Review: "The Musical Of Musicals (the Musical)" Highland Park Players and "Lend Me A Tenor" Summer Place, and a final word on "Tommy"

A couple of shows are closing this weekend and I wanted to get this out there before they do.  I give a YES to both, one more than the other.  


The Musical Of Musicals (The Musical) - Highland Park Players, Highland Park, IL  Closes 7/24/2010


You have tonight and tomorrow to see this show.  Do so, if you can.  This was the best "muscial" experience I've had this year.  Go here for more info about tickets, location, time, synopsis, etc.  Basically, it's the same story told 5 different ways, as if they were written by 5 different icons of musical theatre.  If you know musical theatre, you have to see this show.  You'll get it at its deepest level.  The puns are hysterical.  If you're not an expert, you'll love this anyway, because what is parodied is so well known, you'll have a blast watching these talented singers send up these musical writers.  And, hey, they found people that could do Fosse-like dancing.  Imagine that!  In community theatre!  I was told it's impossible to find that level of talent.  See it, then, just to see the impossible!  Scott Bussert, Tony Calzaretta, Hannah Rose and Denise Tamburrino give fantastic performances, and are a true ensemble.


It's been said that to parody something, you have to have a deep love and respect for it first, to make it work.  The authors hit it on the head, and director Kevin Wiczer and the cast, including, Robin Giebelhausen as the pianist/narrator, showed just how deeply they love and respect musical theatre.  It's a treat.  Cost me $16.

Lend Me A Tenor - Summer Place Theatre, Naperville, IL  Closes 7/25/2010

I'm giving this a borderline YES.  It started off slow, and really didn't find it's stride until Act I Scene 2.  Actors were stepping on laughs and I'm not sure they anticipated getting any.  My initial notes were, "Where's the energy?  Needs a faster pace."  In general, the acting covered a wide range of experience, and most did a decent job when all was done, but it sure took a long time to get there.  Some never got there, and dragged down the scenes they were in.  Act II was much better.  Dialog started to snap, and the action built to a frenzied finish, as a farce should.  Go here for more info.

Staging at that venue was odd.  Most of the show played on the Stage Right side of the thrust, forcing scenes to be played upstage/downstage.  I sat on the side, so I could see, but it appeared as if views from the center audience section of the thrust were blocked.  They did, however, do a creative job with the limitations of the stage.  Not bad, but not great.  It's a nice distraction for a hot evening.

***************************************
I also want to remind you that Bailiwick Chicago has two productions which I give a YES to that are part of in their inaugural season under their new incarnation, one of which is Aida @ American Theatre Company's space which closes 8/1/2010.  Aida is the Elton John/Tim Rice/Disney overblown epic based on Verdi's opera, presented in a space that allows you to focus more on the story than the spectacle.  Strong voices, invested acting and interesting afro-centric choreography makes the experience exciting.  For more info, go here.  I really enjoyed this production.  There were a couple of weak moments, especially the museum scenes that open and close the show.  Just didn't seem to gel.  You can see what they were going for, but it missed the mark.  The song at the end of Act 1 is rousing, and the story is well played.  See it before it leaves.


There is a famous story about a pitch meeting for the movie, Outland.  The story is when asked what the movie was about, the pitch was one sentence:  It's High Noon in outer space.  If I were to pitch F**king Men, the other Bailiwick production, now extended to 8/8/2010, I'd say:  It's gay La Ronde (click to learn more).  Actually, that's how it was descibed to me when I was invited to see it.  La Ronde was one of the first shows I was in when I was in college, so I thought it would be interesting to see this take.  The story is not the same, but the structure of the play is.  Scene 1 has two characters before and after a sexual encounter, one moves on to the next scene with a new partner, the new person in the next scene moves on and so forth, until by Scene 10, you are back to the character who did not move on from Scene 1 with the new person from Scene 9.  So, it's episodic.  When I read the program, I saw it was written by one of my least favorite playwrights, Joe DiPietro, who also wrote I Love You, Your Perfect, Now Change and Over The River And Through The Woods, also episodic, but those are more like sitcoms.  This is not sitcom, but each scene had the same rhythm to it, there was nothing new after the first scene.  Kind of like the TV show House - each episode seems to be structured the same, just a different disease.


Even though the material was somewhat lacking, it's worth seeing this production.  The cast is incredible, and each character is nicely drawn without a hint of dishonesty.  Fully committed and not a false note.  These actors were very strong, and formed a wonderful and true ensemble.  The direction was spot on, and the scene transitions appeared to have been choreographed.  See this for the brilliance of the acting that overcomes a mediocre script, and the fluid flow of the 90 minute show.  You'll find info at the same Bailiwick link.


*************************


Finally, I went back to Theatre On The Hill at the invitation of the director Mike Fudala and co-president Craig Engel, so I could see Tommy the way the show should have been on opening night.


It was better, as one would expect in its fourth and final weekend.  It still started 19 minutes later than advertised, but Mike explained they like to start a little later so that the projected graphics are easier to see, since it would be darker.  I get what he was saying (like when they start a movie at the drive-in and the screen is washed out by the ambient light).  Have they thought of putting the curtain time a 1/2-hour later?  Then you'd start on time.  Just a thought.


There were singers I could hear for the first time, and that was nice.  Cap't Walker has a great voice that I wish I had heard on opening night.  The choreography was still pedestrian, some of the singing was still weak, and I still prefer the original story as conceived in the late 60s, early 70s.  I think this new "Broadway" version was a bit of a sell-out by The Who.  But, that's my take on it.


The show is over and all is quiet on the Hill.  And, if you didn't see Craig Engel's last comment on the Tommy review, here is a portion that speaks to how he cares about the audience.

So thanks to all who took the time to comment. We take this criticism seriously.   So here's the deal. We're doing "Amadeus" in the Fall. Michael and I want every one of our guests to feel important and heard, so if Tommy wasn't the experience you expected, let us know via e-mail. Just go to our website, tothbolingbrook.com and write us a note.   We'll then be happy to offer you a half-price ticket to Amadeus in an effort to make amends.

Now that's community theatre.

Review: "Equus" Redtwist Theatre, Chicago, IL 6/27/10

All of us have moments in time where we were knocked slightly off our path through life and it changed us for good or bad, and became instrumental in defining who we are today.  One of mine happened in the mid-1970s during a trip to Miami to visit family.  I was urged by Aunt Connie and cousin Marita to see the national touring company of Equus by Peter Shaffer at the Coconut Grove Playhouse.  Seeing that show is what really got me interested in theatre.  It captured my imagination and would not let go. I'd never seen anything like it.  And I knew then I wanted to be a part of a production someday.  Those who know me know of my predilection for this show.  If only I could find a suburban venue willing to take risks and do edgy material.  Ah well, risky is not part of the vocabulary of most suburban theatres.  Or if it is, it has a negative connotation.


Over time, I have come to realize that the story is not quite as brilliant as I originally thought, and is a little light on the psychoanalysis (as well as heavy on the psycho-babble).  But that has also given me a new appreciation of the show.  It is, after all, entertainment.  It's what theatre is supposed to do.  And, at the time it came out, it was considered ground-breaking, and still has an impact 45 years later.  For more info and the story synopsis, go here.



I'll start off by saying that if you've seen Equus before, please see this production.  It's a fascinating re-staging, shedding a different light on the show, and emphasizes what I have always thought this play was:  not so much a mystery uncovered, but an examination of the inner conflict of Dr. Dysart, the psychiatrist.  As an audience member, you sit a few feet from the action on the wider-than-deeper set.  It is almost as if they took the original design of the show, kept the bleachers, condensed it, and eliminated the house altogether.  That will make more sense once you've seen this production.  If you have only seen the crappy movie, please see a stage version quickly, and you'll being doing yourself a great favor seeing this one.  If you've never seen the show, this is a good place to start.  Eventually, you should see it in all its original trappings, but this production is 2.5 hours of delight.


When I first saw the very small and intimate set, I was afraid I would feel claustrophobic, especially during the long monologues.  I could see there was nowhere to go for blocking, so longer passages of exposition would be limited in movement, which can be stifling.  And, it is a wordy show.  But for me the words rang, because this production concentrates on text over action.  There was a readers theatre feel to it that relies on the minds of the audience to fill in the blanks and forces them to participate.


This is a strong cast.  Brian Parry plays Dysart.  I felt his inner turmoil as he tries to make sense of what he's doing, meddling around in the mind and passions of this boy who has blinded six horses.  Nothing rang false as he lead us from one level to the next in the uncovering of the events leading to the incident of the crime against the horses.  He took us through those long wordy passages with ease, and he held my focus.


Alan is portrayed by Andrew Jessop.  There was an intensity that undulated beneath the surface of his performance, promising the excitement of the explosive moments of the show.  And it came through.  Jan Ellen Graves does a nice turn as Hester, the magistrate who brings Alan to Dysart for analysis.  I was at a disadvantage to fully appreciate what she did because of where I sat, since she is on stage right most of the time, turned to center, so I mostly saw the back of her head.  At times, without the nuance and shadings that facial expressions add to spoken text, I felt I was experiencing her performance through a radio.  Of course, this has nothing to do with Graves.  It's a function of the 3/4 thrust staging. I would suggest sitting in the audience section that is directly opposite the set.  It's a small theatre that holds around 45 people, so get there early.


Holly Bittinger gives a nice turn as Jill Mason, a country-girl horse trainer with an impish streak.  She eases into the role of mentor to Alan, teaching him the ins and outs of both stable work and stable play, and becomes one of the catalysts for the incident with the horses.


It is an easy out to blame the parents for the behavior of a child, and in some ways, Shaffer uses that mindset as misdirection.  The parents are both idiosyncratic and lay a foundation for the mental framework of Alan's passions.  Debra Rodkin and Laurens Wilson played Dora and Frank Strang, Alan's parents.  I felt a slight disconnect from both of them in the beginning, but they grew on me as the show progressed, especially Rodkin's heartfelt monologue in Act II.  Meredith Hogeland and John Rushing do nice turns in supporting roles and added to the overall strength of the show.  Of particular note is Scott Butler, who doubles as the horseman and Nugget, the horse.  The start of the show is haunting, as Butler comes on stage, dons leather fetish-wear, a wonderfully-designed eerie horse head, and becomes the horse.  It was a true and stellar metamorphosis.


Director Michael Colucci took risks with this staging and re-invention, and they pay off.  The show runs through August 29 and as I said before, you really should see it.  For times and ticket information, go to the Redtwist web site.


Run time:  2 hours, 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission


Paid:  $13.50  (I saw the final preview.  But I did just receive a HotTix e-mail showing they have discounted tickets for this weekend.)


Is it worth the price of admission:  Yes.  Full price, discounted price, whatever, you should make the effort to see this production.  I'm going again, I liked it that much.

Review: "The Sleeper" The Riverfront Playhouse, Aurora, IL 6/26/10

When the lights went down and the music began, I heard the distinctive sound of the Ultra-Lounge music series.  I am a big fan, and I was in heaven.  Then the music stopped and the show started.  The title of the show is The Sleeper, and as a word, it best describes the show.  Written by Catherine Butterfield and set in 2002, the story is a dark comedy about national paranoia after the 9/11 attacks.


An interesting concept to be sure, but it is explored so superficially that it left me feeling that it was not so much a story she wanted to write, but something onto which she could hang her "surprise" ending.  A means to an end, if you will.  And, about 25 minutes into it, I knew what the surprise was going to be because nothing else could logically explain what I was seeing in the presentation.  But I won't give it away.  Here's how they describe the show at Dramatist Play Service:  A suburban "security mom," shell-shocked by the new post 9/11 reality, finds herself irresistibly drawn to her son's tutor, a handsome young man with political leanings far different from her own.  Her "awakening" leads to a bizarre series of events that blow the lid off her previously sheltered existence and change the lives of all around her. A dark and slightly zany comedy. 


The show plays on one level, and the execution of this production didn't help.  On whole, the cast came across weak and tentative and certainly not in command of the material.  In addition, the pace was deadly slow in spots, and uneven.  There was no flow to the progression of the show.


The main focus of the show is Gretchen, played by Beth Goncher.  For this show to work, the audience has to care about Gretchen, her emotional journey and story arc.   Unfortunately, the character as written is neither compelling nor an empathetic figure, and I never felt that even Goncher believed in the character she was portraying.  She was stilted and removed, and that eventually translates to a lack of connection and empathy with the audience.


Her husband Bill, who is too involved with his company's upcoming IPO to notice Gretchen's decline into paranoia, is portrayed by Thomass Dickens.  He has a few fine comic moments, but overall his timing was slow on the pickups and dragged down many of the scenes.  Nikki Edwards plays Vivian, Gretchen's alcoholic sister.  I thought there was too much acting going on when she was on stage and the overall effect was forced.


Rob Siebert plays Matthew, the tutor.  I'm not sure if it was Rob, or the writing, but the character lacks depth.  Maybe this is to enhance the mystique of Gretchen's lover by not revealing too much?  But in my notes, I wrote, "This is the stud she has the hots for??"  Again, nothing compelling about a principal character, so as more was revealed, I just didn't care.  He is just a story convenience to get to the surprise ending.  Maybe the author did a little reverse engineering here;  started where she wanted it to end, and worked backwards.

Steve Ramussen, Luke Pascale, and Denise D'Asto, round out the cast, playing various characters.  Some good, some not so good.  There is a scene of an anthrax safety seminar, with Rasussen as the speaker, that could have been very funny.  Unfortunately, Ramussen either had trouble with the lines or decided to act really hard, and depleted the scene of its comic nature.  Then he and Pascale end up playing Arabic men and I found myself laughing for all the wrong reasons.

A main ingredient missing from this stew is passion.  We should feel a smoldering desire between the mom and the tutor.  But there was no chemistry between them.  The faux-sex scene they had in bed was lame and boring.  They looked like kids crawling around in the plastic ball pit at Chucky Cheese.  Hell, she kept her shoes on during the entire scene.  So, again, I was left thinking, "Who cares?"


Something that annoyed me as I was watching the show is something I have seen a lot recently.  Actors need to find the light in the scene.  That's in every scene where you should be lit.  But, if your character is one who breaks the 4th wall and speaks directly to the audience bathed in a different light than the rest of the scene, find the damn light.  Look, I have to assume you want to be up there for different reasons, one of which is to be noticed for what you're doing.  The audience can't fully appreciate what you're doing in your moment to shine when you leave half your face out of the light.  Feel the heat, check your placement on the stage to the spill of light...something, anything.  Just find the frigging light.  If we can't see you, we stop caring.

As I mentioned, the pace was off.  It was chunky, if that makes sense.  Starts and stops and hiccups, like a car that can't get its pistons firing in sequence.  There was no awareness of flow.  Again, I'm not sure if this is because of the actors, director or writer.  I suspect it was an unfortunate mixture of the three, and it never quite gelled.


I did get the feeling as I watched the show that it would have played better as a one-act.  Maybe it would have given the show a longer runway to pick up speed and really take off at the end, allowing it to become the zany comedy as described by Dramatist.  The intermission broke up any momentum the show had gained despite its chunky pacing and things had to get started again to build up to the ending...in this case, a big surprise.  It didn't work out that way. As I did research on this show, it ran 80 minutes at most theatres it played at.


For info on tickets, visit their web site.


Run time: 1 hour, 39 minutes  (looks like they did insert the intermission)


Price: $15

It was NOT worth the price of admission.

Review: "Tommy - The Musical" Theatre On The Hill, Bolingbrook, IL 6/25/10

First, a few items of business:

1. Here's a preview of the next set of reviews:  The Sleeper at Riverfront Playhouse gets a No.  Equus at Redtwist Theatre gets an enthusiastic Yes. And on 7/3, I saw two Baliwick Chicago productions:  Aida and F**king Men.  A big Yes to both.  Now I need to find the time to write the reviews.
2. Again, if you'd like me to let you know about the new reviews when I post them without having to check the blog each day, send an e-mail to wjbreviews@gmail.com and I'll put you on the list.  I have received quite a few requests already, and I'm sure once the previous post gets approved on Craig Gustafson's theatre list, I'll get a few more.  Sometimes it can take up to a week for things to go public on his list.  And there is always NICOTH.
3. As I mentioned in the previous post, I'd like to know your thoughts on how to define local theatre.  I'm assuming it is an area of interest for you, since you read this blog.  I'd like your input.  Actually, I need your input.  We may never come up with a definitive statement, but we can flesh out the concept and give it some boundaries.  What are the differences between community theatre, local theatre and non-equity theatre?  Are there any?  Is local theatre the same as community theatre?  Should they all be viewed and judged through the same lens?  Besides location, what are the differences between the likes of Redtwist and other storefront theatres in Chicago versus the venues in the burbs, like Wheaton Drama, Summer Place, Riverfront?  Where in the mix would you put, let's say, Metropolis Centre in Arlington Heights?  I'm looking for your help.  Is paying actors a factor?  How much?  And does that make it professional? If you paid people, would it still be community theatre?  I have lots of questions, and would love to sit and chit chat sometime with people from all venues of theatre, if only to momentarily quench the thirst of curiosity.  Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

On to the review of Tommy:


What causes me to ask for help in defining local theatre is that I'm not sure how to review Theatre On The Hill's production of The Who's Tommy.  It was not theatre as I define it.  Maybe my definition is too narrow.  What I experienced was an amateur, badly conceived dance recital backed by a tribute band of The Who.  They had too many technical glitches with microphones and under-whelming special effects that did nothing to enhance the show.  They were saying, "See, I have all these cool toys."  It came off as self-indulgent.


I was in high school when the album Tommy was released in 1969.  I saw The Who perform it in concert.  Great show.  They labeled it a "rock opera," but without the staging, it more closely resembled an oratorio.  The story was razor thin, and you'll find a synopsis here.  But who cared?  It was a concept album and helped spawn numerous others like Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick and Passion Play.  The album was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.


They made changes to the story when Peter Townsend of The Who decided to mount it as a stage musical.  You can read about the changes by following this link.  After having been exposed to both, I prefer the original.  Not because I'm old-school.  Rather, I think it's more fun to fill in the story in your own head and paint the pictures using your mind's eye, like you would with a reader's theatre or radio play.  For the stage version,  Townsend added a song that doesn't fit in musically (it sounds too Broadway) and is only there to force some dramatic tension between the father and mother, and the "all is now good" ending tries too hard to give substance and message to the show.  As for this production, it was a mess.


I'll approach this with bullet points:

• This show is made up of adults and kids.  A wide range of ages, though it skews to the young.  I'm just guessing, but I think that if you auditioned for this show, you were cast.  This outdoor venture reminded me more of an annual summer extravaganza or fest for families and friends.  The audience can sit on the grassy knoll and watch little or big Bobby and Susie on stage.  There was lots of whooping and hollering showing support for individual cast members.  While that's something you usually hear during a curtain call, it's a bit disturbing when it's done during the show.  Perhaps the combination of the alcoholic beverages they sell at concessions and the outdoor concert atmosphere added to this feeling of freedom amongst the patrons.
• Because there was no quality control during casting, there were vastly varying degrees of talent.  The choreography catered to the weakest, so whole groups of people were performing mundane dance steps, which consisted of jazz squares and jazz hands.  Here's one of the combinations that became the bread and butter of the show:  side step, side step, clap and spin...now the other way...side step, side step, clap and spin.  No one moved with purpose.  And, if you're going to let these kids be in this show, why not teach them some basic fundamentals of performance?  Like looking as if they enjoy what they are doing.  Try smiling on stage.  And do not focus on what the person next to you is doing...that will eventually lead to "the blind leading the blind" mayhem and all hell breaks lose.  There were a few of those moments.
• The show started 30 minutes late.  I sat there waiting for them to work out a technical issue with projections, video cameras and RF signals.  And in the end, the wait was for naught, since the projections added nothing to the show because of poor execution.  When Tommy is looking at an image of his younger or older self in the mirror (represented by the digital image), the camera was aimed too low.  I'm not sure what younger or older Tommy looked like, but I could ID his shoes in a police line-up.
• Racing quickly to the top of my list of pet peeves - using "It's opening night" as an excuse for poor execution.  Look people, get it out of your heads that opening night is an extra final dress rehearsal.  You now have PAYING patrons here to see the show.  They should get the same level of show as the people who come to the final show. "Opening night" is now being used as a shield to hide behind if something goes wrong.  These are issues that should have been cleared up in rehearsals and previews.  It's an unprofessional attitude and just adds to the mindset that "community theatre" is a lesser form of theatre.  I have also heard that the second show will suffer from "sophomore slump" and will lack the edge of opening night.  Again, that's crap and you know it.  The audience doesn't care if you're tired, hungover, depressed over the death of your pet snail or just don't feel jazzed by the energy you had on opening night.  Your responsibility is to give a great show every time.  And, I've heard that I should wait until the second weekend to review the show, since it will be much better.  Why is that?  If you're really that insecure with your show, how is that going to translate to the paying audience?  If you need an extra week of rehearsal, load it onto the front end of the process, not the end.  It's like cheating the public the first week.  When you open a show, you should be as ready to do it as when you close the show.  I had two people who know me and my blog come up to me and say they wished I hadn't come on opening night of The Who's Tommy because this is always what happens on their opening nights.  I asked if I should ask for a refund because I was going to watch their tech rehearsal.  Not much was said after that.
• The microphone cut in and out constantly.  Again, these are the things that should have been worked out in tech rehearsal.  So, for many of the songs, I could not hear the featured vocalist.  When I did hear them, they were tinny and distorted.  Once they got past the technical stuff, it became apparent that this was not a strong group of vocalists and they had a hard time selling the songs.  Perhaps the technical difficulties were a blessing in disguise.  These were mainly the adults.  I'm not going to name names.  There's no point, and I don't have that much bandwidth.  Further down, I will tell you about those who shone through the fog of this calamity.
• Because this is a family fest show, it's been sanitized.  I dislike censorship of any form, and if they felt they needed to hygienize the show, they should have picked another show.  Here's a change Theatre On The Hill made:  Uncle Ernie, in the all versions of the show, is a pedophile. There is a song sung by the parents wondering if they should leave little Tommy with Ernie.  They decide to err on the side of ignorance so they can have a night out.  And then we get Ernie's song, "Fiddle About."  It's about the uncle sexually molesting the child.  The lyrics, "Down with the bed clothes / up with the night shirt / fiddle about, fiddle about, fiddle about.  You won't shout as I fiddle about..."  The ending of the song becomes a repetitive masturbatory chant and ends with a small crescendo.  You get the idea.  It's a creepy little song that adds to understanding the depth of the family's dysfunction, and helps one to feel more empathy for helpless Tommy.  But in the sanitized for your protection version, Uncle Ernie starts doing a jig like a maniacal leprechaun while pretending his cane is a fiddle, while a nurse or someone helps Tommy change clothes and go to bed.  It was just plain stupid if you know the show.  Another change was with the song "Acid Queen."  The character is supposed to be a prostitute who uses sex and drugs to draw young Tommy out of his catatonic state.  In the sanitized version, she's a gypsy, and references to sex and drugs are hidden.  When you see the ages of these kids in the ensemble, it's understandable, I guess.  But then they reference these same kids in the program as playing the roles of Harlots, Thugs and Drunks. It was a "wuh?" moment for me.
• The band was good.  They did a pretty nice job with the music.  Something about "Pinball Wizard" seemed off.  When I was waiting to hear the powerful electric guitar while the acoustic guitar was setting the rhythm all I heard was a weak sounding synthesizer.  It actually sounded tentative, if that's possible.  Maybe it was an issue with the sound board.  You'd think that after an extra 30-minute sound check, that song should have rocked.
• Uncle Ernie - He's supposed to be an unsavory child molester.  Instead, he looked like the love child of Burl Ive's snowman in the Rankin/Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and Bob's Big Boy.  Maybe a little Charlie Chaplin DNA mixed in.  They clean up the pedophilia references and make him a lovable little roly-poly drunk.  The character choice and portrayal was ridiculous.
• Here are some people that should be noted for their good performances:  Shane and Brynn Frantz as Tommy (age 4) and Tommy (age 10); Marcus Gentry and Mercy Pattawi as Hawker and The Gypsy.  These two have great voices.  And Christine Martin, who was in most of the dance numbers, and invested herself into the characters she was portraying.  She played the moments and enjoyed it and showed it.  That was missing from many of the faces on stage.
• After the song "Finale" was over, the band kept playing.  Curtain call, maybe?  Nope...they just kept playing, and cast members came on stage and they started performing songs from the album Quadrophenia by The Who, which was released in 1973.  They did five songs, by my count.  Another "wuh?"

So, you can see, it was not really theatre.  It was a concert and a dance recital.  And the kids danced, and the parents and supporters sat on the grassy knoll, drank beer and enjoyed.  And if that's what you're looking for, you can find more information on Theatre On The Hill's website.

Run time:  1 hour 50 minutes


Paid:  $15

Was it worth the price of admission?  No, not for me.  I wanted theatre, not a concert.

Review: "Cyrano de Bergerac" Summer Place Theatre, Naperville, IL 6/19/10

First, a few items of business:

1. Beginning with this posting, I am abandoning the $ rating system I was using.  It was an effort to do something different (or abnormal, if you will).  It didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped once it got outside my head.  I didn't want to go to the 5-star system (very popular on Netflix), or the Highly Recommended, Recommended and Somewhat Recommended ratings that are being used regularly by the newspapers.  I'm not going to "Somewhat Recommend" a show that stinks, only because it's the lowest negative rating.  I'm not one who frequents the world of Political Correctness (really?), which seems to be what they are doing. So, I'll just continue to tell you what I thought, warn you of what you're going to get, good or bad, and then tell you if I thought it was worth the price of admission.  It will keep things more on point.
2. The "hit" meter has been moving at a really rapid pace.  My ego thinks you love me, or just find me curious enough to warrant a look.  That's what egos are for.  I'm wondering, though, if it's because people are just going on to see if I posted anything new.  If so, you can send me your e-mail address and I can put it on the list for alerts that tell you there's something new to read.  I send out alerts to about 70 folks right now, and then Craig Gustafson's Theatre List.  Sometimes, it takes a while for his notice to be approved.  And I post on NICOTH, but I'm not sure if anyone actually goes there anymore.  So, if you want to know right away (and really, who wouldn't) that there is something new to read, send a request to wjbreviews@gmail.com and I'll put you on the distribution list.
3. I think it's time to open this topic up to discussion - What is community theatre?  Is it only all-volunteer organizations?  501c3 groups?  Is a small storefront theatre in Chicago in the Edgewater community considered community theatre?  The actors are not paid.  They are 501c3.  Are they local theatre?  Is there a difference?  Anyway, starting with the next review, which will be Tommy at Theatre On The Hill in Bolingbrook, I'd like to get people's thoughts on that concept.  Because Tommy was not on the same plane as community/local theatre, as I define it.  It was more like watching a The Who tribute band combined with an ill-conceived park district dance recital.  I'll talk more about it in the review.

Now, let's get to the Cyrano de Bergerac critique:

I was really looking forward to this show.  I'm a big fan of the play.  The storyline is a classic, and you see it being used constantly in films and television.  Even Mr. Magoo took a stab at this.  For a synopsis, go here.  It was written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand, a French poet and dramatist.  The title page and director's notes in the program refer to him as Edmund.  The guy died in 1918, so he won't be complaining that Summer Place Theatre got his name wrong.  It's not the only error.  The director, David Lindley, thinks that the original play was written in Alexandrine verse.  In actuality, it was in a format similar to Alexandrine, but lacked an important element called caesura.  If you're really curious about this French literary minutia, or need something to lull you to sleep, you can go here for more information.


The play has undergone many translations into English, the most notable being the 1923 free verse form by Brian Hooker.  Hooker was faithful to the words of Rostand, but not to his spirit.  Rostand was a comedic playwright.  While Cyrano de Bergerac is his best known work, his first play was Les Romanesques, a burlesque that was adapted into The Fantasticks.  In an effort to match the words of Rostand, Hooker took away the whimsy of the poetry, ultimately stripping away the humor.  Rostand called his play a heroic comedy.  The Hooker version, widely accepted as THE English translation, is not all that amusing or fanciful.  In fact, Hooker did not use the word panache in his translation, because there was no English word to capture its meaning.


Enter Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, who was commissioned to translate the play in 1970 for a theatre production in Minneapolis which was going to star Christopher Plummer.  He returned to the Alexandrine-like format, throwing in some prose, a bit of free verse and playful couplets, all in an attempt to return the humor to the heroic comedy.  He used the word panache (literally translates to plume), not just as Cyrano's final word as written by Rostand, but also interjects it creatively throughout the play to give it the many connotations for which it was intended.  He infused funny back into the play.  Unfortunately, David Lindley found a way of sucking the funny back out by not recognizing what he had.


As a critic, if something is not right with the show, you have to know to whom you should direct the criticism.  Was it the actor just not doing a good job, or was it the director who, as they say, screwed the pooch?  Because the entire show was devoid of the humorous tenor of the script, Mr. Lindley should bear the brunt of the blame for this languid production.


Yes, Tony Kortas' portrayal of Cyrano lacked fire of any kind:  no smoldering embers of his secret passion during the scene outside Roxanne's balcony, no zeal in his bravado when he meets his men at the bakery, no intimidating fervor in his stature when he enters a room, no flicker of light during the playful, comedic moments during the "nose" and "no" monologues.  I felt he was trying to fill up the theatre with his voice, which turned it into acting "at" us and not "for" us, with a little shouting thrown at us since he starts high and has no where to go.  The rhythms from the lyrics of the poetry, and the softer moments of human frailty were ultimately lost.  You can say the same, though, for most of the cast.


There was no chemistry between Roxanne (Lisa Barber), Christian (Tin Penavic) and Cyrano.  I didn't believe a thing Penavic said as Christian, and Barber's Roxanne seemed brutish and harsh and hardly the object of desire.  Ensemble members milled about aimlessly, speaking their lines with no understanding of the text.  Of particular note was Anthony Berg's slow-moving and lethargic Gascony guard and Larry Lipskie's various ensemble roles.  One member was playing everything to his siblings (it appeared), who giggled at everything he did, which egged him on to be even more distracting during the Arras scenes.  The overall pace was slow, and the lines needed to snap.  Many times, the performers needed to give way to the beats of the poetry.  In an effort to not get caught up in the rhyme scheme, they bulldozed their way through the words, and lost the subtlety of the text.  Because of this lack of understanding of this script, the lassitude crept its way into all of the scenes, no matter who was on stage.  This is symptomatic of poor direction.


David Lindley was given a gift with the Burgess script, a wonderful thrust theatre stage with lots of electronic toys and live actors.  He just didn't know how to use them wisely.  Alas, the show had no panache.


Run time:  2 hours 20 minutes


I paid $14.33 (I bought the season pass since I'm coming back for their next two shows, Lend Me A Tenor and Sweet Charity).


It was NOT worth the price of admission.