“Underneath the Lintel” is intriguing to watch perseverance toward a goal with reckless abandon…the librarian’s dogged passion which punishes yet awakens. It leaves you asking the big questions, or reminds you of them. This play offers significant rewards for those patient enough to take the journey….a must see for many!
The best part of this musical was in the fine jazzy, swinging-sixties score by Marc Shaiman played with enthusiasm by the on-stage orchestra. As a non-Equity tour, this one was a tad better than most but you’d think for a top ticket price of $85 they’d find performers who could sing? The voices in this tour were much below what can be heard around Chicago from our non-Equity players in storefront theatres.
In short, A Midlife Something captures many of the emotional frustrations of living listlessly young and broke in today’s America, even as it suffers from an ill-paced narrative and too narrow a sphere of activity. Cardiff’s story obviously means something very personal to him, and that investment is palpable in A Midlife Something’s big heart. Now if only the story might be as equally big.
Beautiful Broken lasted a whopping two hours and thirty-five minutes! It is a relationship “romantic dramedy” that plays like a redundant-filled, cliche-ridden contrived drama fueled with “playwright-speak” unrealistic dialogue with a too-slow razor thin plot.
Audiences of The Artistic Home’s recent staging of Iguana may keep this in mind, if only because the struggle of its central character, Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon, so closely intimates the one Williams himself would be forced to undergo in the years following. Shannon (played here by the incomparable John Mossman), is a man on the edge. He is “cracked up” and “at the end of [his] rope,”
If The Building Stage’s current production of Dawn, Quixote feels undergirded by a pervasive—even wistful—sadness, it’s not hard to understand why. For following the show’s completed run on April 27th, The Building Stage will be shuttering its doors for good. Thankfully founder and artistic director Blake Montgomery’s recent adaptation of Cervantes’s classic is a final act truly worthy of remembrance.
The libretto doesn’t shy away from the sexual power of the original script as it contains references to Blanche’s gay husband and as it presents the provocative kissing the newspaper collector “on the mouth”scene. This free-flowing three hour plus production has the haunting tone and a fluid use of trumpet and solo clarinet to amplify the atmosphere and psychology of a scene. Previn demonstrates his perception of the cloudy views of reality as seen by Williams’ characters. A Streetcar Named Desire pack a wallop and must take its place as one fine contemporary operas. Renee Fleming makes Blanche her own.
Under A Rainbow Flag is a delightful, light-weight musical that explores the various types of love that gay men endured in those closeted-days during WWII. This show is a tribute to the wholesomeness and heart of gay men. It celebrates the essence of being gay with a high-energy expression. It contains humor, angst, love, and hope as those early brave souls were determined to live in truth. This is a fun show that could use a trim and more authentic military uniforms but it delivers a well-sung tribute to gay veterans all around bravery. It is a worthy new musical that begs an audience.
Yet I suppose its luridly overdone production design is the closest Priscilla comes to actual camp. Like a drag queen who genuinely believes her own tinsel-laden illusions, Priscilla is more often than not only “playing” a good time. Desperate to keep you from noticing the wrinkled clichés beneath all the makeup or how its only ever lip-syncing someone else’s tunes, Priscilla blinds you with tasteless spectacle, gaudy costumes and enough bitchy “shade” throwing for an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
But Priscilla isn’t fooling anyone. Dress it up however you like. It still doesn’t sing…
Thus with a remarkable eye for Shakespeare’s darker tonalities, Falls’ Measure for Measure is wickedly smart even as it seemingly pulls our inner moral compasses all which ways. As beautifully constructed as it is intellectually evocative, it comes highly recommended.