2008: By The Numbers

Not A Game for Boys - 38 Shows Down, 62 to Go

Simon Block’s mid 90s “laddie drama” beautifully resolves the sorest feature of the Goodman’s more hyped but somewhat weaker Gas For Less. Specifically, how to negotiate competing on- and off-stage storylines. For most of the Goodman show, characters fixated on an upstage television broadcasting a Chicago Bears game; whether cross-town or cross country, they could only passively watch.

 

The gents in Not a Game For Boys prep for, cheer for and barrel through a series of table tennis matches, all happening offstage. They’re a team aiming to conquer a B-level recreational league. Plus, this is the most exciting moment of their mediocre existence. This afternoon, their messy, personal crises will interfere and, worst of all, one of them might be trying to sabotage the team. We won’t see a single swing, only the pre-game rituals (high fiving a paddle and crying “Fuck Luck!”) and hyperactive cheerleading punctuated by thirtysomething angst.

 

Presentation is king here; the American and British stage suffers no shortage of dudes assessing and reassessing their lives, ladies, manhood, or lack thereof. When everything collides, it’s beautiful cacophony. Stress brings out the authentic lad, and their real selves are smartly revealed.

Jersey Boys - 36 Shows Down, 64 to Go

When Jersey Boys wrestled the "hottest ticket in town" title from Wicked*, it seemed like the boomers and seniors were reasserting their consumer power over the tweens and their parents. I'm a Gen Xer caught in the middle; I could care less about which demographic prevails. But having seen both, I'm happy to see the better show "winning." Jersey Boys knows what its audience wants and delivers in spades-- catchy music impossibly sung, a compelling but easy to follow story and nostalgia for the "underdog." Specifically, Mr. Valli and his Four Seasons pals rising from working class obscurity to international acclaim.

Expectations met:

The dudes nailed those super high notes and dance routines perfectly.

My parents and their contemporaries went wild for the hits that defined their high school years and beyond.

I flashed back to hearing this stuff on commercials for Time-Life Records and Bennigan's.

Behind the Music-esque storyline cleaves the band apart, reunion and redemption are uneasy but realistic enough.

And a few surprises:

The band's success is a minor miracle, they seemed genuinely lost in the early years, when their producer and lyricist kept feeding ideas and saving them from their knuckleheaded instincts. Not so many artists are willing to be that honest on a national scale.

Prom staple "Oh What a Night!" isn't just about sex, it's about that clumsy, embarassing first time you'd rather not discuss with thousands of strangers.

The writers either lifted the 'DJ locking himself in the station to play hit song all night' device from The Buddy Holly Story or DJs across the country shared this affliction 40 years back.

Genuinely well-adjusted composer Bob Gaudio honestly (if the script is accurate) doesn't miss the spotlight and is content to sit on his boat, whiling away his afternoons.

* Assessment based on difficulty of securing tickets to said shows. I visited both box offices 2 months in advance & got orchestra, inner aisle for Wicked, side second balcony for JB.

Chicago Improv Festival, Day 2 - 34 Shows Down, 66 to Go

Chicago’s the cradle of improv, with a scene responsible for large portions of the SNL, MadTV, and 30 Rock casts, among others. Its Improv Festival catches comic celebs in the weeks after the TV season has wrapped, hence no shortage of marquee names. Opening night paired Jack McBrayer (30 Rock’s twinkly page Kenneth) and Paul Scheer (one-third of MTV fave The Human Giant), word has it they didn’t disappoint.

 

I volunteered and saw the second night when 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit (that balding dude over there) joined local giant Susan Messing and her funny friend Mick Napier for her trademark show “Messing With a Friend.” This time, Messing with Two Friends. Study in contrasts with the night’s other threesome—T.J. Jagodowski, a Chicago stage virtuoso, who you may know from Sonic’s free-form commercials, joining Bassprov, Joe Bill and Mark Sutton’s celebrated long-form banter on a fishing boat..

 

I didn’t expect this: Messing’s normally reliable show disappointed. Comic chops were displayed, laughs ensued, but timing and energy felt off and the audience grew restless. Adsit’s limp material largely detracted from his friends’ show; his best moment, fittingly, was as a taxidermied late husband. He’s apparently fed too long on network writers’ milk. Meanwhile, two guys I’d never heard of and another I’d only heard about brought the house down with their relaxed but endlessly clever Bassprov bull session. Messrs. Bill and Sutton discussed plans for an upscale gentleman’s club (“a breast lounge”) which segued into dinner theater’s business model which led to musical theater love. The  flannel clad, working guys’ guide to finding a good show (“If it has Andrew Lloyd Webber on the poster, you’ll want to skip that…”) was a classic. Uh, classic for a couple hundred patrons.

 

New Yorkers and their tourist friends can enjoy a taste of T.J.’s improv magic at Barrow Street Theater while “T.J. and Dave” plays occasionally at Chicago’s I.O. His extended Chicago Reader profile explains why he won’t be going nationwide anytime soon.

Gas For Less - 33 Shows Down, 67 to Go

I'd like to see how well Gas For Less plays outside Chicago. Brett Neveu's stoic little slice of life drama sold well at the Goodman, appealing to hyperlocal nostalgia for its titular establishment, a northwest side mom and pop shuttered a few years ago. If you live in Chicago, near Li, are a Chicago Bears fan frustrated by Rex Grossman (and what Bears fan isn't?), and you feel gentrification has sucked the life blood out of your corner of the city, this show's for you. Gift wrapped with a shiny bow.

Set over two autumn Sundays, in the type of gas station-convenience store that has "regulars," Gas For Less follows the slow death of the mom and pop shop and a way of life more familiar to our parents and grandparents. The set's dead on, down to the low rent candy displays. The script's faithful to the provincial regulars' everyday banter. They're guys who know each other as well or better than their wives and families, who aren't dreaming too big, who stand idly by as the big chains move in, and who live for the Bears. They spend most of each act's armchair quarterbacking the Sunday game and squabbling over trivial shit.

There's the problem. As skilled as Neveu is with casually evasive dialogue and manhood gone awry, we spend most of the show waiting for stuff to happen. Not a screwy, charming Beckettian wait, but a molasses heading out the jar wait. Loooong stretches watching guys watch the tube, grabbing snacks, making chit chat. When stuff really does happens, it's hilarious, tragic, sometimes both. If those qualities prove more important than knowing the evolution of the Budlong Woods neighborhood, this show's bound for wider success.

Psalms of a Questionable Nature - 32 Shows Down, 68 to Go

Marisa Wegrzyn is the Chicago theater scene’s latest critical darling. Reviewers consistently praise her raw talent and, even while pointing out a few flaws, speculate on her future successes. The Chicago Reader’s even more excited, naming her 2007’s Best Playwright. She’s demonstrated a good ear for dialogue in ’07 murder mystery hit Diversey Harbor, save a couple of dead spots in the story. Her zany black comedy Butcher of Baraboo turned heads at the Steppenwolf’s Festival of New Work and even transferred Off-Broadway, where critics and audiences never quite embraced it. Last fall’s Killing Women had a killer premise, contract killer hires single mom to do the dirty work. But while the women were kicking ass, the male characters were rendered nearly useless, but not in a constructive way.

 

Psalms of a Questionable Nature is quite an improvement over Killing, but the qualifiers remain. So much to like about this show, but the evening didn’t completely gel. In her story of stepsisters resolving their parents’ estate after their fatal car accident, Wegrzyn drops a pair of complex characters into a fascinating moral stew. They have good hearts but have done terrible things, and come to believe they are horrible people. Older sis Greta can’t sell the house fast enough. Moo can’t bear to leave the remnants of their folks’ science experiments as entrée to domestic terrorism.  On the market is their late parents’ remote rural home, like Ted Kaczynski’s shack with better fixtures. Greta’s certain she can scrub it clean in time for prospective buyers; Moo knows better.

 

By itself, that’s a hell of a story. But Wegrzyn can’t hold back, heaping on the melodrama. Greta’s estranged from her daughter, she was a terrible mother. Moo should’ve finished college and she worked in a slaughterhouse with her dad. She’s getting clobbered by an anvil of guilt and shame, and she ingests poison, which makes some rather curious progress through her system as she wavers between complete coherence and total wreck.

 

So after a moving but unresolved hour and a half, we’re left right back where we started, praising a talented playwright who we hope can outdo herself next time.

Boys and Girls - 31 Shows Down, 69 to Go

Theatre Seven of Chicago's a group of somewhat recent Wash U grads whose mission isn't much different from hundreds of other troupes preceding them. If not for their consistently good and/or interesting work, I wouldn't have been drawn to Boys and Girls, a pairing of one-act gender explorations. The "Boys" are the dueling lads in Daniel MacIvor's Never Swim Alone, a series of sharp volleys concerning machismo, conformity, popularity and sophisticated locker room talk which mask memories of a horrible childhood accident. The "Girls" are rotating casts of teenage actresses finding each other's place on the food chain of high school popularity in Wendy MacLeod's The Shallow End.

MacIvor's script more effectively held my attention, and not just because I'm a boy. He's somehow transformed a series of Yuppie platitudes into a session of crisp exchanges, and the threesome bringing his words to life (pictured) strike a near-perfect balance in this delicate power struggle. MacLeod's situation is slightly more advanced than your typical after-school special. She's observant about how quickly young ladies turn on one another, but rarely does this story offer new insights. The girls are less polished performers to be sure but the one playing the ringleader is closest to the professional track.

Theatre Seven doesn't nail it every time. In 2007, their artistically fascinating twin bill of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Diversey Harbor, an original script, was satisfying even if it roamed all over the map. Here, I applaud their casting choices and the staging for Act I and most of Act II. They're a young company but starting to mature nicely.

Speech and Debate - 30 Shows Down, 70 to Go

By the end of Speech and Debate, Solomon, Howie, and Diwata seemed like old friends. They shared some secrets, acted at turns noble and embarrassed, we had a few laughs and got to see their worst, certainly, but mostly their best. Theater is that unique vehicle allowing us to get a sense for teenage life up close, without those awful "real world" side effects (distrusting stares, maybe even incarceration). And Stephen Karam's brilliant script is the most complex, thoughtful exploration of contemporary high school life I've seen on stage. The closest comparison is the engrossing but short-lived PBS series, American High, a hybrid straight up and self-shot documentary following Highland Park High School kids.

Diwata has that same obsessive impulse to document her struggles. She keeps a video blog where, one day, she dishes on pubescent Howie's chat room encounter with a school teacher. Budding journalist Solomon is determined to break the story wide open but his journalism teacher won't have it. Issues like free speech's double standard for high school kids and the redefinition of public space in the Internet age are tightly wound into this story of awkward friendships, trust, and self discovery. Karam wisely focuses on the three students, their developing friendships and developing plan to perform a "duo interp" piece at a high school speech event to expose their teacher. I am many years removed from high school but the speech team details ring true-- how certain events seem so stupid until you actually perform something that matters, how kids suddenly entrusted with creative authority quickly go too far but just as quickly find a way to rein themselves back.

And these characters are so richly drawn. Every drama department has someone like Diwata, and yet her miserably egocentric veneer melts away to reveal a heart of gold. Fresh-faced homo Howie deftly shifts between catty and supportive towards his new friends. He's remarkably sophisticated for a teenager; he's mastered online and off-line cruising while somehow maintaining a sense of ethics. And Solomon, a teenager with a middle-ager's name and sensibilities, has haphazardly accumulated intelligence and wisdom but doesn't know himself well enough to handle it all. Each of them harbors secrets which, while not exactly shocking, are carefully revealed to deepen relationships and complicate real world applications of complex hypotheticals.

A fourth actor doubles as a smart teacher and an overwrought TV reporter. But the other three were strong, vividly recapturing those glorious awkward phases. At times, I'd forget these people were adults playing parts. Perhaps actors more ably portray those flashs of sophistication with advanced age.

Hunchback of Notre Dame - 29 Shows Down, 71 to Go

Hey kids, do you miss the glory days of Styx? Wish you could bottle the feeling of slow dancing to Dno't Let It End at your junior prom and release it whenever you're feeling down? Do you think musical theatre hit its apex in 1985 and everything produced since is just a waste of time? Well, have I got the show for you!

Hunchback of Notre Dame's appeal, and likely the only feature for which it will be remembered, is its score by former Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung.

Schadenfreude Rent Party - 28 Shows Down, 72 to Go

Homegrown comedy troupe Schadenfreude (a German word meaning "taking pleasure in others' misfortunes") started the Rent Party a couple years ago to try out new material, showcase their funny friends, have a good time and, as the title suggests, raise funds so they could keep their rehearsal space. I covered the phenom for Chicagoist, then got roped into participating: as a game show contestant, a Harry Potter lookalike and a competitor in their first annual Media Slam competition. And can you blame me? It was a hell of a lot of fun.

On the bill for the mid-May Rent Party that was Show #28 (yes, yes, I'm behind in blogging shows, not so behind in attending them...) was the Second Annual Alternative Media Slam, a guest appearance by local business celeb Tim Smithe, part-owner and pitchman for the Walter E. Smithe furniture stores (he's the guy on the left up there), a guest reading by funny lady Claire Zulkey, and the short film work of Claire's fiance Steve Delahoyde (including some priceless Clinton campaign metaphors). As at every Rent Party, Schad-ers Justin, Kate, and Sandy cycled through an arsenal of new and familiar eccentrics, from fictitious 53rd Ward Alderman Ed Bus to rocker Lita Ford to "Guy Who Spends Way Too Much on the Costume He'll Wear Waiting In Line for the Hit Summer Action Movie." Adam was back from the West Coast to contribute some bits, including a hilarious send-up of pompous but beloved film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum-- spending his retirement rambling about obscure indie film personalities and bumming food scraps from the audience.

Most of the evening was given over to the troupe's new material and the Media Slam. The material was solid and they were having fun with it, even poking fun at the ocassional half-assed bit. The Slam matched the Red Eye, a free Trib publication, vs. Chicagoist, and Time Out Chicago vs. Gapers Block, with Chicagoist defeating Time Out in the finals (holla!). I'm biased of course (seems more fun from the stage), but the first Slam was more fun. That one was more raucous and raw, hell, they didn't know what to call it really. This year's spectacle was more orderly. They had a DJ playing that Slam (de duh duh, de duh duh...) song after most of the insults. The one-joke limit wasn't enforced, for better and worse. And with the Reader bowing out, we had no real villain. The Red Eye is big media, but we like their team captain Mark. Still, it was fun to watch friends insult friends and friends make friends laugh so hard they shoot beer through their nose... or something less disgusting.

Late Nite Catechism - 27 Shows Down, 73 to Go

 Its script is solid if not particularly memorable and the set up isn’t all that dramatic, but Late Nite Catechismis a fascinating sociological exercise. This long, long running one-woman show, birthed in Chicago (by my friend Katie’s landlord, hence our attendance last month) and still running strong years later, helps Catholic school survivors and the rest of us make light of a troubling, if occasionally charming, educational system.

 

When the lights go down, we’re all Sister’s pupils. We’re a self-selecting lot. At our performance, the Catholics outnumbered the “publics” around 2 to 1, and they were the most eager to please the ruler-toting nun… or at least the very convincing actress commanding the room. My friend Katie, more than a decade removed from her Confirmation, immediately reverted to the ace student, correcting our misconceptions about the Immaculate Conception (hint: it’s not about sex).  I, two decades removed from my Bar Mitzvah, was singled out for looking down my neighbor’s rather revealing blouse.

 

Once the novelty wears out, we learn about the canonization of Saints, the stages of the afterlife, and tidbits about church hierarchy. It’s a real education, which is to say, it ultimately feels loooong. But there’s plenty of humor, corny yet reassuring to the devout, lapsed and secular.

 

Catechism has spawned two other hits on the same stage, along this same premise: Put the Nuns in Charge and Sunday School Cinema. As long as the Catholic Church has a sense of humor, shows like these will do just fine.