12-19-08
A Nice Enough Marriage
If you’re looking for completely innocuous, non-holiday-specific entertainment this time of year, you could do worse than Remy Bumppo’s production of The Marriage of Figaro. A slick translation by Ranjit Bolt and a sprightly production by Jonathan Berry help things along. While there’s a surprising lack of laugh-out-loud moments, the whole evening passes pleasantly enough.
Even critics of Remy Bumppo acknowledge their collective theatrical craft, but frequently the company lavishes those skills on scripts that are past their prime or simply not of much contemporary interest. The same argument could be made about The Marriage of Figaro, although this isn’t a script the audience is likely to have seen before. However, fans of opera are doubtless familiar with the story, which will feel familiar to fans of French farce. Figaro (Nick Sandys) wants to marry Suzanne (Kate Cares). They are both servants of the lecherous Count (Joe Dempsey) who intends to invoke the right of droit de seigneur, which will allow him to deflower the bride on her wedding night in place of the groom. Figaro and Suzanne set out, with the help of the sympathetic Countess (Mary Beth Fisher), to trick the Count into renouncing his right so the marriage can go forward.
In general, the production has good comic timing and some nice performances, particularly from Sandys and Cares as the pair of servants. Marcus Stephens’ set offers the necessary doors and a nice transformation for the play’s final scene. A dancing quartet of maids affect the full furniture change-outs and keep the play’s momentum moving.
Both Berry’s production and Bolt’s translation (and perhaps Beaumarchais’ original script) have a sort of winking smugness to them. The players frequently address the audience directly, and the story has the sort of inevitability that farces always do. Of course the clever servants will win out. But the actors seem to recognize that inevitability as well, which reduces their emotional connection to the action, and, hence, it’s humor. For a comedy containing some clever comic moments, relatively little of it elicits honest laughter. It’s amusing, rather than hilarious.
Even with this flaw, there’s plenty here to appreciate. If you have family in town and are looking for something more Chicago than the downtown Broadway fare, this could be your show.
The Marriage of Figaro, Remy Bumppo Theatre Co.
Chris Jones, Tribune—“It’s not easy to put your finger on why this production doesn’t really work, except that when a comedy, interpreted as a high, mid-20th Century farce, isn’t exactly sending a cascade of belly-laughs through the theater, it’s failing in its most fundamental obligation. The Remy Bumppo cast—which contains the distinguished likes of Joe Dempsey, Nick Sandys and Mary Beth Fisher—is a classy crew. The production values are tippy-top. And everyone nearly blows a gasket trying to make this overly nervous show work, which perhaps contains a clue as to why it does not.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“What you will hear is this: A verbally sassy twist on Beaumarchais’ play as devised by Ranjit Bolt, the British adapter-translator. Unfortunately, his attempt to modernize the play by setting it in 1950s France not only fails to illuminate the original work in any meaningful way but reduces it to little more than the most traditional of marital (and, of course, extramarital) farces… Of course, you can enjoy the show on its own terms, watching the crackerjack actors engage in manic attacks and panic attacks as they race through doors, rearrange themselves on couches, concoct excuses on the turn of a dime and exchange clothes (and in the process, status) to reveal the truth.”
Justin Hayford, Reader—“Early in Pierre Beaumarchais’s 1784 farce randy young Cherubin and his libidinal godmother the Countess are trapped on a divan, suffering endless interruptions in a desperate attempt to end up in flagrante delicto. As played with deadly seriousness by Greg Matthew Anderson and Mary Beth Fisher, the white-hot scene shows just how good Jonathan Berry’s Remy Bumppo Theatre Company production could be if he kept his actors focused on the characters’ stakes. But too often Berry has his cast play big and screwy rather than true. The result: what should be a giddy tale of sexual hypocrisy collapses under the effort to make it funny.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“But there are aspects of this production aside from the fact of how rarely such an historically important play is performed that make it worthwhile, particularly the sight gags and comic timing, which are superbly done and fun. And the timely discussions about what politics, if anything, has to do with intelligence and the notion that truths are lies that are repeated often enough to be believed got the biggest laughs in these waning days of a vocabulary-challenged administration that likes preemptive strikes and sees hallucinatory WMDs.”
Brian Nemtusak, Free Press—“The upstairs-downstairs disjunction comes into sharpest focus in dance numbers/scene changes run by servants who almost menace their betters, with great credit due to Caroline Fourmy, whose punchy choreography is the pillar of the show; guided by its blueprint and Berry’s propulsive direction, the individually terrific actors coalesce into a perfectly firing comic machine. Sandys makes stylized hay of the title role, and Cares and Fisher sparkle as the leading ladies. Anderson, as randy page Cherubin, gives a standout supporting performance, the most precisely hilarious here. But it’s Dempsey’s loose virtuosity, deadpan instincts and number-one idiot shtick as the Count that hold everything together.”
Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—The Remy Bumppo production is a frothy 90 minutes performed by an ensemble of superior comic skill…Setting the play near Paris in 1952—vs. 1780s Seville, Spain—allows costume designer Alison Siple to display exquisite Eisenhower-era designer gowns, as director Berry choreographs delightful scene changes to period jazz (post-1952 but close enough). However, the time choice is arbitrary as is Nick Sandys’s use of a London working-class accent. Admittedly well-executed, they nonetheless are anomalies that don’t illuminate the play. But take it as is, for The Marriage of Figaro rarely is produced in the United States in any version, let alone one as stylish as this.”
Anung’s First Christmas, Vitalist Theatre
Kerry Reid, Reader—“The holiday stuff comes in with a heavy hand at the end of this turgid three-hour Vitalist Theatre production based on a novella by Carl Nordgren and painfully overwritten by Robin Metz… Elizabeth Carlin-Metz’s stultifying staging indulges all the worst aspects of story theater—singsong presentational line readings, lots of rippling fabric to represent water—and the whole ends up far more irritating than illuminating, despite some enchanting design work by costumer Rachel Sypniewski and puppet/mask creator Tracy Otwell.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“Our only recourse is to abandon any attempt to follow the Rousseau-meets-Disney action and concentrate instead on the pageantry, of which there is plenty to dazzle and impress: immense scenic effects, totemic animal costumes, puppets of every variety, exotic percussion-based music, ethnic dance that likewise skirts—barely—Hollywood stereotype, all brought to life by an ensemble of physically, if not always verbally, flexible actors. But on its opening night, this alternative holiday confection’s prodigious warmth and spectacle were still not enough to expunge the ham-handed contributions of too many cooks.”
The Christmas Schooner, Bailiwick Repertory
Chris Jones, Tribune—“For the first time at the Bailiwick, the Schooner is accompanied by a terrific small orchestra, instead of that rude and ungenerous upright piano. Thanks to the presence of the charming Chicago actress Laura McClain in the lead role, the show has the most solid vocal anchor in its history. And the unfussy director Mary Beidler Gearen newly surrounds the audience with the spirit of this extraordinarily moving show.”
Lawrence Bommer, Reader—“Now on its 14th and final voyage as a holiday treat, this homespun heartland musical by John Reeger and Julie Shannon celebrates the intrepid sailors who brought the first Christmas trees to Chicago’s Clark Street dock. What could be cloying or cute is kept real by the show’s details about vibrant post-fire Chicago, and the German-American Stossel family of upper Michigan—the ‘hardwater sailors’ who braved the fall gales. Mary Beidler Gearen’s staging stirs a strong cast to their personal bests. This show makes a fitting final production for Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in its Belmont Avenue home.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“I had never seen a single production of this work at Bailiwick nor anywhere else, nor did the idea of a musical about transporting Christmas trees particularly entice me. ‘What is at stake?’ as a colleague of mine always likes to ask in discussing shows. Well, quite a bit, as it turns out—the traditions and values that make us who we are. The songs do a wonderful job of conveying the emotions that the story needs to communicate and of giving us a sense of what a Chicago Christmas was like more than a century ago.”
Web Behrens, Free Press—“Too many of the songs are extraneous, but they’re sung to great success by a committed, big-lunged ensemble under the musical direction of Jeremy Ramey, who leads a five-person band. Anyone looking for a sentimental Christmas show could do far worse. The rest of you can skip this farewell production and look forward to next summer, when Bailiwick is slated to bring its annual Pride series to the Center on Halsted.”
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Circle Theatre
Nina Metz, Tribune—“Director Kevin Bellie’s production has plenty of energy but not enough snap and zip. This is always the challenge for Circle, where a large cast must compete for real estate on a tiny stage. A couple of tap dance numbers don’t quite work—when you can’t see a dancer’s feet, it defeats the purpose… The show is really [Rachel] Quinn’s to steal. Her Lorelei is a frothy drink with an umbrella; a cupcake topped with frosting and sprinkles; a fountain spewing pink water over crystals. Under that peroxide coif and faux-na·f sass is an actress who knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the musical comedy set to a flapper era beat that is receiving a rare, breathlessly vivacious revival at Circle Theatre, is every bit the pure fluff that its title suggests. But sometimes (and right now might just be the ideal moment) fluff can be absolutely essential to maintaining sanity. So let’s hear it for those energetic, social-climbing girls from Little Rock, Ark. It also is fitting to give a cheer to Circle Theatre where director-choreographer Kevin Bellie conjures his Broadway babies while finding performers with an uncanny flair for all things vintage, and setting costume designer Jesus Perez into overdrive.”
Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald—“Credit for the robust-sounding chorus goes to music director and Wheaton native Allison Kane, and Perez’s fringed and sequined 1920s costumes make for vivid visuals. But it’s Bellie’s sassy, outsized choreography—tap-centric and Charleston infused—that makes this show sparkle. Geographically speaking, Bellie may not have covered much ground. Artistically, he moves mountains, bringing a bit of Broadway panache to a storefront in the ‘burbs.”
Tony Adler, Reader—“Never mind why anybody would want to stage this 1949 chestnut, built on a view of sexual politics so retarded you can’t even wink at it. Let’s ask what made Circle Theatre and director-choreographer Kevin Bellie believe they knew how to adapt it for Circle’s shoebox space?...It’s big, splashy, and always selling itself. Bellie hasn’t rethought it, so the production numbers end up looking like that scene in Animal House where a marching band gets stuck in a narrow alley. To their credit, most of the cast come across seeming too talented for the situation.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“The show’s biggest asset is Rachel Quinn as a stunning Lorelei Lee, the blonde flapper who has a penchant for rich men and expensive jewelry and never overplays the part of the “dumb blonde,” who despite thinking that Mr. Gideon wrote the books left in hotel rooms and, like a certain recent vice presidential candidate, has trouble distinguishing continents and countries. Quinn sings and dances superbly and while there are other cast members who can do one or the other with varying competence, most of the songs that need a strong voice have one, and most of the dance sequences that require dance chops have them.”
Christopher Shea, Free Press—“Circle’s mounted a delightful delicacy fully purged of latent irony: When a group of streetfolk, including a constable, a nursing mother and a fully habited priest, break into ballet, nobody in the audience cracks anything more than a wistful smile… As resident brunet Dorothy Shaw, Ditmars embodies the production’s enchanting powers. Like many of Circle’s actors, she lacks the belting capacity of a Broadway star. But even the numbers Ditmars ends on off-kilter notes, she tops off with a smile whose feral lunacy only Bette Midler could outdo. It’s a performance to remember, if you dig that sort of thing. By show’s end, you might realize—my God—you kind of do.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“Kevin Bellie’s revival of this Broadway smash is a blast from the past that doesn’t always detonate… Even Bellie’s usual strong suit, the dances, suffer from the restricted stage. Too often they seem to be a platoon doing formations, with only the steps differing from song to song. The performances, anchored by Rachel Quinn’s not-terribly-funny Lorelei and Brigitte Ditmars’ plucky Dorothy, are so blatantly insistent on amusing us that they don’t. But Jesus Perez’ gorgeous gowns and Chilean holiday garb are the last word in post-war chic and Carmen Miranda flamboyance.”
Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes displays dazzling women’s costumes by Jesus Perez, the clever choreography of Kevin Bellie and outstanding ensemble numbers. The rest—the non-choreographic staging (also by Bellie); most of the singing by the soloists; the scenic and lighting designs—are competent, energetic and certainly pleasant, but won’t knock your socks off.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“What is it that makes otherwise rational Anglo writers go sappy in the proximity of Native American folklore?”—Mary Shen Barnidge reviewing Vitalist Theatre’s Anung’s First Christmas in Windy City.