The cast of “Daredevils’ Hamlet”. Photo credit: Candice Conner

Review by Dan Jakes

Here’s two parts of a play you’d never think to look forward to: pre-show and actor’s Q&A. Leave it to one of Chicago’s most innovative ensembles to make both entertaining.

Before the house lights fade, the cast of would-be stuntmen invites the audience to jump onstage and play four-square with the actors. Is it a gimmick? Sure. But is it effective? Absolutely.

It’s this spirit of “why not?”—along with an adept comic ear, charismatic cast (particularly Barrel of Monkeys’ company member Brennan Buhl) and fast pace—that makes Halena Kays’ performer written “Daredevil’s Hamlet” a success. The five-man ensemble interweaves classical text, personal narrative, audience engagement and amateur acrobatics to create a high-spirited, physical night of theatre.

And don’t let the poster fool you. Promoted “Jack-Assery!” aside, this is one sharp, thoughtful show. The Neo-futurists deconstruct Shakespeare’s behemoth titular character and delve into the themes of thought versus action, masculinity, and sacrifice with the ensembles’ own personal histories, all while keeping the experience light and accessible. No small feat. Conceptually, daredevil work and Shakespeare may seem like odd bedfellows, but who better to macho up than Hamlet? Mixing the physical commitment of acrobatics with the intensely cerebral nature of the famed prince yields a fresh, very watchable new take on an old story.

Ryan Walters stars in “Daredevils’ Hamlet”. Photo credit: Candice Conner

In one of the production’s strongest ideas, fog, music, wrestling and poetry recitation are broken up by “moments of thought”—honest, bare, in-the-present check-ups on the actors’ mental state.

One by one, the Daredevils step onstage and answer a list of simple questions. (“Are you nervous because it’s opening night? Why did you choose this image of your father to show?”) Instead of the usual self-indulgence these meta-theatrical tricks usually produce, the Q&A serves as little palette cleansers that provides interesting insight and some humorous ad-libs.

As for the stunts, the “Daredevils’ Hamlet” is admittedly no “Cirque du Soleil”—which is no problem—much of the show’s entertainment and charm comes from the realization that no one onstage really knows what they’re doing. That goes for the Shakespeare, too. Much of the show revolves around this theme—an actor playing a classic role just beyond his reach, a singer rocking a song a smidge out of tune and a cast performing tricks better left to professionals.

But what’s more captivating—and for that matter, inspiring—than seeing someone throwing caution to the wind and just balls-to-the-wall going for it? Not much.

Recommended

“Daredevils’ Hamlet” runs through September 25, 2010 at The Neo-Futurarium at 5153 N. Ashland in Chicago. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.NeoFuturists.org.

For additional theatre news and reviews, please visit www.TheatreInChicago.com.

The company of Provision Theater’s “Godspell”. Photo credit: Ingrid Oyen

Review by Alissa Norby

Despite sustained notions of flower power, organic ponchos and other peace-keeping accoutrements adorning each of “Godspell’s” varied arenas, composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz long ago set the record straight regarding the rock musical’s assumed Bohemian leanings. The carousal-inspired pastels once donned by the Off-Broadway company’s original peacenik pack was in homage to Harvey Cox’s treatise, “The Feast of Fools,” an examination of festivity and fantasy, as well as the interface that these two realms often hold with liturgy. As such, conceiver John Michael Tebelak’s beloved riff on the Gospel of Matthew is tendered most successfully when balanced between these founding pillars. Expressly aware of both its irreverent whimsy and timeless truths, “Godspell” requires a director equally as primed to take its mirthful plunge.

Director Tim Gregory is never quite apt to venture down that old laissez-faire chute with Provision Theater Company’s offering. Gregory’s youthfully spritzed staging often solely invests in the material’s ebullience rather than its cultural acumen. However this inclination is not what one could hail as a mortal sin when it comes to the oft temporal sphere of the theatre.  After all, spiritual lessons have historically gone down the esophagus more easily with just a dollop of musical sugar.

For those with a taste for the glace, Gregory and his dependably green ensemble have pulled out most of the stops to compose what is surely a festal evening.  Replete with a litany of balloon gags, Muppet-inspired puppet shows and Facebook references, Provision’s “Godspell” is an undividedly airy offering that plays more like a tamed Sunday school pageant than an artistic examination of human-bred community.

Justin Berkobien (L) and Syler Thomas star in “Godspell”. Photo credit: Ingrid Oyen

Which is a shame, as there is nary a more opportune theatrical window to explore both the psychedelic and psychological than a book that seemingly started, or in this case revitalized, it all. “Godspell” inarguably asserted its hallowed status due to then-neophyte composer Stephen Schwartz’s pop-inspired score, an eclectic mixing of anthemic rock and meditative folk. But what has wholly embalmed the musical beyond its posturing of the Episcopal Hymnal on chic beats is its unapologetic willingness to posit the love that can bring individuals closer to a messiah but also the insecurity that can lead to entropy.

To be sure, there is plenty of contagious love to go around in Gregory’s production. But amid the incessant slapstick, improvisatory fun issued by the wholly willing ensemble, the text’s invitation to introspection is an offer that never quite materializes. Syler Thomas renders an all-too mellow Jesus in his “Lifeguard on Duty” t-shirt and unworriedl khakis. Consequently, the notion of a community’s penchant for following rock-star leaders and eventual aptitude to debase those whom they have revered is never entirely achieved.

The burden of mortal sincerity too often then falls to Justin Berkobien as John the Baptist/Judas, an assuredly fine musical actor who is relentless in his portrayal of these two sides to human nature accordingly. Berkobien is persuasively gleeful as he baptizes those around him with recycled rain water, and adroitly disquieting when the ultimate deception lets loose its shadows.

But Berkobien is too often solus in Gregory’s primordial sea of empty Beatitudes and mawkish Pharisees. The vaudevillian merrymaking often reaches points of infection, but with a dearth of emotional honesty, it is far too easy to refuse the Kool-Aid.

Somewhat Recommended

“Godspell” runs through September 26, 2010 at the Provision Theater Company. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.ProvisionTheater.org.

For additional theatre news and reviews, please visit www.TheatreInChicago.com.

Jameson Cooper and Cory Goodrich star in “Pinocchio”. Photo credit: Peter Coombs

By Alissa Norby

In the realm of fairy tales, the matter of transformation is an infinite and endlessly expandable possibility. Pumpkins require only a gentle flick of a wand to evolve into palatial carriages, a mermaid need only exfoliate more carefully to rid herself of gills, and of course, with just the right amount of ingenuity and integrity, a young lad made purely of wood can become a real boy.

The authorial foresight found in the ilk of Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm siblings has always endowed junior readers with a belief in the possibility of evolution, whether it be in the earthly or ethereal worlds. But a different kind of metamorphosis, one that ensures the longevity of these lore to stage transfers, is much more difficult to come by.

But the immeasurably skillful Chicago director Rachel Rockwell has been around the woods a few times, and fortunately has the artistic prescience to weave the kind of accessible children’s musical after which many of her more financially-backed Broadway contemporaries can merely hunger.

Rockwell’s latest venture to the land of doting witches and pining heroes is the Marriott Theatre’s “Pinocchio”, a re-imagined musical adaptation of the original 1883 fable, “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi. Like its famed Disney predecessor, Robin’s retelling of the puppet’s tale combines a slew of the original’s chimerical twists, situating the wooden tyke in the hands of a lecherous cabaret duo and famished whale are just a few of the pit stops.

In the hands of adroit designer Jesse Gaffney, the quaint, four-cornered stage of the Marriott is appropriately transformed into an illusory playground, complete with automated rafts and towering candies. And with the playful assistance of an equally unwavering ensemble (Cory Goodrich as the golden-voiced Blue Fairy and Jackson Evans as the tumbling Hopper are particularly winsome), the production requires just the right amount of childhood invention to complete the journey.

Michael Haws and Cory Goodrich in “Pinocchio”. Photo credit: Peter Coombs

But Rockwell dispatches much more than aesthetic excursion to tell her fiction. She recognizes the significance of that age-honored fairy tale duo, a deliberate balance between grounded truth and airborne whim. It is this reverence that ennobles “Pinocchio” above its compeers, relying on adult-accessible gag than tired gimmick to cast its spell. Gone are the bouts of euphemized spoofery too often adorned by other musical incarnations. Instead, Rockwell and Robin have packed just the right amount of du jour zest to keep energies high.

Unsurprisingly, it is a welcome and effectual alchemy. Through a sequence of rapping juvenile delinquents (who are surely lovable), life-sized grass hoppers and one elongated nose, Rockwell and Robin are carefully never to speak down to their listeners, even the most vernal of enthusiast. It is truly a production to be eagerly shared by all, with a message of honesty and courage that has always outlasted the most fairy-tested of magic.

Highly Recommended

“Pinocchio” runs through August 29, 2010 at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive in Lincolnshire, IL. To purchase tickets or for more information, please visit www.MarriottTheatre.com.

For additional theatre news and reviews, please visit www.TheatreInChicago.com.

The company of “Shrek the Musical”. Photo credit: Joan Marcus

By Alissa Norby

“Fairytales should really be updated,” muses the puckish Shrek during a final plea for the affections of a reluctant princess. It is one of those startlingly honest and quietly irreverent insights that “Shrek the Musical” is all too wary to boast, but is a welcome dagger into the cavalcade of childhood morality tales that, year after year, infiltrate the bulk of shooting star wishes and Barbie dream-houses.

It is also the simple yet remarkably shrewd concept that elevated the eponymous 2001 DreamWorks animated feature, upon which the subsequent Broadway musical was based, to its now-indisputable status of mega-stardom. Released after a litany of saccharine-sweet Disney lore that rarely if ever veered from audience-approved tropes, “Shrek” assailed the family film front with its self-aware, dry, and intermittently perverse tale of a misanthropic ogre who unenthusiastically learns that he may very well need the callous world that surrounds him.

Unsurprisingly, this unexpected edge- well, as close to the edge as children’s fare can loom- was a harbinger for a new, CGI-encrusted cartoon genre. It was one that would take the moniker of “family entertainment” much more literally, ensuring that each age demographic, whether through slapstick pratfall or sexual euphemism, got its fair share of the deal.

This green-rimmed formula (the franchise managed to birth three profitably healthy sequels) seems painless enough. Curiously, then, was the musical incarnation’s inability to find a similar footing on the Broadway stage, a trial that still befuddles production’s creative team as it makes its touring bow in Chicago.

Eric Petersen as the green ogre in “Shrek”. Photo credit: Joan Marcus

The musical, composed by the exemplary Jeanine Tesori and penned by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lindsay-Abaire, never quite catches up to the sharp and agile tone of its source material. The educational appeal of those time-tested and requisite mores is in short, muddied supply here. And the adult goodie bag of pop culture references and impotency digs seem needlessly gourmandized. The droll “Fractured Fairy Tale” gags (one scene opens with the Gingerbread Man in a “Law & Order” type interrogation room) and whoopee puns that were swiftly winked at in the film are replaced by lumbering citations of fleeting pop culture morsels, including GPS monitors and the Volkswagen “Punch Buggy Blue” road trip game. At one point, the Big Bag Wolf actually refers to himself as a “hot tranny mess”, alluding to what is even now a dated piece of jargon popularized by a Bravo reality series.

The only bit that was seemingly truant from the cortege was an appearance by the fairytale counterparts of “Jersey Shore”. But perhaps that is being saved for the sequel.

It is this kind of reliance on the cultural other-a dawdling batch that also includes copious references to sibling Broadway shows- that thwarts “Shrek” from finding its own literary and musical identity. The humor is too often derivative and director Jason Moore’s puppetry gags too repetitious, that when the pungent ogre does find his heart, and it is a welcome one, it’s often too late.

But after wiping away its flatulence schtick and belching contests, “Shrek” manages to unearth hints of that candid emotional kernel that has kept the brand pumping for so long. These moments frequently occur during the more authentic ballads of Tesori’s score. Swept in with cookie-cutter kid anthems are “Who I’d Be”, “When Words Fail”, and “I Know It’s Today”, a trio of acoustic-based songs that provide the sort of honest character introspection in a production that would be little more than an opulent coloring book without it.

Eric Petersen, Alan Mingo, and Haven Burton star in “Shrek the Musical”. Photo credit: Joan Marcus

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The company of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

Review by Alissa Norby

Perennial novels and short stories have often borne the most commercially viable musical works. As with the more contemporary trend of film adaptation, publications boasting pre-packaged audiences have often been viewed as the most trafficable humdingers for the Broadway stage. There is little wonder then why the Bible, the most widely-read and lauded tome, gave rise to three of the genre’s most publicly extolled creations, Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell”, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, and “Jesus Christ Superstar”.

The latter of which, a piece initially conceptualized by Webber as a rock album with lyricist Tim Rice, hardly seemed ripe for the tourist plucking. Composed in 1960s rock pastiche with the sort of musical edge that more closely mimics the ilk of “Hair” than that of Webber’s subsequent “Phantom of the Opera”, “Superstar” was conceived as an unapologetic re-imagining of Jesus Christ’s final earthly hours. A a work lodged with willing anachronisms and modish slang, the musical  immodestly paints Jesus and his apostles as an outcast horde, one equally as likely to tout flower power as they do salvation.

It is unsurprising, then, why religious groups initially found the piece an affront to the strictures. But that notion of musical sacrilege has thankfully gone the way of the golden calf.

In a rare and unexpected venture, Theatre at the Center has revamped “Superstar” to more acutely echo the savoir-faire of contemporary youth angst. Borrowing aesthetics from a pool that includes the recent “Hair” revival as well as “Spring Awakening”, Stacey Flaster’s rendering boasts an urbane look and feel that has largely remained absent from her predecessors’. Draped in both grunge ponchos and Converse sneakers, the players here sustain an unflinching air of timelessness, permitting the Webber/Rice tale to groove even further into the universal truths of its fiction.

The musical tells an embellished account of Jesus Christ’s final week as a corporeal megastar, although it primarily acts as an exploration of the toils of leadership and celebrity that often accompany such fame. All of the requisite New Testament plot points are hit here with varying degrees of sincerity, most splashed with some heavy rock star glitter to match the conceit. A rousing chorus ditty accompanies the thirty-nine lashes. The apostles don tie-dyed headscarves and acoustic guitars during The Last Supper. Even Judas Iscariot is portrayed as a most empathetic soul, a loving disciple who acts out of compassion for his fellow congregants rather than the typical malice or greed. Beatnik rock is the undisputed name of the game, and unlike most seasoned directors who have approached the work, Flaster knows it’s anything but hip to be square.

Max Quinlan as Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

Working with Nikki Delhomme’s cross-generational costumes and Christopher Ash’s structurally ambiguous set, Flaster has concocted a highly stylized directorial concept to match the show’s unconventional score. Caiaphas and his autocrats appear in caricatural headpieces that more closely resemble a Marilyn Manson video than pious robes. This is of course before King Herod appears in the 11 o’clock hour as a relative of the evil clown, serving as puppeteer to his Romanian minions.

Flaster’s is surely a wide and varied conceptual milieu, but somehow, it works. And at the points (there are several) where both the carefree score and witting director match in respective unorthodoxy, it engrosses.

Fortunately, Flaster’s giving players, themselves as emerging as their onstage personas, commit to every twist and turn. Max Quinlan gives what may very well be the most searing performance of his tender career in the titular role. Quinlan proves himself here as a most versatile vocalist, capable of traversing genres with an ease of breath.

Quinlan, along with the rest of the impressively capable ensemble, tenders the kind of spirited ductility that has always been vital to this work. Because despite the age-old source material (one about a messiah, at that), when it comes to “Superstar”, youth- and creativity- rule.

Recommended

“Jesus Christ Superstar” runs through August 8, 2010 at Theatre at the Center. For tickets or more information, please visit www.TheatreAtTheCenter.com.

For additional theatre news and reviews, please visit www.TheatreInChicago.com.

The company of “Once On This Island”. Photo credit: Peter Coombs

Review by Alissa Norby

Early on in the Marriott Theatre’s glossy-coated production of “Once On This Island”, recent Broadway vet Chasten Harmon opens her abled jowls in release of one of the most sweeping, whole-bodied voices the suburban company has witnessed since its onset. Raw and unflinching, Harmon sinks her teeth into one of the musical’s most memorable pop hymns, “Waiting for Life”, that traditional opener that has long remained a staple of both cabaret and audition room. It is a song that beautifully echoes the aches of adolescence, both those tangibles and intangibles that seem just an inch away from reach. Harmon shows no deficit in her want, but the seeming objects of her desire- romance, escape, redemption- are as muddled as the maritime landscape upon which her inexorable journey unfolds.

Unfortunate, considering the musical, limned with flowery language and a spry score, rests solely on the folkloric truths with which it is sowed.

The musical, penned by the prolific duo Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (“Ragtime” and “Seussical” are also among the canon), has posed a confounding challenge to regional and school theatres- the most common of the show’s presenters- since its 1990 Broadway debut. Stocked with an ebullient musical flare and Calypso-flavored beats, “Island” has long kept one foot in each of its originating sources. Based on Rosa Guy’s jovial “My Love, My Love” yet inarguably inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s original “Little Mermaid” (a dark fable wholly void of singing crawfish), the musical swims between a sense of flippant celebration and a murkier tale of death and sacrifice. But producing companies have rarely ventured too far into the latter, too often opting instead to augment the musical’s fairytale panache.

Chasten Harmon as Ti Moune and Nya as Little Ti Moune. Photo credit: Peter Coombs

Such is the case with David Bell’s current offering, a production endowed with the most formidable of talents yet ultimately, or rather willingly, subservient to saccharine. In fact, Bell, along with costume designer Nanci Missimi and orchestrator Michael Starobin, frequently seems intent on quieting “Island’s” more veridical of themes. Pastel-colored, aerated aesthetic reigns supreme, while tribal fete serves as the staple production device. Foam headdresses and embellished Afro-Caribbean accents are consistently at the ready.

“Island”, a piece that was once a light refresher, has been recapitulated here as a candy-coated libation, equipped with all the sugar required to help what was ever only a mild treacle go down.

For those not yet familiar with the vogue musical (or those who have yet to make the trek to one of the copious middle school productions), “Once On This Island” follows a group of polytheistic denizens of the French Antilles as they recall the tale of Ti Moune (Harmon), a doomed young lover living on the shores of Haiti. Once an orphan, Ti Moune’s life is spared by the water god Agwe and is soon delivered to the arms of two adoptive peasants, Tonton Julian and mama Euralie (here played by the dexterous team of Michael James Leslie and Joslyn James). Entranced by those of privilege, or the lighter-skinned Beauxhommes, Ti Moune enlists the watchful eyes of the gods in her quest for amorous fulfillment. The gods, it turns out, have  placed their own bets on the young traveler’s life, anxious to see whether the force of love (Melinda Wakefield Alberty) can overpower that of death (Jesse Means).

It is Harmon, along with several commanding performers including Leslie and Jones, that manages to serve as bulwark to the honeyed production. Harmon is that rare sort of performer equally game, and equally able, to dispatch the relish with an unflailing emotional core. Melody Betts as earth deity Asaka and Caitlainne Rose Gurreri as Andrea are also standouts here. Each manages to package infectious pep alongside a welcome bite, a careful pairing that, although essential, is given too few chances in Bell’s rendering.

Regarded as one of Flaherty’s richest scores, “Island” has often relied upon  thematic muscle to grip through its chirpy wrapping. Ahrens’s book still reflects Rosa and Andersen’s original works, both of which are rife with religious allegory and earthly aphorisms. But Bell has clearly worked diligently to eschew vestiges of mortal sacrifice and emotional salvation, directing his cast in a way that parrots more closely the Disney animated feature than the musical he is presenting. Ensemble members frequently don literal “storytelling” hats rather than embodying the facilitating characters. Indeed, Bell has even discarded the musical’s original opening, wherein the islanders decide to regale a young girl with the story of Ti Moune as a way to comfort her from a passing storm.