Both Your Houses (October 8, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
The cast of 'Both Your Houses'
The cast of ‘Both Your Houses’ (Source:Johnny Knight)

No mid-sized Chicago theater troupe puts on a period drama with the panache of Remy Bumppo. Pick an epoch. It doesn’t matter. Though not exactly toiling in obscurity, the company lacks the high-profile visibility of a Steppenwolf, Goodman or Lookingglass Theatre. May the opening production of Bumppo’s 18th season “Both Your Houses,” finally put an end to that injustice.

A witty political satire that feels ripped from the headlines with themes of patronage-influenced stagnation and Congressional corruption, playwright Maxwell Anderson’s 1933 script provides the gifted Bummpo cast with more than just an opportunity to look stunning in late-Prohibition Era costumes (kudos to designer Emily Waecker). In press materials, the production is described as capturing “the charm and fervor of the classic film ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ and hit television series ‘The West Wing,’ while simultaneously challenging the plausibility of change a la ‘The Daily Show.'”

It’s a credit to Anderson’s work that he’s able to weave whimsy, romance and sharp dialogue into a deadly serious and effective fabric. In a deliberately nonpartisan way, “Both Your Houses” argues that in the first half of the 20th century, one’s vote hardly matters. Either guy (and yes, the candidate is almost certainly a man) is going to bring the same MO to Washington: load up on legislative pork, bring it back home, get re-elected, repeat. Of course everything has changed since then and the American governing process is cleaner, more honest…

Yeah… not so much. If anything, the lobbyist-infested halls of Congress are more inert and cynical than ever. Remy Bumppo’s choice of season opener could be viewed as a present-day civic statement, and the production’s press release doesn’t discourage the interpretation: “[It] will run throughout the lead-up to the 2014 midterm elections, in which 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 22 seats in the Senate will be up for re-election.”

The statement appears to be this: the system is broken. The good guys and the bad are nearly indistinguishable. Sometimes doing what it takes to protect the country looks an awful lot like criminal activity. In other situations, the right action is taken for all the morally worst reasons. But it’s not the officials who protect the status quo. We do. The voting public. And we don’t have to.

And such fun the audience has while receiving a critical warning. The sharp costumes and snappy discourse, a multi-layered plot that includes romantic intrigue and familial piety — all executed with control by Remy Bumppo Artistic Director Emeritus James Bohnen.

Bohnen’s affectionate history with the company is evident in the intimate vulnerability he elicits from the performances of the cast, which includes Artistic Associates David Darlow and Linda Gillum, as well as Ensemble Members Peter A. Davis and Eliza Stoughton. Darlow and Gillum, who both delivered searing, emotional work in Remy Bumppo’s late 17th season triumph, “Our Class,” are back stealing scenes respectively as a battle worn Congressman with a taste for illegal spirits, and a scheming Gal Friday with a sharp tongue.

The characters are drawn somewhat formulaically and a 21st century observer might bemoan the lack of a strong central female. There’s not much diversity to be found here. Blame it on 1933. Be that as it may, the work onstage is faultless.

As sort of a Remy Bumppo and Artistic Associate Greg Matthew Anderson superfan, I initially took the latter’s absence from the cast list rather hard. But the company’s talent roster is such that the disappointment couldn’t last. I settled for a press opening glimpse of Anderson in the crowd, and enjoyed another satisfying synthesis of intelligent subject matter, historical perspective and winning performances from the dependably entertaining Remy Bummpo.

Carrie: The Musical (June 5, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment
Callie Johnson in Bailiwick Chicago’s premiere of ’Carrie: The Musical’
Callie Johnson in Bailiwick Chicago’s premiere of ’Carrie: The Musical’ (Source:Michael Brosilow)

 

I’m nursing a complicated reaction to Bailiwick Chicago’s Windy City premiere of the 2012 Off-Broadway revival version of “Carrie: The Musical.” From one angle, the timeless plot of high school bullying leading to disastrous consequences for everyone involved seems more urgent and necessary a story than ever. And there can be little doubt that the production employs catchy musical numbers sung and danced most admirably by a tremendously talented cast.

And yet I have two big “buts.” The lesser is a Margaret White, Carrie’s extremely and destructively Christian mother, played with entirely too much sympathy by an otherwise gifted Katherine L. Condit. The actress displays the occasional terrifying delusion required by the part, the background needed to account for Carrie’s utter and complete sense of earthly abandonment and isolation. But there’s just a touch too much sweetness, an underlying suggestion of good intentions gone wrong that makes the subplot’s culmination unbelievable. Condit’s Margaret would never kill her child.

The decision also neutralizes the impact of the character’s religious extremism at a time when the culture wars, particularly for women, have never felt more threatening. Because I have no way of knowing if the call to play Ms. White this way was made by Director Michael Driscoll or Condit herself, I will only say it’s a mistake that cuts two ways. Happily there is still time to correct it before the show’s run concludes on July 12.

The larger objection I have to the production can be found at the back end of this review’s first sentence: “Windy City premiere of the 2012 Off-Broadway revival version” of the musical. If it takes that many adjectives to describe a work, there’s a chance it’s going to come off as derivative. And indeed the conclusion to Bailiwick’s 2013 – 14 season does feel used in many instances.

It’s like a game of theatrical telephone. You start with Stephen King’s seminal 1974 novel, followed closely by the 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek. You pass through the original Broadway musical in 1988, followed by the revival in 2012. We all try to forget the 2013 cinematic reimagining before we end on the Richard Christiansen stage at the Victory Gardens Theater.

Like the childhood game of telephone, if the initial message is pleasant, the result will retain some or all of its features. But there’s no denying that the final product is a little diluted. And that’s what we’re left with at the conclusion of Bailiwick’s “CARRIE: The Musical.”

A special salute to Samantha Dubina in the role of head mean girl Chris. She is alternately funny and frightening, a modern, bitchy caricature of the one percent youth class.

As I said, the cast is winsome and with the exception of Condit, surely not to be faulted for the production’s secondariness. A special salute to Samantha Dubina in the role of head mean girl Chris. She is alternately funny and frightening, a modern, bitchy caricature of the one percent youth class.

The actress nails the showstopper “The World According to Chris” toward the middle of act one. With her powerful voice she manages beautiful and snide at the same time. That is no easy balance, especially in song. When Chris gets what she richly (pun intended) deserves on prom night, you’ll both cheer and regret the end of Dubina’s presence.

Molly Coleman displays great comic timing as Frieda, the only other person who seems as happy as Carrie about the approaching end of high school. At the opposite end of the spectrum there’s Sawyer Smith, the darkly attractive actor who brings surprising life to the character of Billy, a slacker ball of hormones.

If there’s anything truly perfect about the production however, it’s Callie Johnson as mousy, mystical anti-heroine Carrie White. We take our seats knowing how the story ends, but in Johnson’s hands, it’s hard not to root for a different outcome. We want this Carrie to go to her 20-year reunion with a PhD after her name and a handsome husband (or wife) in tow. The whole ability to move objects with her mind thing becomes oddly incidental as the audience basks in the actress’ aching vulnerability.

I have the impression that this review reflects the disjointedness of the Bailiwick’s project overall. Perhaps that’s as it should be. And to further complicate matters, despite the strong criticisms herein, the production is worth a look. Just don’t put it at the top of your early summer viewing list.

The #22 Clark (April 4, 2011)

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A little over a week ago, I stepped out the front door to meet a girlfriend for brunch. It was an unusually warm early Spring afternoon in Chicago, 60 degrees and sunny – the perfect day for baseball.

I had chosen to take the #22 Clark bus south to meet my friend at our chosen destination, a Scottish pub in the City’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The Clark bus is one of those lines that seems to extend forever and goes through so many of Chicago’s key neighborhoods. Start riding at the northernmost extreme, and by the time you reach downtown, you’ll have passed through the trendy LGBT neighborhood of Andersonville, taken a gander at historic Wrigley Field, whizzed past the Chicago History Museum and landed in the thick of it all in Chicago’s Loop.

I boarded the bus at 11:45 AM, just in time to catch the beginnings of a crowd headed over to the Friendly Confines for Game 3 of the Cubs’ home opening series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubbies are an institution in the Windy City, one of the National League’s original teams founded in 1876. Yet 135 years later, there’s still something so magical about those early season games: the predictably uneven April weather which can have you reaching for your winter coat or a pair of shorts with equal likelihood, the unblemished statistics of the Lovable Losers, a time when you can still believe this might finally be the Cubs year.

On this afternoon, shortly after I took my seat on the crowded bus, a man boarded with his adorable two year-old son. Father and child, decked out in their Chicago Cubs finery, were en route to the boy’s first baseball game. At any time, I would have been struck with this child’s preternatural cuteness: dark red hair, fair complexion, precocious yet clumsy walking ability and the hugest smile I have seen in awhile. His vocabulary, rather limited at this stage of toddler life, was big enough to convey the child’s most important thoughts, alternating between “Are we there yet?” and “baseball!” I am nearly 33 years old, and I could relate.

The boy’s father was nearly as excited as his son. The thrill of being able to share a beloved experience with his offspring, introducing the uninitiated into the magical world of balls and strikes, the beauty of whiling away an afternoon with peanuts and crackerjack, the man’s joy was palpable through the crowded bodies and smell of exhaust. And though this scene was one of honesty, delight and love, it kicked me right in the gut.

I am about to be divorced – for the second time. My two failed attempts at matrimony produced no children, a scenario for which I am usually grateful. I have made the conscious decision to leave my womb barren and given my track record with “forever,” I am grateful that I have not subjected another generation to my personal instability. 99.9% of the time, I am at peace in a world in which I am beholden to nobody as I struggle to find my place.

But oh how that 0.01% can hurt, as it did last week. As I smiled at the boy and his father, passing the short ride to Wrigley in innocent, excited conversation, a small voice inside my head began to grow louder and more demanding. “Who will remember you when you’re gone? What have you taught anybody? And for God’s sake, why is it so damned hard for you to hold onto love?”

How can it be that something a majority of the world does, like settle down with someone and have a couple of kids, is so thoroughly beyond me? It is my habit to ask rhetorical questions for which there are clearly no answers.

A minute or so after my silent foray into existentialism, I felt awful for making a beautiful moment between a father and son about me. The writer’s pitfall I guess. Nothing really happens unless it relates to the self, right? Then I realized, as I continued listening to their happy chatter, that my aim was one of a social scientist, as if by eavesdropping on the easy conversation of the fulfilled, I could figure out the formula. I might be able to crack the code of “normalcy,” absorb it by osmosis or something, and leave the bus somehow more whole, more open to giving and receiving love than I had boarded it.

But before my work was done, the charming duo reached their destination. The boy excitedly bid everyone aboard the bus adieu and within moments, the two were lost amongst a sea of peanut sellers, ticket scalpers and throngs of baseball fans waiting to endure enhanced security checks. There is no inconvenience too great for the happy tailgater.

The father and son’s absence was immediately felt aboard the bus. The elderly woman who had been beaming at the two, and asking questions about the boy’s development for the last several miles, returned to her newspaper with a serious mien. The bus driver, amiable and upbeat moments ago, retreated behind his bulletproof shield, eyes once again focused on the road. And as I headed toward my final destination, a carefree brunch with a friend who had nothing real to gain or lose by my presence, I realized I may have come as close to a secure sense of belonging as I will ever get.

A Degree in Mediocrity (March 8, 2011)

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This past weekend, while performing my daily sweep of The New York Times‘ columnists, I came across this interesting piece by Bob Herbert. I confess that I often find Herbert’s work to be redundant (“We are screwing the middle class!” – Yeah, but what else?) and downright dull, but this column hit me with the thunderbolt of self-recognition.

Herbert makes a provocative argument in slightly less than 800 words. We find a lot of ink these days devoted to America’s sinking ranking as a first world producer of competitive, college-educated young adults. But what about the ones who do emerge in four or five years, degree in hand? How are they faring when pitted against the challenges of real life? Herbert’s assessment is damning: “Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort possible.”

A good portion of the blame, according to the column’s argument, lies with the students themselves. According to statistics quoted by Herbert, American university students are studying a full 50% less than their counterparts in the 1960s once did. By extension, additional underlying causes must necessarily be grammar and high schools that fail to introduce academic rigor into their charges’ lives, or the phenomenon of “helicopter parenting” which has left a large segment of adults overly-dependent on Mom and Dad.

However, Herbert does not stop there. U.S. institutions of higher learning are themselves culpable in the inadequacy of our graduates, according to the columnist. He cites results from a study conducted by the Social Science Research Council, which conclude, “that in their first two years of college, 45 percent of the students made no significant improvement in skills related to critical thinking, complex reasoning and communication. After the full four years, 36 percent still had not substantially improved those skills.”

Even allowing for a few percentage points of inaccuracy, it is more than frightening to entertain the idea that nearly half of our nation’s college freshman and sophomores are no better off, from a cognitive standpoint, than they were when they first arrived on campus. And the implications for a productive life, given this mediocre outlook, are clear. Herbert writes, “The development of such skills is generally thought to be the core function of a college education. The students who don’t develop them may leave college with a degree and an expanded circle of friends, but little more. Many of these young men and women are unable to communicate effectively, solve simple intellectual tasks (such as distinguishing fact from opinion), or engage in effective problem-solving.”

As I digested Herbert’s arguments regarding our enfeebled, inadequate graduates, I thought of my own experience as a student at a Big Ten University from 1996 to 2000. My stint as a co-ed at one of the country’s most renowned party schools may pre-date Herbert’s area of concern (methinks he was confining his observations to Millennials, though I can’t be certain), but I felt the cold shame of recognition.

Over the course of the last decade I have said more than once that I “stole” a degree from my alma mater. This is because, with the notable exception of exactly two semesters, I rarely ever went to class. Besieged by depression caused by a PTSD reckoning with an unstable childhood, as well as dissatisfaction with rural life, I withdrew from the game. Instead of becoming engaged with campus activities or rushing a sorority, I worked at a number of part-time jobs whose sole purpose was to stock my liquor cabinet. I met with an advisor one time throughout my four year undergrad career – the first time I ever registered for class, then never again. A regular check-in with a professor, counselor, or even a grad student just wasn’t part of the picture at this social-security-numbers-as-identity institution.

With few resources to prop me up, and very few instructors who factored attendance into final grades, I treated each course as an independent study. I went to class when I felt like it (usually not), and invariably steered clear of the many large lecture-hall style settings which compromised the bulk of my underclass course selections. I showed up on test days, turned in papers when required and invariably coasted my way to a very unsatisfying 2.89 final GPA. But hey! It was enough to graduate and get out right?

Well yes and no. I am aware that my profoundly depressive experience isn’t exactly what Herbert is referring to, but years later, my unearned degree in English Literature didn’t sit right. I knew I hadn’t done the work and felt like a fraud when I traded schooling notes with a new office acquaintance. Though I never meant to manipulate the system, somehow I had, and given that it wasn’t very difficult, I wondered how many others had done the same, intentionally or otherwise.

In 2005, I returned to school to earn my Master’s in English Literature, finishing my studies in late 2007. For many reasons, this second degree was of paramount importance to me, a way of redeeming myself from the extremely lackluster performance I had turned in half a decade ago. I am proud to say that I worked very hard for the M.A., and even prouder to declare that my second institution of higher learning held me accountable. My professors knew me by sight (whereas nearly all of my undergrad tutors could not have picked me out of a lineup), and checked in with my academic progress on the regular. The second time around, from my side as well as my school’s, was everything a satisfying college experience ought to be.

But how many graduates, skating by with an easily won B.A. or B.S. force themselves to return and acquire the critical thinking skills they missed the first time around? An even better question might be to ask ourselves that with the world’s most expensive education system, tuition and fees rising astronomically even before the onset of the 2007 Great Recession, what exactly are we buying?

Rahm the Inevitable (February 21, 2011)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

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Now that the wide variety of political shenanigans that have come to exemplify the 2011 Chicago mayoral race have been exhausted, it seems there’s nothing left to do but wait for Tuesday’s electoral returns. At that point we may stop referring to former U.S. Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as the “presumed favorite,” move beyond his Goliath campaign and start seeing the new CEO of Chi-town in action.

After all, there’s no way anyone could take him at this point, right? Rahmbo has five times more campaign funds at his disposal than nearest fiscal competitor, Gery Chico. His slick print ads and television spots depict the handsome, well-dressed former ballet dancer as a family man who cares about the middle class, ready to make the “tough choices” that will put Chicago back on the fast track to claiming its status as an affordable, world class city. A few of his TV plugs contain public endorsements from not one but two U.S. Presidents, current POTUS Barack Obama, as well as immediate predecessor William Jefferson Clinton.

From the moment on October 1, 2010 when Rahm Emanuel formally announced the resignation of his big-time White House post to throw his hat in the ring for the Chicago mayoral race, his candidacy had an almost pre-ordained quality. His name would certainly be the biggest in the contest, and all too often in U.S. politics, bigger means more viable. Rahmbo is a bulldog by reputation, which fits very well with the Windy City’s blue collar, tough guy image, yet he knows how to construct a sentence. The current mayor, Richard M. Daley, speaks with the eloquence of a barely housebroken pitbull, and his constituents (and machine conspirators) love him for it. Emanuel seems positively refined by comparison, no matter how many “f” bombs he drops.

In terms of name recognition, Rahm Emanuel’s only real competition comes in the shape of political hasbeen, former U.S. Senator Carol Mosley Braun. Although ignorance is bliss where Braun’s legislative past is concerned, most Chicagoans over the age of 35 well recall her terrifically tone deaf response to Newsweek contributing editor George Will’s 1998 examination of the various corruption charges against her: “I think because he couldn’t say nigger, he said corrupt.” She went on to compare Will to a Ku Klux Klansman, stating “I mean this very sincerely from the bottom of my heart: He can take his hood and put it back on again, as far as I’m concerned.”

One might labor under the mistaken belief that Mosley Braun has since learned to police the crazy, having undone her career once already. But no, that’s incorrect. Open your web browser and log onto to Google. From there, enter the search term “carol moseley braun crackhead.” What do you see? All the links you can handle reporting a January 30, 2011 incident at a live debate where Senator Braun addressed opposing candidate Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins as follows: “Patricia, the reason you didn’t know where I was for the last 20 years is because you were strung out on crack…Now, you have admitted to that.”

Van Pelt-Watkins had of course, admitted to no such thing, but move over Whitney Houston. The legendary singer’s 2006 utterance to journalist Diane Sawyer that “crack is whack” was heretofore the most infamous commentary regarding the illegal substance.

So yeah, with opposition of this ilk, Rahm Emanuel’s path to the mayor’s office has been relatively smooth sailing. I do not mean to suggest, with this review of Carol Mosley’s Braun’s uninterrupted political gaffes, that Emanuel faces no serious challengers. He certainly does. It’s just that former Richard M. Daley Chief of Staff Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle, both respected public servants, cannot complete with the sexy, baby kissing, cash flush spectacle of Emanuel.

The thing is though, I think many residents of Chicago have grown tired of being told who their leaders will be before having the chance to evaluate. Though the town has never done much to dispel it’s reputation as a one-party, corrupt patronage operation, much like the recent liberation of Egypt by its own democracy-staved citizens, I smell a similar passion for change in the Midwest air. Three ex-governors in the last 35 years have been sent to the clink, and a fourth, Rod Blagojevich, is surely on his way. Mayor Daley may have done great things in terms of beautifying the landscape and attracting new business but anyone who has lived in the city for the last 22 years knows how much damage his interminable term has done: skyrocketing property taxes, unaffordable homes, runway gang crime and terrible fiscal decisions.

Though change is in the air in one form or another, is there anyone naive enough to believe that Rahmbo will represent a clean break from The Machine? I am still having a hard time digesting the coincidental swap of Rahm Emanuel for Bill Daley, the outgoing mayor’s younger brother, as the President’s Chief of Staff. No, there’s nothing suspect about that at all.

With Rahm demonstrating a commanding lead in the polls, 49 percent of the popular vote to Chico’s 19, it seems pointless to consider an outcome other than his total domination at the polls this week. But wait! For those of us perversely hoping for a dark horse spoiler (and no, Carol Mosley Braun, before you even start, that is not racist), we do have the prospect of a runoff. In order to prevent a general election showdown between Rahmbo and the number two finisher, the foul mouthed one needs at least 51 percent of the vote. 49 just won’t do. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that some hard last minute campaigning by Chico and del Valle (who has my vote) will prevent Emanuel from sailing into City Hall on Wednesday. Run-offs are generally not the friend of front-runners because they allow time and opportunity for a once splintered opposition to develop a united front.

However unlikely, as a lover of democracy residing in a city that doesn’t see a lot of balanced elections, that’s what I’d like to see happen. I want Rahmbo, if he is indeed our mayor-to-be, to have to sweat it out at a bit more than he has. Those lame residency challenges, which Emanuel continued to swat away like pesky mosquitoes, do not satisfy the appetite for electoral combat. After 22 years of Daley hostage-taking, Chicago deserves a real fight for its future.