Upcoming Dance

Bill Esler

Bill Esler

With a powerful script by Jim Cartwright and knockout performances by every cast member, Filament Theatre’s “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice’” is a must-see. Set in the 1960s at a seaside village in northern England, this play about a young woman, LV (Emjoy Gavino), sequestered upstairs in her tidy bedroom, listening to her late father’s voluminous LP vinyl collection of popular chanteuses of the era that were his favorites of his—Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland and others.

Downstairs her mother, Marti Hoff (Alexandra Main), a raging alcoholic, usually wearing last night’s heavy makeup and jewelry, flails through the chaotic mess, screaming up the stairs for LV to turn it down, then collapsing on the cluttered couch. The dilapidated domicile features sketchy electrical, which frequently shorts out in showers of sparks. Yet when the power goes down, the music continues and we are treated to a revelation: LV can perfectly mimic the divas she has listened to for hours. And let me say you will be blown away by Emjoy Gavino’s singing.

Central to the achievement, or any performance of this script, is the musical capabilities of LV. How there can be found actors like Gavino who can act, and mimic perfectly a range of divas—her Billy Holiday is unbelievably convincing—well this is the magical mystery of theater and what separates us spectators from those conjuring the spectacle on the other side of the footlights. (Vocal consultant is Jessie Oliver.)

Ben Veatch Alexandra Main Watson Swift Julia Rowley Emjoy Gavino

(from left) Ben Veatch, Alexandra Main. Watson Swift, Julia Rowley and Emjoy Gavino

Directed impeccably by Devon de Mayo and Peter G. Anderson, Gift Theatre has mined “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” for all its dramatic worth. Largely a story of unresolved grief, and how in this case that grief is addressed, is the core of the play. It's a bit like a mash-up of "Glass Menagerie" and :Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf." As Marti Hoff, Main launches into Cartwright’s soliloquies for a very unhappy person, making them soar compellingly, and in convincing Northern British dialect. (Kudos to Dialect Coach Adam Goldstein.) As the villain of this drama, Main’s performance as Hoff earns our sympathy even as we despise her behavior.

Emjoy Gavino Martel Manning

(from left) Emjoy Gavino and Martel Manning

LV’s escape from this toxic environment comes through the offices of telephone installer Billy (Martel Manning), a suitor whose bashful advances are a perfect match for the reticent LV (it stands for Little Voice). Manning’s performance is nuanced and compelling.

Emjoy Gavino

Emjoy Gavino in Gift Theatre's 'The Rise and Fall of Little Voice' at Filament Theatre

Two larger-than-life characters also figure large in the action: the stage promoter Ray Say (Ben Veath) and the impresario Mr. Boo (Watson Swift), who each turn in outstanding performances. These two engineer a public performance by LV at a local club, and it's a smash—but it causes LV to crash emotionally.

We mustn’t overlook Sadie May (Julia Rowley), Marti Hoff's silently slavish drinking and dancing buddy. Rowley captures the essence of a character living vicariously through another.

From set design (Hannah Clark), costumes (kClare McKelaston) props (Lily Anna Berman), this production of “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” will bring you on your feet cheering. Running through October 15 at Filament Theatre, 4101 N. Milwaukee in Chicago, it comes highly recommended. Reach the box office here.

It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1954, the U.S. Senate began investigating publishers of comic books, tapping psychologists who linked a rise in juvenile delinquency to comics depicting lurid stories and violent criminals. The nation was perhaps primed for the investigation, as the move came during the Senate’s ongoing McCarthy era pogrom against suspected communists during the Red Scare.

“The Innocence of Seduction” recounts this inconceivable (maybe not given book ban efforts today) but true story, and so delightfully and with such panache that you will be completely entertained. WIth a passionate cast of 15 players, and an inventive script by Mark Pracht (who also directs), each scene opens much like a panel in a comic book. This is Pracht’s second work in a projected “Four-Color Trilogy” about the illustrated periodicals and is the opener for City Lit’s forty-third season.

We meet real characters from actual comic book publishers, including Entertainment Comics’ William Gaines (played with gusto by Sean Harklerode), and his counterparts from St. John Publishing (Archer St. John is played by John Blick.)and Quality Comics. Key individuals in the saga are accompanied by their true-life, fleshed out backstories, which in the 1950’s made them vulnerable to compromise by background work done by J. Edgar Hoover’s minions at the FBI. 

Among these are Matt Baker (Brian Bradford), a Black closeted gay artist of romance comics, and Janice Valleau (Megan Clarke), creator of a women detective comics and artist behind the Archie Comics spin-off “Veronica and Betty.”  Representing expert psychologists connecting comics to social ills is Dr. Frederic Wertham, also a real life figure, whose commentary is interjected in vignettes very much like a comic book panel. Played so very well by Frank Nall, Dr. Wertham’s scenes gradually move from restrained scientific commentary to ever more dire rants and ultimately, darkly comic interjections.

Notable in the production are a 1950-styled big-screen for presenting comic images—credit to G. "Max" Maxin IV for Scenic, Lighting and Projection Design. Exceptional work was done by Beth Laske-Miller (Costume Designer), Petter Wahlbäck (Composer and Sound Design), Alison Dornheggen (Violence and Intimacy Design), and Jeff Brain (Props Design).

“The Innocence of Seduction” shows how, as politics entered an arena in which it didn’t belong, the public responded to this newly contrived hot-button issue, with comic book burnings blossoming in towns around the U.S. Playwright Pracht has packed it all in this work, and we meet Senators Robert Henrickson (Paul Chakrin) and Estes Kefauver (Robin Trevino), as well as jurist Charles Murphy (Chuck Munro), who was appointed the first arbiter of what could pass muster under the comic book publishing code.

Comics long bore the mark of that era, a self-policing censorship program evident on the covers of everything from Superman to The Thing through 2011: the Comics Code Authority seal of approval. Today we have abandoned fears of what at the time was deemed a threat to society. The code forbade the use of “horror or terror” in comic titles and banned the depiction of “walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism.” Now societal backlash is whipped up by politicians over "wokeness, " Black history, and LGBTQ education. 

Pracht shows us that Judge Murphy’s thumbs up or down was at times capricious and idiosyncratic - as formalized censorship always is and must be. The comic-styled program for the show draws a connection to the surge in attempts to banned books, including graphic novels, in schools and libraries today.

While aspects of the various personal human dramas play out in overdrawn melodrama, perhaps this is in keeping with the subject as well. Regardless, this is a highly recommended show, which runs through October 8 at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr in Chicago.

At first I wasn't digging “Moon at the Bottom of the Ocean,” Bryn Magnus’ two act play premiering at Dramatists Theater in Chicago. It opens with Paul (Jeffrey Bivens is excellent) sitting beside Vera's (Julia Williams) desk as she reels off brief descriptions of a scene in a coffee shop--but we're not sure why. Is it details for a camera shoot? A cinematographer's script? As Vera flies through the descriptions in a dull monotone, reading many of them with time stamps, Paul fidgets and jumps in and out of his chair.

"Notes," Vera's charges, in an effort to gain Paul's attention. We learn soon enough that Paul is a frustrated author struggling with completing his first novel. He has retained Vera to spy on a gentleman we never see, who he regards as his nemesis—Jonathan Lebenau, a prolific and celebrated author who has recently won a MacArthur Genius grant. Vera's charge: to find out for Paul the secret of Lauacaum’s success.

Never mind that back at home is Paul's angelic wife Leslie (Vicki Walden), who happens to be a barista at the coffee shop Lebenau frequents. Leslie has given Paul multiple opportunities to meet Lebenau directly, to ask for advice, or simply to share a bit of his own developing opus. In fact, we learn that Paul has never let anyone read a word of it. Not even Leslie, who has watched his writing struggles throughout their marriage.

"It isn't ready," Paul says. “Revealing your work before it's ready diminishes it,” he claims. Understandable sentiments to a certain degree. But this has been going on for 15 years! His wife has never read nor heard Paul read a single sentence from this work. Does it even exist? We begin to wonder, and the plot thickens.

As the audience becomes enveloped in this mystery, which is gripping, we also bear witness to the toxic fixation author Paul has for his nemesis Lebenau. Paul's fixation and his continuously uttered internal monolog is almost like a Dostoyevsky character. And we begin to see how this is poisoning his relationship with his wife Leslie. She is an ethereal songbird who effortlessly devises melodies that for Paul are intimidating in their beauty, and Leslie readily shares them with the world.

In the second act the mystery turns and we meet a satisfying resolution. Directed by Jenny Magnus and is part of Curious Theatre Branch’s 35th season. Dramaturg alert: it’s a very fine play, even in this bare bones production. And one I am so glad I saw. The show runs through September 23, 2023. Tickets are at Curious Theatre’s online box office. 

“No Man’s Land” is vintage Harold Pinter: enigmatic, intriguing, remarkable word play, and loaded with laughs. Steppenwolf has given it a definitive production, set in the soaring library of Hirst, a British aristocrat litterateur who has picked up Spooner, an aging poet, at a pub earlier.

Descending into a scotch-soaked verbal tryst, the two launch into windy, pretentious fulminations on everything under the sun as they joust over the course of the two acts. At first, Spooner is in the ascendancy, and eventually Hirst.

It has been more than 45 years since “No Man's Land” was first produced, and here at Steppenwolf, we have a chance to see two of Steppenwolf’s finest in the prime of their acting capabilities: Jeff Perry as Hirst and Mark Ulrich as Spooner. Under the impeccable direction of Les Waters—his rendering of Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play”) was exceptional—this is a definitive production.

Though critics have puzzled over Harold Pinter’s 1974 “No Man's Land” for decades, you do not need to understand the late British playwright’s intent to enjoy it. The audience was roiled with laughter throughout the first act, while the second, darker act is gripping as we watch for resolution that comes, but leaves us perhaps in the same predicament as the characters.

Two younger men, Foster (Samuel Roukin) and Briggs ((John Hudson Odom), self-described as amanuenses of Hirst, assist Hirst in the shifting power balance by intimidating and reining in Spooner. Then they join the party, drinking along with the older men. Hirst has all the cards: the money, the status, and these two aides to assist in his ultimate domination of Spooner.

In fact, this absurdist work offers no conclusions, just intimations of the existential inertia two late middleaged men feel as they cling to an idyllic sybaritic past while beginning to look at the void that lies ahead when they meet their end. Until then, they distract themselves as best they can with pretentions and word games.

I’ll venture this take on the meaning: Pinter has abstracted the dynamic of male competitiveness and posturing. The dialog, so complex that I am in awe at the actors’ mastery of the roles, expresses how two men establish who’s on top, who’s the alpha. We see this in sales meetings, in board rooms, in sports bars, and in “No Man's Land” in the library. That Pinter has captured this essence, the one-upmanship, the referential stature building, and the behavior change when the alpha emerges victorious - this is the art of the play.

Andrew Boyce earns plaudits for the monumental vision of a book-filled room: twelve rows of bound volumes line the walls from floor to ceiling, with spot-on wall paper and moulding, a cavernous space that focuses the action front and center. Sound design (Mikhail Fiksel) punctuates key moments shockingly yet appropriate to the script.

Highly recommended, “No Man’s Land” runs through August 20 in Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater.

For those who love theater, “Being Seen” is a delicious window into the heart of the actors’ world. Written and directed by Richard Gustin, with excellent performances by Will Clinger as a sinister director, and Kelly Anne Clark as an auditioning actor, this show at the Den Theatre offers 90 minutes of tension and humor that at its best moments reminded me of Tom Stoppard, with notes of Pinter.

The action opens with the actor (Clark) on stage under the spotlight, readying for what seems to have been an impromptu audition. The happenstance brought her to try out for an unspecified role in an unknown play being developed by a highly acclaimed director (Clinger), who emanates as a disembodied British voice somewhere in the shadows. Gustin has placed him midway up with the audience, where we slowly locate the origin of his voice.

Adding to the tone of mystery are the series of enigmatic questions he poses to the actor, none of which help us identify which play, or even what type of play, he may have in mind. Rather, they seemed designed to establish his authority and preeminence, at least in the mind of the actor.
Periodically the director holds forth on one acting theory or another.

Bemoaning a dearth of great scripts, the director ostentatiously declared, “What I’d give for another Aristotle, another Sophocles, Sophocles, as well as a few minor female playwrights,.” And the actor—a supplicant seeking to be cast—readily agrees to his point of view on this and matters small and large, even abandoning her position if she inadvertently contradicts the director’s point of view.

So desperate for a role th auditioning actor will do anything the director asks. We learn that she has been an understudy in a number of significant roles, but the leads made all the performances in the runs. She also provides more information than the director requests, demonstrating her ability in dance, and volunteering a dramatic reading that she always has at the ready. The questions seem to grow increasingly off-base, too penetrating, overbearing, even abusive. She’s asked to sum up outlandish numerical totals in her head, for example. But seemingly no matter what she does, it doesn’t seem to please the director. At one point, he asks about her shoe size.

“Five and a half, but I can wear smaller,” she says.“We were looking for a seven,” the director replies dismissively. “Well I can do that,” she responds hopefully, claiming she actually did some of her best work wearing a size eight. But no matter what she does, she doesn’t seem to be able to curry the director’s favor.

The audition moves toward inquisition, heightening the edginess. Her obsequiousness against the pretentiousness and self-infatuation of the director’s views are the basis for much of the humor, which is continuous during the show. At one point, she is asked “How do you spell “theater,” and pausing after the second t—to big laughs and great comic effect—makes the 50-50 guess on which is the director’s preference.

Finally, after an hour, the actor cracks, declaring she is tired of being “on.” And for the last 30 minutes of the show, the plot thickens, and we are led to an unexpected ending. Will Clinger will be familiar to Chicago audiences as the host of the former Public Television show Wild Chicago and frequent parts in locally filmed television dramas. He proves himself a good stage actor. Clark is among the most regularly cast actors for Chicago’s musical theater scene,and starred in the U.S. premiere at Goodman Theater of “The Return of Martin Guerre.”

This show was well received in New York, with sold out performances and was voted a fan favorite at the New York Fringe Festival. The Den Theatre production benefits from having the author as director. But I often felt in “Being Seen” that we were continuously being lead-up to a really big laugh, but never quite getting there—titters, not quite guffaws. But for actors and theater geeks like me, this is an entertaining 90 minutes. “Being Seen” runs through July 2, 2023 at Den Theatre in Chicago. .

 

 

After a four-year hiatus, Cirque du Soleil, the ever-inventive circus troupe, has returned to Chicagoland with its latest show, “Corteo.” Founded in Montreal in 2005, Cirque transforms ordinary circus stuff— trapeze performances, acrobatics and gymnastics—through costuming, music, and a continuing storyline into pure stage magic.

This has garnered Cirque a devoted fan base that fills the tents and now arenas in which it performs to ever growing numbers, and “Corteo”—running through June 4 at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates—proves the company has not lost one bit of inspiration.

Like previous shows, “Corteo” weaves together a series of interrelated vignettes that form a unified whole. The costuming and motif of “Corteo” are taken from the Italian traditions of Commedia Dell’Arte rooted in medieval times but fresh and funny as heck. The voiced dialog, which is really minimal, switches fluidly from Italian to English. It’s the body language that is most important, and the hallmark of Cirque du Soleil’s excellence.

“Corteo” portrays the clown Mauro, who envisions his sickbed, and we see concerned parties visiting. But while serious, it is not a somber setting one laced with the circus acts in which he lives his life. It has a carnival atmosphere and is attended by angels hovering on trapeze rings.

Emerging from his bed, Mauro relives scenes from his life: playing in the bedroom with a brother (mattresses are trampolines), romantic interludes (a high wire act by a youthful couple), and the many astounding circus acts that surrounded him in his life. One example is a precision performance by six men rolling around the turntable stage in perfect unison within large metal rings. Another set finds precision gymnastics, performers dressed in colorfully contrasting waistcoats, breeches and spats, and with the lighting and music it is elevated from mere acrobatics to a thing of beauty. The stage set also captures the essence of Cirque’s magical appeal, with a curtains and sheer drops converting the cavernous NOW Arena into an intimate double-fronted proscenium design.

And it’s also a circus, and scenes of comic relief serve as palate cleansers, keeping the show from becoming ponderous. One of these, a golfing scene with a living golf ball dodging the duffers, is laugh until you cry funny, reminiscent of the best of Blue Man Group bits, but even better. It is also wholesome and child friendly, operating on a level of the magical that allows us adults to re-engage the wonderful world of the imagination.

More important than the story is the spectacle. “Corteo's original music, with delightful and even moving singers against live percussionist, violinist, even concert whistling and a water glass concerto, are blended artfully with studio recordings to conjure the magical atmosphere.

Cirque du Soleil’s genius really is indescribable, and this faltering attempt at doing so is intended merely to urge you to see it before the fleeting opportunity passes by. It is not something that can be streamed, it must be experienced. Remaining performances are Saturday, June 2 at 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sunday June 4 at 1 pm at the NOW Arena (the former Poplar Creek) in Hoffman Estates, IL.

 

Will WIlhelm, a trans actor with a serious bent for Shakespeare, takes us on a provocative journey through the playwright’s works that is both funny and eye opening. About Face Theatre’s “Gender Play or What You Will” is accompanied by plenty of witty dish. But this seemingly light-hearted two-hours also seeks to reset our view of those works the playwright penned between 1690 and 1713.

“The words belong to all of us,” Wilhelm says, and as a trans performer,. “I wanted to see myself reflected in the world,” claiming that after channeling Sakespeare’s spirit, “Will suggested I traipse through his work as me.”

It’s not only a reasonable quest—in Shakespeare’s time male actors played all the female roles, and gender-shifts in characters (women disguised as men) were a common plot device in his works—but for Will Wilhelm, the actor, the Bard’s works also formed an avenue to personal liberation.

Wilhelm shares an experience in a career as a professional actor, where during auditions performers are quickly dropped into slots: housewife, ingenue, jock, father, bookworm. Wilhem adapted by playing the roles directors sought, but it felt false. During the show Wilhelm relates how the realization that the gender fluidity of Shakespeare’s many characters—as well as the “othern Save ess” of outsider characters like Sherlock or Othello—provided strength and comfort. “William Shakespeare was writing about the marginalized,” Wilhem tells us.

Between the personal digressions and audience engagement, Wilhem taps quotes from a number of Shakespeare’s works that get the idea across. In some respects, this show is a goodly showcase for Wilhelm’s skill with the playwright, with bits from “Macbeth,” “Henry V,” "Hamlet" and other works. What characters would Wilhelm like to play from Shakespeare? "All of them," we're told—in other words, not just Ophelia, but also Hamlet, or the gravedigger.

Make no mistake, though, this sophisticated two-hour one-person show is also erudite and insightful, and informative. We learn that as the young Shakespeare (who was married at 18) had fathered three children by age 21.

His prolific output (37 plays in 23 years, the first at age 25) was likely driven by a need for cash. He also took on tutoring work, students including a young lord, Henry Wriothesley, who was reluctant to marry, and is said to be a youth referred to in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” in Wilhem’s interpretation, is aimed at Henry, while other sonnets argue for Henry to marry and procreate.

Society’s perceptions of Shakespeare continually shift, mirroring contemporary values. Willhelm and co-creator Erin Murray do that for today's mores in “Gender Play Or What You Will,” running through June 3 at the Den Theatre.

Striking and enveloping, “Antonio’s Song/I Was Dreaming of my Son” is the most honest and accurate portrayal of how men are formed emotionally that I have ever seen. While it’s the particular story of Antonio Edwards Suarez, its authenticity raises it to the universal, in my view.

Saurez is a notable and accomplished dancer and actor, who brings his skills in dramatic movement to bear on Suarez’s biography in a one-act penned by Pulitzer-finalist Dael Orlandosmith and directed by Mark Clements.

In the opening scene Antonio gives us a captivating explanation of the challenge he encounters in managing his five-year-old while pursuing his serious creative work. He explains how he needs unfettered time alone in his studio to engage and release the spirit within that drives his work. But on this day, he unexpectedly has his kindergartener in tow, and soon enough the child is bored and wants attention. When this triggers violent anger in Antonio, and he slaps his little one, he is shocked and quickly remorseful. The rest of the performance is Antonio’s self-examination of the forces that unleashed this heretofore dormant violent streak.

With word, gesture and movement Antonio reveals his upbringing, early childhood friends, his parents, his bifurcated Black and Latino ethnicity. Conversant in street slang, in one astounding scene Antonio delivers a posturing boast of braggadocio on his manly prowess with young women, first in a sort of Spanglish street talk, then jumping to the other side of the stage, replicating it in Black argot.

Antonio’s self-awareness of the thuggish behavior that permeates his walk, talk, and demeanor, was illuminating. “Antonio’s Song” is modern in expressing the interior conversation he carries on during his personal journey. As a man and as a dad, I felt it was also a universal story. Many men have tried to tell the story of why men have problems in love and life, but Antonio fully expresses the vulnerability we experience as society pressures us into stereotypical roles that can abrogate our true selves.

Enthralled with dance after a chance TV viewing of ballet great Baryshnikov, Antonio is admonished against pursuing it as a dream by his mother, a depressive and vindictive figure. Wearing tights, moving elegantly, even delicately in dance, such pursuits are discouraged for young men as unmanly, gay-ish activities. Aspirations to finding fortune as an artist were also out of keeping with the vision of life harbored by most of Antonio’s Brooklyn peers. But his bosom buddy models a successful path into the arts. And Antonio’s father gets behind him, ultimately challenging Antonio’s mother and giving him support as his life takes him to dance school, to studies of ballet in Russia, and to a Harvard MFA.

Suarez’s stage mastery of movement is highly evident as he conjures up through expressive gesture unseen characters: his son, his dance teacher, his dying father. The creative team is also wonderful, in particular Jared Mazzochi’s project design and Luciana Stecconi’s spare but versatile set. Not knowing exactly what I would see in “Antonio’s Song,” I came away powerfully affected, and so highly recommend "Antonio's Song" at the Goodman Owen Theatre, running through May 28, 2023.

“TV Land,” a sextet of short comedies playing May 6, 7 and 8 at The Vault on Fulton Street, is a bit like the television that inspired it, with highs and lows but enough hearty laughs to recommend it.

An immersive theater event, "TV Land" puts the audience in the action, but not too much so that it would become annoying. Soon after arrival, ticket holders assembled in seats upstairs are ushered to the lower level where an open bar and gnoshes await—all included with the tickets.

A Showrunner (Anna Yee) and Head of Scripts (Kelly Lavendar) put the audience in the role of a writers’ pool charged with developing six scripts within the two-hour performance. Never worry, though, the heavy lifting on the scripts has been completed and we soon witness the opening act, “80’s Are Back,” an over the top, action-packed Charlie’s Angels send-up written and directed by Levander. The cavernous space near the bar is less than ideal for acoustics, and after this palate cleanser act we were ushered back upstairs for a more conventional setting for the next five acts.

For “Art-ish,” an examination of the possibilities of artificial intelligence in the creative arts, the audience tests out the technology in real-time, and a computer renders in seconds paintings based on our suggestions. Opening night included a cat on a trampoline in the style of Van Gogh, a pizza as if it were painted by Monet—not too different from blurred photos—and a very impressive panda as an astronaut, as painted by Georgia O’Keefe, rendered in three versions.

The ensuing one-act trades on this backgrounder somewhat, but it’s really about Charlie (Taylor Adams), an avid soccer fan who comes to watch a big game on the TV with his friend Trent (Joe Bushell). Trent is away, and his Wife (Sophia Vitello) greeting Charlie in her bathrobe, is relentless with unwelcome suggestive advances aimed at steering him to the bigger TV in the bedroom. When Trent finally arrives Charlie hugs him in relief, but we get an unexpected punchline.

 YRT TV Land

The best of the bunch are “The Problem-atic” by Seph Bennett and “Intruder” by Francis Brady. “Problem-atic” is built on a funny conceit, a wand you run over text or images to identify issues of political incorrectness, insensitivity, or general wokeness, depending on your political orientation. The fast-paced and very witty issues electronically voiced by the Problem-atic device are a poke-in-the-eye at what can be overly-self conscious pretensions of contemporary culture. Bennett delivers humor in the vein of great satirists, with Sandra Adjoumani  (above) in a polished performance as the interpreter of the bad-news assessments provided by the Problem-atic device.

Francis Brady’s “Intruder” is the most refined one-act, with three scenes revolving around the intrusiveness of television in people’s lives. The Husband (Joe Bushell) has installed a giant screen high-definition TV in the bedroom, and Wife (Elizabeth Bushell) wants it gone.
“This TV is better than anything,” Husband avers. “All I want to do is decompress a little.” To which Wife objects, “Lay like a block, you mean,” demanding it be gone when she returns.

In the next scene at work Wife is in the coffee room with colleagues, talking ad nauseum about streaming shows like “Euphoria.” One co-worker Tim (Taylor Adams) confesses that he doesn’t actually like watching TV, but reads online summaries so he can carry on the water cooler talk. Why? “For the same reason I go to happy hour,” says Tim.

Two of the plays—”You Don’t Say” by Joe Bushell and “Woke Disney World” by Anna Yee— are funnier as ideas, but come off as mildly amusing on stage. “You Don’t Say” is a mash-up of a live soap opera with a reality TV show, “Woke Disney” is a self-help support group focussed on empowerment for Disney Princesses, moderated by Snow White and including latter-day princesses like Ariel, Mulan,
The Yellow Rose is one of Chicago’s newer companies, having launched during Covid, and “TV Land” demonstrates their passion, and irreverent sense of humor, always welcome on stage. Find tickets at www.theyellowrosetheatre.com

“Damn Yankees,” the vintage 1955 musical comedy at the Marriott Theatre in suburban Lincolnshire, has it all: a witty book, delicious songs, great choreography, and an excellent chorus. From the days when musical comedies were still rooted in operetta, it is truly musical, packed with memorable songs arranged in beautiful harmonies, and a Faustian storyline that gives heft to the drama.

It’s also very funny. Based on a 1954 novel, it tells the story of Joe Boyd (Ron E. Rains) a middle-aged, very rabid baseball fan who sells his soul to the devil to become a baseball great - Joe Hardy (Andrew Alstat) who uses his new-found powers to drive his beloved but terrible Washington Senators to win a Pennant and break the New York Yankees’ years-long lock on winning.

damn yankees marriott

It’s wonderful to see “Damn Yankees” revived in such a definitive production. It is revisited less often than other Tony winning musicals from its era, like Richard Rodgers “South Pacific” (1949) or Frederick Lowe’s “My Fair Lady” (1956) and Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man” (1957). Perhaps it’s the challenge of creating a convincing chorus of baseball players who can sing, dance and play ball—but director James Vasquez and choreographer James Vasquez have built a winning team here.

“Damn Yankees” breaks out of the box with a big number—Six Months Out of Every Year—featuring a quartet of male fans in dueling counterpoint melodies sung by a quartet of their wives, who lament their husbands’ preoccupation with the baseball. “Six months out of every year/When I’m with him/I’m alone” laments Joe’s wife, Meg Boyd—Daniella Dalli—a rich sonorous singer who carries this classic as well as her major more romantic numbers beautifully.

Soon enough the silky smooth, fast talking devil Applegate arrives. Sean Fortunato is a scene stealer, and knows how to get the audience roaring with his sly humor. After he seals the deal and transforms Boyd into the batting wonder Joe Hardy, Applegate sees he must fully corrupt his soul to lock him in fully as a future denizen of hell.

Enter Lola. Michelle Aravena recreates a character made indelible by the original performance by Gewn Verdon on stage and screen. And she so truly does it, in spades. This Lola is not mimicking Verdon, but is an original creation that I think may be even better than Gwen Verdon’s original. Aravena’s arrival is like a vixen jumping from a birthday cake, and wins the attention of all eyes and ears when she is on stage. She sings and dances—”A Little Brains” and the tango classic “Whatever Lola Wants”—all real time excellence, in one of the most demanding roles on stage.

The baseball chorus is also notably good and convincingly athletic—dance captain is Brian Bandura—with a show-stopping jump rope performance by Ben Broughton. From living room to locker room, the vintage in-through-round Marriott Theatre (originally Drury Lane North) showcases this production of “Damn Yankees” with flair, and nary a bad seat. Highly recommended, “Damn Yankees” runs through June 4 @MarriottTheatre

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