“Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have…(mystery chords!) Alfred Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS, Broadway’s most intriguing, most thrilling, most riotous, most UNMISSABLE comedy smash! The mind-blowing cast of four plays over 150 characters in this fast-paced tale of an ordinary man on an extraordinarily entertaining ad venture.”
May 19 – May 30, 2010
More information at BroadwayinChicago.com
Banana Shpeel is bad.
My Cirque-adoring heart aches as I type that, but it is.
For a show that started with so much promise – Broadway Stars Michael Longoria and Annaleigh Ashford in a new Broadway-bound Modern-Vaudeville musical created by Cirque du Soliel! – The final result is really confusing, weak and disappointing.
It all began when, shortly after a (solid) performance on ”America’s Got Talent,” it was briskly announced that Longoria and Ashford, along with their romantic plot line, was being cut from the show because there was too much plot going on.
Let me say this:
Having seen the show, I would have appreciated some plot.
There are only fragments of what I assume at one point was a plot, which leaves a disjointed series of acts, strung together under the guise of auditions for Schmelky’s Spectacular.
Though, while acts are auditioning, the show is actually happening (I think? I mean, dancers in sparkly costumes were performing production numbers?) so.. yeah, I’m not really sure what was going on.
When Dan saw the show, he said “Less Shpeel, More Cirque,” and I couldn’t agree more.
The clown scenes (of which there seemed to be hundreds, all of which were unfortunate) dragged on endlessly, and weren’t that funny. This isn’t all the fault of the performers, who are obviously talented and doing the best they can, particularly the two main clowns. Being dragged down by lame material, including a painfully unfunny dinner scene, isn’t their fault. Who knows? Maybe they’re as confused as I was as to what’s going on?
There’s a chorus of ten dancers who show up a few times to do big routines in clever costumes. Though they’re all obviously talented dancers, the choreography is sloppy at times. More than once I noticed a dancer or two completely not in synch with the other dancers, and overall the dancing doesn’t look polished. Again, maybe the poor dancers are just trying to figure out what song is next?
The only things that got serious applause from the audience were four acts I would describe as typically Cirque. The first is a young man who juggles hats, and he’s a blast to watch. The second is a couple. He throws her around in the air. It’s very impressive – though they took a tumble during our performance. The third is a flexible young woman who twirls things on her hands and feet. (They might be placemats? I’m not sure.) And the fourth, and most impressive, is a beautiful young man who contorts himself while swinging around and holding himself on a spinning pole. These three acts are undoubtedly the highlights of the evening, and the only remnants of anything Cirque.
[Note: I'd even like to be able to call some of these hard-working performers by name, but the audience is not given programs. If you want to find out who's in the show, you can pay $10 for a souvenier program that features photos of actors who are no longer in the show - Michael Longoria and Annaleigh Ashford - in scenes that don't exist in the show.]
The show has gone through many changes – and is apparently still changing. Bob saw the show a few weeks ago and said what we saw last night was way different ( including songs in new places and new acts.)
For example, the first act ends really strangely. It’s a big “Magic” routine, with disappearing girls, and the entire cast swarms the stage suddenly, and for some reason one of the clowns is in a tiger suit, and there’s a big song that keeps saying something like “Schmelky, You can’t do it alone.”
In the back of my head, I was thinking “What can’t he do alone? I don’t understand. This is like a finale.”
Then Bob leaned over and said “This used to be the finale.”
Also, there’s a whole elaborate set-up to a scene from “Romeo and Juliet” even though the set piece says “Hamlet” that is a whole lot of lead-up so an old man clown can walk out and say “A whore, a whore.. My kingdom for a whore..s.”
Yep. That’s the entire joke.
And there’s also an audience volunteer, who might be a plant? She’s in the press photos, and Bob says she’s the same girl he saw get pulled onstage last time. If it’s true, it doesn’t make sense why it can’t be an audience volunteer – as she just gets led around for a while. Odd.
If the producers of this show want it to not bomb on Broadway, serious revisions need to be done. Perhaps stopping for a moment to figure out what the point of the show is would be a good start. Is it a musical? Is it a Cirque variety show? If it’s a musical, it needs a ton of work. If it’s a Cirque variety show, it needs more than four acts.
Banana Shpeel is, in a word, a disaster.
It’ll be interesting to see if it even makes it to Broadway. And, if it does, what the heck show it is by then.
Save your money.
Or, for the price of one ticket to this show, you could see about 5 storefront shows in Chicago.
Go See Redtwist’s The Pillowman instead. While there are no musical numbers, it’s a heck of a lot more engaging.
There’s a Jane Austen exhibit in NYC!
And the New York Times wrote about it.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/arts/design/07austen.html?ref=books)
“Austen also wrote perhaps 3,000 letters over the course of her 41 years, most to her sister, Cassandra, who burned many and expurgated others that she believed reflected badly on Jane or other family members. Only 160 survive; the Morgan holds 51, more than any other institution. This exhibition offers a healthy sampling, some with pieces cut out in Cassandra’s quest for decorum.” – NY Times.
Robert: It’s like our gchats! Delete the incriminating ones before you become a famous novelist. Please.
Jamie: Hell no. I’m using them. “Gshat: The conversations of Jamie and Robert. When a world-famous novelist and America’s premiere theatre critic had drudging day jobs, they got by thanks to gchat. This insightful memoir shows a friendship based on nonsense, as two highly educated and creative minds burst forth from corporate zombie-hood.”
Robert: HA. You could so totally write jacket sleeves.
Jamie: I can see the movie trailer already.
Robert: I smell tater tots.
(…and scene.)
I have run a fair amount of 5ks since I started running in summer of 2008, and I need to say right now that the Hot Chocolate 5k I ran this morning (and hauled my butt out of bed the morning after Halloween for, mind you) was the most disorganized race I’ve participated in.
It started a few weeks ago.
Bob had already signed up long before I did. When he convinced me to sign up, I went to the site and saw that the packet pick-up Bob had told me about was no longer listed on the website. They changed this key piece of info and hadn’t emailed the registered runners to let them know.
Whatever. Could have been a fluke, right?
Nope.
First of all, we’re pretty sure they oversold the race, as the place was packed to the gills. It took us 8 minutes from when the race began to actually cross the start line, which is not an altogether uncommon thing in a big race, but the race path was packed the entire 3.1 miles, and the course had some precarious turns, a stretch right along Montrose Harbor that could have easily ended with someone falling in the water, and I saw a guy in the last mile trying to pull his sneaker out of a hole it had gotten lodged in.
Regardless, I had a nice run – The weather was perfect and my admittedly nice race hoodie kept me the perfect temperature.
Then we finished the race, and immediately made our way to gear check.
Easily, we spent 20 minutes in the looping line for gear check before someone told us that runners with numbers of 15,000 and higher(Eric and I) could go to a new line. So we did, and soon realized what all the hold-up was. The gear check people had essentially taken everyones bags and thrown them into a great big pile with no arrangement, so when it was time to collect the volunteers (god bless ‘em) were basically looking for a needle in a haystack. Once Eric and I got our stuff, we returned to where Bob, Gina, and Laura were still waiting to get theirs, and took it upon ourselves to inform all the new runners in line with numbers 15,000 or higher not even to bother with the line they were in.
Race times haven’t officially come in yet, but we’re nearly positive we spent more time in line at gear check than we did actually running.
(To put things in perspective, the 2009 Shamrock Shuffle has significantly more runners and we maybe spent a grand total of 3 minutes in line both checking and collecting our items pre and post race. And, you know, that was in a blizzard, so..)
While we waited in line, we heard people complaining that the free shuttles took forever to get to and from the race site, that the 5k finishers were walking in the path of the 15k runners, and that this race was WAY better organized in 2008. A girl told us that the company who put the race up this year was a brand new company, and you could tell.
So, finally, gear collected, we headed to the food tents. As this was the HOT CHOCOLATE 5K, sponsored in part by Hershey, all the press had promised TONS of chocolate. Not really. Though the chocolate fondue we recieved was great (if in small quantites) the Hot Chocolate itself was really bitter and gross. We threw it away.
UPDATE: According to this blog, they also ran out of chocolate.
(Thats another thing. 15,000 runners and there were maybe 4 trash cans on the entire site?)
Though we all ran well, and the day was lovely and it’s always nice to run with friends (Congrats Gina, on your first 5k – and doing awesome!), event organization kept it from being a really awesome experience.
I won’t be running this race again in 2010. I’ll get on a treadmill and have a Snickers when I’m done, instead.
(Once again, I remain an ardent fan of Capri Events races..organized, accessible, easy-going, and safe courses. I’ll stick with them.)
Check out Bobs blog – chitheatreaddict.com – where he’s blogged an open letter to RAM Racing, and is recieving some interesting accounts from fellow runners.
So, largely from laziness, I decided at the last minute NOT to kill Cinderella.
She attended the Halloween ball un-rotted, un-bloodied, and very much alive.
Tonight, Bob and I are venturing to the Marriott Lincolnshire to see their production of HAIRSPRAY. I’m incredibly excited, as though Hairspray is one of my favorite pieces of theatre (it’s score and book are nearly perfect) I’ve never actually seen it live. For shame.
(If you haven’t yet, head over to Bob’s blog – formerly robertianish, now renamed to Confessions of a Chicago Theatre Addict – http://chitheatreaddict.com/ Since he’s now the cream of the crop as far as reviewers go, he upgraded!)
A MINISTER’S WIFE
(World Premiere)
Based on CANDIDA by George Bernard Shaw
Adapted by Austin Pendleton and Josh Schmidt
Presented by Writer’s Theatre
++++++++
Michael Halberstam’s directors note for A MINISTER’S WIFE is about two pages long.
There’s a lot to tell about taking a classic play like CANDIDA and having the balls to decide to turn it into a musical (a chamber musical, at that) In a day and age when quality in theatre is being looked over often in favor of commercial junk, this had to seem like a giant leap of faith.
However, Writer’s Theatre knocked it out of the park in their lush production. The costumes, set, and properties were all exquisitely done and tied brilliantly into the decor of the Writer’s Theatre space itself – so that you felt you were walking into the Morell’s library.
The story of the show is rather simple, and has been adapted to numerous formats – The Broadway musical THE BAKERS WIFE or the films THE BUTCHERS WIFE and THE PREACHERS WIFE – most notably.
Reverend James Morell, a good man who believes that with the power of his sermons he can change the world and bring people to a kingdom of heaven, awaits the return of his beloved wife Candida. Candida, who is elegant and lovely and overall enchanting, returns home with a young poet in tow, Eugene Marchbanks. Eugene is in love with Candida, and tells this to the Reverend. Thus begins a love triangle that ends with Candida having to choose between the two men. Surrounding this are the Reverend’s uptight seceretary Prossy and the younger Reverend Lexi Mill, who see eye to eye on absolutely nothing.
Halberstam’s casting of the show is the element that works most to the show’s advantage. Kevin Gudahl anchors the show as Reverend Morell, and gives a warm and lovable performance. There’s never any question why Candida loves her husband. He’s attractive, he’s funny, he’s smart, he’s employed, he sings well, he has great hair (props to wigmaster Lara Dalby) and he’s our hero. The astonishing and lovely Kate Fry plays Candida as a clever woman who is never taken by surprise by the events surrounding her. She also has a gorgeous voice, and wonderful comedic timing. I wish I’d seen her in Court Theatre’s CAROLINE, OR CHANGE. The delightful Liz Baltes, as Prossy, brings much needed comic relief in the more serious portions, as Prossy tries to keep everyone on the straight and narrow while hiding her own affections. Opposite John Sanders as Lexi, Baltes is at her best. The two of them turn in pitch-perfect performances, and the resolution their characters come to will put a smile on your face.
I do have to say I feel there was one casting error. In the pivotal role of Eugene, I felt that Alan Schmuckler was too modern to fit into this production. His energy reminded me of younger footage of Robin Williams in his stand-up days, running all over the place and flipping out a lot. Though he’s undoubtedly talented and has a lovely voice and an incredibly interesting on-stage presence (and an uncommon resemblance to Elijah Wood) I never felt that Candida might actually leave her husband for him, which took away a little of the dramatic tension of the show for me. However, I’m sure that in a different production Schmucker would have been a stand-out.
Josh Schmidt’s score is lush and gorgeous, even if only played by a four-piece band. I do wish there had been more of a musical through-line to connect all the songs, some of which seemed to burst from nowhere, but as this is the show’s world premiere I’m sure changes will be made a little down the road. The most notable songs in the show, for me, are the happy “Candida’s coming home” and the final song/sequence, which was absolutely thrilling to hear. Bob and I discussed post-show how A MINISTER’S WIFE is a show like THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, which takes a few listens to catch all the nooks and secrets in the music to. It’s not a big brassy show a la Jerry Herman, where the songs will be stuck in your head for days, but then again not every musical needs to be.
I had a lovely time at Writer’s Theatre seeing this show, and look forward to heading back up there for the kick off to their next season – Stoppard’s ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD.
Cheers!
I’m a big fan of Legally Blonde: the musical.
Deal with it.
Do I sound defensive? If I do, it’s because nearly everyone I inform of my LB fandom rolls either eyes and scoffs like I’m somehow a lesser being for enjoying theatrical fluff when I see it.
I’m as faux-pretentious as the next theatre person. I get Brecht. I like Stoppard. Sondheim is a god, yes.
I also like Legally Blonde: the musical. It’s a nearly perfect little piece of pink, bouncy, entertaining …entertainment. It’s not even a guilty pleasure, as much as people seem to want it to be for me.
The one person who understands and respects this – Bob – got us tickets to the National Tour of Legally Blonde for my birthday, and this weekend the tour finally rolled in and we headed to the Oriental Theatre/Ford Center for the Performing Arts (pick a name, seriously) to attend the show. Surrounded by loads of women in pink and TONS of teens and tweens, we sat back and enjoyed 2.5 hours of bubblegum entertainment.
The tour has been scaled back significantly from the original Broadway Production (documented in all it’s eternal awesomeness by the MTV broadcast) – It doesn’t open with a 2 level sorority house, a few scenes have been shifted to avoid extraneous set changes, and the cast size is smaller, but it still translates well – thanks mostly to an energetic and exciting cast.
The central role of Elle Woods (played by Reese Witherspoon in the movie, and the amazing Laura Bell Bundy on Broadway) has to be hard to cast. You need a seriously solid singer/dancer/actress who is also hot, and can handle being onstage for much of the 2.5 hour rollercoaster. Elle is in nearly every number, changes clothes approximately four billion times, and makes a complete character change by the end of the show. Basically, you need a powerhouse character actress/comedienne in a hot blonde’s body with dance training and a superbelt. It’s a hard, hard, role. The tour is fortunate to have Becky Gulsvig, who pretty much nails it. She’s cute, she’s funny, she sings well (if a wee bit nasally, but it works..) and it’s easy to root for Elle in her hands.
Her leading men are both spot-on. As Warner Huntington III (or, as I like to call him, “douchebag,”) Jeff McLean clearly realizes he’s the dude to hate, and embraces it fully. He’s so smarmy and slick during his big number, “Serious,” it’s like Warner sits at home studying Justin Timberlake in an effort to be cooler. As Emmett Forrest, D.B. Bonds gets to play the good guy/hero, and he’s just marvelous – if a little too good looking. The deal is that Elle is supposed to overlook the nebbish Emmett for the hotter Warner.. but in this production it’s a screaming DUH that she should choose Emmett. (Just sayin’) After Bonds’ “Chip on my shoulder” had concluded, I turned to Bob and said “Yeah. There needs to be more of THAT guy.”
Amber Efe was on in the role of wacky hairdresser Paulette (normally played by Natalie Joy Johnson) and while servicable.. she missed a lot of the humor. Paulette is supposed to basically be a heart-warming riot. While Efe hit every line and every note very well, the soul and joy of that role was lost significantly, which was a downer. However, Ven Daniel as her UPS delivery paramour was spot-on and nailed his track with aplomb.
Much praise has to be heaped upon Cortney Wolfson, Rhiannon Hansen, and Crystal Joy as Elle’s trio of sorority sisters. Always perky, always hyper, and always hysterical, you simply wait for them to come back onstage. Also knocking it out of the park are Colleen Sexton as fitness queen Brooke Wyndham, Gretchen Burghart as feminist Enid, Ken Land as law Professor Callahan, and especially Megan Lewis as Vivienne. You don’t realize how good Lewis is until her characters radical transformation and big number – she’s awesome.
Jerry Mitchell’s direction and choreography keeps everything lively and brightly-colored. The audience, once they warmed up, were loud and appreciative. “There! Right There!” got MASSIVE applause and cheers.
My only complaint is the sound system at the Ford Center, which caused many words to be jumbled – rendering parts of the big opening number “Omigod you guys” indecipherable. Fortunately, not much in the show is THAT insular and imperitive to the plot.
I had a great time – I’d like to see it again. And since it’s in Chicago until June 7th, I just might! HEEE!
Sunday, March 29th 2009 was the 30th Anniversary Shamrock Shuffle 8k race through the streets of downtown Chicago. Considered by many to be the unofficial start to racing season in Chicago, 32,000 trained, dedicated runners were scheduled to race.
But then we all woke up and saw this out our windows….
..which begs the question: Are runners freakin’ nuts?
Undeterred by weather conditions, Eric, Lindsey, Bob and I all trekked down to Grant Park in the snow, our shoes a’fillin with freezing cold water, checked our gear, met up, remarked countless times on how dumb we were to be doing it… and then, around 9:50, we hit play on our respective ipods and began to run.
I have never done an 8k before. I had planned to train like a mofo for this race, but all sorts of things like life got in the way. We started running, and my frozen shoes made it feel like I was running on blocks of ice. Not gonna lie, for the first few minutes I panicked – I can’t do this! OMG. This is horrible. But then, it got so much easier. Maybe it was the idea of running with such a large group through the closed streets of Chicago, or who knows? But I ran super well (after a while of running, your shoes would get warm again – which would then get destroyed by the NEXT puddle you’d step in, but c’est la vie) and finished in 57:06. My goal was to finish in under 1 hour and 15 minutes (which is the point where they stop recording your times..) so I’m pleased as punch.
(Apparently, out of 32,000 registered runners only like 13,000 showed up. Which blows my mind. I would have SWORN there were all 32,000 people hanging out in the snow with us. It looked like it. Then again, I’m short.)
It was also quite awesome to head to The Rail afterwards for breakfast and beer. All races should end at the Rail. It was double-awesome to walk in, in running gear, soaked, and have the table next to us go – “The Shuffle?! I can’t believe you guys DID that?!”
Yep. We pretty much own.
Bob, Lindsey, Eric, Gator, and Gina are the reasons I went through with it. Thanks, guys.
Next up – Ravenswood Run, April 26th.
DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS
By Eugene O’Neill
Directed by Robert Falls
@ The Goodman Theatre
The question probably fell to Robert Falls - How, in a time when audience’s attention spans are shorter than ever and pocketbooks aren’t as full as they used to be, do you make Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms a) marketable, and b) new? The piece, first published in 1924, is an American classic and not exactly the hottest piece one could hope for. But Robert Falls, Artistic Director of the Goodman Theatre and the director of Desire, turned a few things on it’s head and the play is all the better for it.
#1 – CASTING
First, he cast the show appallingly well.
Brian Dennehy stars as the tyrannical patriarch, Ephraim Cabot, who – after a long season of being gone from the family farm for the first time in over 30 years, comes home with a brand new wife, Abbie (played by Amy J. Carle.) Upon hearing the news of the wedding (which means that Abbie will now likely inherit the farm if Ephraim were to die), Ephraim’s youngest son Eben (Pablo Schreiber) is furious and butts heads with Abbie, who is every bit as hard-headed and determined to win the land as he is. Quickly, their battle dissolves to a lustful affair – and an epic downhome tragedy plays out – complete with sex, betrayal, dialects, and murder.
Dennehy, looking every inch the 70+ year old man who could still kick your ass (you whippersnappers!) gives a glorious performance. He’s hard-headed and cranky, and yet – you feel for this man. It’s quite an accomplishment. Pablo Schrieber, as Eben, manages to find different levels in a character that could easily have just been “angry young man with crush on hot stepmom.” Eben isn’t the smartest bulb on the porch, and Schreiber makes him.. an endearing dumbass.
Carla Gugino (of Spy Kids, Son-in-law, and film fame) started in this production in the role of Abbie and recieved glowing reviews for her powerful sexuality and onstage presence. Since the show extended, and she had to honor film committments (Watchmen, anyone?) her understudy, Amy J. Carle, has taken over – and I honestly cannot imagine Carla Gugino being any better than Carle. Carle is a powerhouse, the type of actress who grabs onto a role with her teeth and tears into it. Her portrayal of Abbie was smoking hot, ferocious, strong, and yet completely human and understandable in her desperation. I hope Carle goes on to big and amazing things in her career – she’s brilliant.
Special props also have to be given to Boris McGiver and Daniel Stewart Sherman, who appear only in the first part of the play as Ephraim’s older two sons, who take off for Cal-i-forn-i-a and the promise of gold the second they meet Abbie. These two – in addition to making likable characters out of two fools – are part of an opening sequence that I think will be lodged in my mind forever. It’s hard to explain, but it involves hauling rocks, and gutting a pig. And the smell of bacon actually being cooked onstage.
#2 – THE SET
Robert Falls’ second great trick was to cut the Elms.
I’m serious. There isn’t a tree to be seen, but the set is amazing.
When the curtain rises (to strange thundering music that immediately gets you in the right mood) the first word in your head is – Rocks. Falls has surrounded the entire stage with enormous boulders piled high into a mini-mountain. They even hang from the heavens by big ropes. So much of Ephraim’s dialouge is about “fields of rocks” and how “hard” he is – it’s a brilliant choice. The set, like Ephraim himself, is insurmountable.
Then, theres the house. It hangs from the rafters and towers over every scene, another amazingly imposing figure overseeing everything. As the underlying question of the play is “Who will get this farm?” it makes sense to, literally, have it right over the heads of the dueling characters the whole time.
In addition, things rise out of the stage and vanish constantly. It might be my favorite set I’ve ever seen.
#3 – STREAMLINED/MODERNIZATION
The third amazing magic trick Dr. Falls pulled was to do some streamlining and modernizing.
The show clocks in at a tidy hour and forty minutes with no intermission – and it feels like its even faster than that.
He also accompanied sequences of time passing with modern sounding folk music – including a dinner sequence.
It could be described as “slightly MTV-ing” the piece, but hey – we’re dealing with a whole new world in which entertainment lives these days. If you want audiences to swallow a classic, you might have to make it a little sparkly, you know?
I have minor issues with the show – the first few minutes of dialouge were awfully muddled from our Mezzanine seats, and got me worried that the whole show was going to be indecipherable. O’Neill wrote accents into the lines, and Falls stuck to those religiously.
But overall – I thought it rocked and am delighted that I got to see it.
Oh, AND — The Goodman’s killer production of Desire Under the Elms will be transferring to Broadway, aiming for an April 27th opening at the St. James Theatre. I smell Tony nominations.
A newlywed as of 4/24/2010, I live in the amazing city of Chicago with my awesome husband Eric and our two spectacular cats, Magellan and Oz. Though my loves are books, theatre, and travel, I'll write about whatever I'm interested in for the moment. Also, I'm a busybee - I'm a full-time Office Girl, but also in Grad School getting my Masters in Secondary Education with a focus on teaching English.
At present, I'm basking in the afterglow of our recent Hawaiian honeymoon, and beginning fall classes.
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart” - Helen Keller
