expect from the show’s marketing campaign. If you’ve got room on your theatergoing calendar, “First Date” is a worthy entry.

Stomp (January 22, 2015)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
'Stomp' at Bank of America Theatre
‘Stomp’ at Bank of America Theatre (Source:www.chicago-theater.com)

I wandered into Chicago’s vaunted Bank of America Theatre earlier this week armed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Of course, I was aware of “Stomp’s” reputation as a theatrical staple for the better part of the last two decades, performed in more than 50 countries in front of 24 million people. A work doesn’t often gain that type of cultural traction without quality.

But existentially I wondered if it were truly possible to tell a story with nothing more than sounds — human generated and otherwise. As anyone familiar with the material knows, “Stomp’s” performers “make a rhythm on anything we can get our hands on,” according to co-founder and director Luke Cresswell. Members of the troupe use their bodies, their feet and all sorts of unconventional instruments (brooms, plastic tubing, matchboxes) to generate the most alluring kind of analog, democratic symphony.

It’s in this last observation that audiences pick up the narrative thread of “Stomp.” The ideology tightly woven through two hours of a diverse cast using pedestrian objects to make art is, in its own ironic way, quietly revolutionary. Press materials describe the work’s impact as “a journey through sound, a celebration of the everyday and a comic interplay of characters wordlessly communicating through dance and drum.”

There is no hierarchy in this production. There’s no stratum of entitlement. Instead “Stomp” is a celebration of variety, universality and the simple joy of being really, really noisy in a world that often swallows our individual presence whole. Broadway in Chicago’s all-too brief run of the latest touring incarnation absolutely defies cynicism, offering a sonic and visual delight for audiences of all ages.

The cast is uniformly winning, a nonstop whirlwind of coordinated movement and percussion that serves as an instrument in its own right. The chemistry and talent is so compelling, it’s hard to single out favorites, but Cammie Griffin is a maelstrom. The ugly faces and dirty sounds she imparts with every committed step are a thing of visceral beauty. This gal is committed and you’ll want to get animal with her.

And while it’s typically bad form to use a review as a platform for shameless flirting, I’d like to send a special message to John Angeles. If by chance you have a thing for middle-aged theater critics, I might know just the lady for you (hint: it’s me). Angeles is a dynamic and gifted talent that demands attention. He is also impossibly sexy. The disappointed groans emanating from the crowd as he made his final exit stage right provided solid evidence that this reviewer was not the only one smitten.

In a series of percussive vignettes that don’t let up for a sonic second, highlights include an interlude featuring several performers strapped into harnesses. These cast members dangle from the ceiling, literally bouncing off walls as they play an unorthodox xylophone of kitchen utensils, garbage and metal. It’s like Cirque du Soleil meets the street. Another scene features several male cast members atop giant garbage can stilts like so many tactile, attractive Godzillas.

The show runs nearly two hours without intermission and every moment is mesmerizing. Not a second is wasted and the properly engaged audience member (because the sanity must be questioned of those tuned out) will not have cognitive space to worry about a drink refill or bathroom break. The experience is transformative for even the most seasoned theatergoer. A constant battle against the urge to jump on stage and join the troupe is the only uncomfortable feeling to be expected.

Chicago theater community: I wish we had longer to avail ourselves of more “Stomp,” but we don’t. Buy your tickets before the opportunity ends.

The Clean House (December 12, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
Ana's soul may be serene but breast cancer has hollowed out her body
Ana’s soul may be serene but breast cancer has hollowed out her body (Source:www.stageandcinema.com)

When it comes to metaphors, there are fewer more deceptive than “The Clean House,” an existential truth wholly embraced by playwright, theater company, director, cast and crew in Remy Bummpo’s second production of its 18th season. What appears pristine and organized often belies a most painful chaos, while clutter and mess often represent a careless grasp of life’s priorities. Those who disengage and refuse to get a little dirty, miss everything.

I’ve written previously of Remy Bumppo’s status as Chicago’s best kept theater secret. While the company hardly toils in ignominy, it doesn’t enjoy the same sort of high profile affection of a Goodman, Steppenwolf, or Lookingglass. I’ve lost count of how many Bummpo productions I’ve reviewed for EDGE over the years, but there’s not a clunker to be found. The outfit produces consistently diverse, thought-provoking, quality work. “The Clean House” is no exception.

Written by Sarah Ruhl, a local Wilmette native made good, “The Clean House” was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist with good reason. Remy Bummpo Artistic Director Nick Sandys says of the script, “Class, race and gender are absolutely linked to our understanding of the labor of cleaning. And cleaning, and those who clean, have been made invisible because we as a society would rather not deal with it.”

And so on queue, the first character audiences meet is Matilde (Alice de Cunha), a Brazilian domestic in the home of married doctors Lane (Patricia Egleston) and Charles (Shawn Douglass). In Matilde’s personal narrative, she is the love child of two comedic parents who found each other late in life, united by a quest to tell the perfect joke. Now orphaned, Matilde makes her living as a perversely indolent servant dedicated to locating the holy grail sought be her mother and father.

It’s immediately clear that the maid’s supreme funny, if ever arrived upon, would be wasted on her humorless, workaholic boss Lane. As inhabited by Egeleston, Lane is statuesquely WASPy, dedicated to her work and self-deception. She views her longtime marriage to Charles as one born of mutual respect and professional goals, a “clean” and virtuous model that renders a lack of time or passion perfectly logical.

Thus it’s no surprise when a yearning Charles falls under the spell of Ana (Charin Alvarez), a cancer patient who lives in the moment, both as a precedent and antecedent to her illness. She is beautiful, raw and even in the midst of stealing another’s husband, so full of love and honesty, even Lane is eventually disarmed. What’s clean about developing affection for your spouse’s mistress, who also by the way, steals Matilde’s services halftime? It’s a testament to Alvarez’s performance that this tension is completely authentic. For in the end, Ana embodies a raw, fragile fervor that most of the characters have sorely lacked.

If Lane has made a second career out of denial, her sister Virginia (Annabel Armour) knows exactly why she’s obsessed with “The Clean House.” It is clear that her marriage to a never seen husband is devoid of anything pleasurable. Virginia’s commitment to cleanliness in her home, as well as Lane’s, provides a sense of useful purpose. While Matilde entertains her with human interaction and conversation, Virginia does the secret dirty work that keeps this unorthodox family humming — until the return of Ana’s illness forces an end to counterfeit experience.

Though often described as a comedy, the second act of “The Clean House” is poignant and heartbreaking. For the besotted Charles who learns too late that man’s compulsive need to fix problems often prevents him from living in the moments remaining. For the finally awakened Lane who gives up on forcing experiences into neat little categories. For Ana, who is terminally ill, and for Matilde, who reaches the summit of her life’s work with unintended consequences. And even for Virginia, who must find a new place for herself after the dust settles (pun definitely intended).

Directed by Ann Filmer, this character study come Remy Bummpo production is a disorderly winner.

 

Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake) (November 22, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
The cast of 'Crumble'
The cast of ‘Crumble’ (Source:Alex Hand)

A competent critic has to own his or her biases before dispassionately evaluating a piece of art. So when I received an invitation to see and review Jackalope Theatre’s seasonal offering, “Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake),” I grappled with three immediate, visceral reactions:

1. Christmas themed material is often treacly, irritating and unrealistic.
2. How is actor Tim Parker going to play a building?
3. Harrison Ford and Justin Timberlake as characters? Oy.

Had I refused to set aside these prejudices and surrender to playwright Sheila Callaghan’s bizarre holiday masterpiece, I would have missed the work’s central message: Rituals are supposed to provide predictability. But we don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t have anything figured out. All we can do is dream, love and cope.

Press materials describe “Crumble” as a “narrative of an aftermath that is irreverently odd, acutely genuine and absurdly hilarious.” I believe that’s the closest one can come to a synopsis of Jackalope’s first show of its seventh season. And yet there’s so much delicious stuff that’s hard to pigeonhole. Would you believe it possible to watch Janice (Kristen Magee), a damaged 11-year-old girl, lose a hand in a Christmas morning incident of her own design and have it serve as a hopeful turning point for her family?

The Christmas prior, Janice and her Mother (Charlesann Rabensburg) lost father and husband, respectively, in a freak household accident that may or may not have been influenced by a bitter, neglected old building. The Apartment (Tim Parker) is a frayed remnant of its prior glory days as a stately mansion, with a storied occupational history. With the patriarch gone, the domicile is inhabited by a grieving and disturbed (in Janice’s case) mother and child who have so much trouble trying to communicate, there’s no energy left for basic maintenance.

Appalled by the idea of being overlooked to death, the Apartment assumes an active agency that the work’s human characters desperately lack. It’s a weird and awesome story arc with legitimate suspense that is so because of the magnetic work of Tim Parker. He emotes, he leaps, he agonizes, he strategizes. It is a sharp and satisfying contrast to Mother’s listlessness.

Janice is a live wire, but contains her hyperkinetic thoughts within the perimeter of her depressed and cold bedroom. There she indulges in emotionally raw exchanges with her broken Barbie dolls and dreams of love and salvation in the form of a 1990s era Justin Timberlake (Curtis Jackson, who also convincingly plays the Father and — go with it — Harrison Ford).

The numb and stagnant little family is completed by Mother’s sister Barbara (Rachel Slavick), an infertile, bereaved cat lady who still serves as the story’s highest functioning human being. Barbara’s love and commitment to Janice and her mom is both enabler and salvation – one of many authentic narrative tensions.

At the top of this review, I mentioned a reservation with holiday material. It is often bombastically inauthentic. Everyone’s a winner, safe, warm, full and loved. It’s a turnoff for the alienated many who feel excluded from the reverie. Christmas is not a celebration for all mankind, and in other cases, seasonal lessons and family bonding might take place in a hospital emergency room rather than around a festive dinner table.

Sometimes we need to “Crumble,” (traditions, sense of self, environment) before we can build something new and more healthy. Seeing this truth articulated onstage is a different flavor of community identification.

Jackalope’s production is not all dourness and pain. Excellent comic relief is provided by the versatile Curtis Jackson, who plays the titular Timberlake as well as Mother’s escape fantasy man, a whip wielding Harrison Ford. A different form of gallows humor is offered by the nuanced psychotic ramblings of Janice.

Kristen Magee absolutely nails a troubled, intelligent pre-teen. After the loss of her beloved father, Janice will only allow death or romantic rescue as options until her frayed mother’s unconditional acceptance forces her to open her mind, figuratively and literally.

“Crumble” is my first Jackalope experience. As I wound my way out of the theater company’s venue, Broadway Armory Park, I considered the synthesis between environment and material. The Armory is a historical treasure of old architecture, meandering hallways, locked doors and trapeze classes. Random, curious and kind of thrilling. That’s also an appropriately concise judgment of Jackalope’s production.