6-9-06
Leaving Iowa Offers Carload of Sentimentality
Barb Wengerd, Denise Blank, Kelly Cooper and Bradley Armacost in Leaving Iowa.Therefore, I was wide open to the overt emotional manipulation offered up by the writing team of Spike Manton and Tim Clue. And, while Leaving Iowa doesn’t have much narrative complexity, it does push all the right buttons in the course of a generally entertaining road trip.
Dad (Bradley Armacost) always has a “fascinating” (code for really really boring) destination in mind for the annual family summer trip. And so, despite the longing of his children, Don and his sister (Barb Wengerd), for a trip somewhere exciting or entertaining or at least possessed of a decent pool, each summer the family packs up and takes to the road for a trip that will be more memorable for the journey than it is for the destination.
Fast forward some 20-odd years and Don is an adult living in Boston where he has been too busy to come home and so missed Dad’s retirement and even, owing to some bad weather, his funeral. Now he is home for his nephew’s baptism and it turns out Dad’s ashes are still in the basement. Don volunteers to take Dad on a final road trip to his father’s childhood home, where he will scatter the ashes. As it happens, Don’s grandparent’s home has been replaced by a supermarket. So Don begins a search of Iowa (and eventually Kansas) for the right place to honor his father.
The narrative of Leaving Iowa switches back and forth a bit bumpily between Don’s final journey and memories of various childhood road trips. There’s nothing unpredictable about the story, although Don’s final decision on his father’s resting place works nicely on a couple of levels. And, despite Cooper’s best efforts, Don’s direct address to the audience never manages to be anything but whiny. The best moments in the evening come from Don and his family’s encounters with assorted locals (mostly personified by the excellent Brian McCartney who finds a unique mannerism for each of his many characters), and in seeing Dad struggle for control of his traveling family. Armacost really is the rock of this production, creating a character whose ticks might seem overwhelming individually, but taken as a group they create a sort of every-Dad. Father and son may not have ever communicated well, but whenever Armacost silently joins Cooper during Don’s endless evening of driving, Dad’s affection for his son is palpable.
There are weak moments during the evening. It’s never explained why Don and Don alone must bear Dad to his resting place, for instance. But the success of the evening depends on the audience giving Don’s journey the requisite emotional weight. It’s something of a theatrical Hallmark card, but for the audience the night I attended, there were laughter and tears aplenty throughout the journeys of Leaving Iowa.
Leaving Iowa – Royal George Theatre
Chris Jones, Tribune – “For better or worse, this is Mitch Albom territory – folksy sentiment writ large. But unlike some of Albom’s best sellers, Leaving Iowa has genuine charm and humility. It knows what it is – a simply structured homegrown comedy and a celebration of the oft-unappreciated parenting skills of the so-called Greatest Generation – and it lives as happily in its own warm skin as an ear of corn ripening along Interstate 80 on an August afternoon.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “You don’t have to be the child of a small-town Iowa couple living in the midst of hog farms and cornfields to identify with everything about Leaving Iowa, the simultaneously hilarious and touching play by Tim Clue and Spike Manton that is now in the intimate confines of the Royal George Theatre’s cabaret space… For Leaving Iowa is a spot-on evocation of family dynamics and the quest for high-minded educational adventure (courtesy of Dad and a go-along mom), when all that is really desired (just ask the kids) is some unadulterated water-slide fun.”
Jenn Goddu, Reader – “Tim Clue and Spike Manton’s bittersweet comedy follows a man traveling country highways looking for a meaningful place to scatter his father’s ashes. Multilayered performances keep the gags from feeling tired. And beyond the somewhat cliched premise is the son’s genuine sense of mourning – for his father, for his childhood, and for our nation’s loss of its heartland to chain stores and parking lots. Try as you might not to be manipulated into nostalgic twinges, don’t be surprised if Leaving Iowa gets you in the end.”
Tim Sauers, Gay Chicago – “Under [Tim] Clue’s caffeine-infused direction, this solid revival definitely packs a purposeful over-the-top comedic punch as the audience laughs out loud in all the right places, yet the production stays grounded in its warm-hearted core – the fond remembrance of childhood… Clue has assembled a lovable, tight, hardworking ensemble, with the sweet-natured [Kelly] Cooper at the center. Cooper’s an inviting actor with a strong likeness of Ray Romano, as he blends little boy charms with the wistful comic touches of a maudlin adult.”
Assassins – Open Eye Productions
Kerry Reid, Tribune – “Even if the piece lacks the bite and sweep of a Sondheim masterpiece such as Sweeney Todd, it can still be an amusing entertainment in the right hands, and director Christopher Maher has chosen a strong cast with a couple of knockout performances. One is Tom Weber’s cockeyed optimist, who struts up the scaffold in ‘The Ballad of Guiteau’ with disarming charm; another is Sara R. Sevigny’s Sara Jane Moore.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “I’ve seen many editions of this musical over the years, including the starry, overproduced Broadway revival mounted a few seasons back. But this modest, homespun take (even if a cast of 15 and a nine-person band is a major undertaking for a small troupe) is the first in which every lyric is crystal clear and every assassin emerges as someone who might have sat down next to you on a park bench or in a train.”
Jack Helbig, Reader – “Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical about presidential assailants from Booth to Hinckley is presented by Open Eye Productions. This edgy show is especially dark, angry, and satisfying in Chris Maher’s rough, low-budget staging. Though some ensemble members have less-than-perfect voices, everyone captures the crazed spirit of this fever dream of a show.”
The Boy Detective Fails – House Theatre
Chris Jones, Tribune – “As in all the troupe’s past shows, the best (and great they are) moments in Nathan Allen’s production of Boy Detective are the vulnerable ones – such as the powerful scene between Shawn Pfaustch and Justin D. M. Palmer… But at other irritating times, this show gets stuck in circles of its own making, at the expense of truth and storytelling. The overwrought character of the Professor makes no clear sense. Some scenes just have so much darn air in them, you want to shove this show together like an over-extended concertina and let it step up and lead the band.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “So why have I begun to feel such ambivalence about this dedicated, organized, wonderfully energetic troupe? It has to do with that crucial little matter of content. All the naive questioning and questing that seems such an essential ingredient of every show, all the simplistic counterpointing of good and evil, all the quirky playfulness that was initially so charming and refreshing has now begun to feel like an almost self-congratulatory naivete and willed childishness. The guilelessness has started to feel almost like an affectation.”
Jenn Goddu, Reader – “The House Theatre of Chicago premieres Joe Meno’s drama about a young man seeking the truth about his younger sister’s suicide before he takes his own life. Meno’s adaptation of his forthcoming novel proves vibrant, funny, and at times strange and disturbing. The company’s typically sprawling ingenuity has been reined in here, perhaps by the strong narrative, which provides a great showcase for the ensemble’s fine acting, Kevin O’Donnell’s harpsichord-and-string score, and director Nathan Allen’s whimsical invention.”
Nina Metz, New City – “Someday, one hopes, the House Theatre will embrace a less-is-more philosophy – and when that happens, watch out. Until then, audiences will have to accept this company for what it is: a creative, hugely ambitious ensemble that aggravates as often as it charms. That being said, The Boy Detective Fails has a lot going for it. A great little filmed prologue is succinct and clever, telling the story of the boy detective… If only the performances on stage had the snap and pacing of the film. Instead, the production, initially plaintive and funny and knowing, takes a long, circuitous, patience-testing route to its climax.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press – “Delivering a long-awaited promissory note, the hot House Theatre has earned its hype. Where earlier shows were gutsy triumphs, this grown-up charmer combines heart and brain with the technical ingenuity that never deserts director Nathan Allen. Add a subtle string score by Kevin O’Donnell that serves the story more subtly than the House’s earlier rock amplifications and you’ve got a treasure show.”
Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago – “There is a sadness that looms over this story, but the melodrama is never sickening and is often an odd vehicle for playful humor. The conceptualization is a sheer delight from the opening film, a charming production in and of itself, to the wonderfully imagined visual devices, to the peculiar and captivating characters, to Kevin O’Donnell’s original music performed by a four-piece ensemble consisting of thee violins and a harpsichord.”
Sweet Smell of Success – Circle Theatre
Kerry Reid, Tribune – ”[Jon] Steinhagen’s performance is a sweaty delight – a crafty mixture of Rush Limbaugh’s vitriol and Fatty Arbuckle’s childlike clowning. As Rita, the sometime-girlfriend Sidney pimps out to curry favor with J.J., Darci Nalepa is a sympathetic mix of naive and world-weary, and Kelly Schumann is flinty perfection as Madge, J.J.’s seen-it-all-but-stands-by-him-anyway Gal Friday. But even this sharp of a production can’t erase the nagging sense that, finally, the dramatic stakes between J.J. and Sidney are too low to really ignite our fascination.”
Scotty Zacher, Gay Chicago – “Sets and lights are sparse, keeping with the dark and sleek look of classic film-noir. The orchestrations have been adroitly pared down to a jazz quartet by the music director Peter J. Storms. Vocally, the cast sounds great, especially when serving as an ominous but swing-tempoed Greek chorus… True, there are some problems with the show. Lacking the luxury of a large stage and adept dancers, the dance sequences go on too long. The book tends to be clunky in spots, especially when dealing with the brother-sister relationship. But in the end, Circle Theatre pulls off an enjoyable and thought-provoking production.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“You can keep your bleak Beckettian tramps. For real existential terror I’ll take a bourgeois domestic drama.” – Tony Adler reviewing Northlight’s production of The Retreat from Moscow in the Reader.