Reviews

Naperville turns into a cable TV original play filled with playwright invented wacky characters who seem to p layout their problems through too much caffeine. Candice want to sail and cut her grass despite her blindness. Howard quits his job in Seattle as he feels he needs to move back to Naperville to help his mother. Howard discovers that Anne is an old high school classmate that he had a crush on; Anne realizes the Howard (fifty pounds lighter) was her class mate. Sparks could fly?

While The Black Slot has a smart premise, problems stretch credulity as the plot unwinds. Further development of Tim and Beth’s relationship and the ending seems unfinished. But the satire of how regional theatres operate and their beliefs systems as to what and why their core audiences want to see on stage hit home for me.

This work sure has possibilities and with some re-writes, it sure could be terrific. As now presented, it sure has many smart moments. Justin Wade Wilson, as Tim and Amy Kasper, as Pam were particularly effective. The Black Slot is worth a look.

This one hour and forty-five minute opera has loads of humor, whimsy with enough charm to be appealing. As an opera, Amour is sung through at a brisk pace offering a challenge to the cast of nine. With a range of vocal abilities moving from ordinary to vocally tepid, Amour vocally is uneven at best. But the committed cast works hard to land the difficult score. They are best in the comic numbers and action-plot numbers. Emily Goldberg, as Isabelle, demonstrated her vocal chops in several fine ballads. Scott Gryder was a comic hoot while Kevin Webb was a deliciously evil.

Although a great deal has changed over the half century since this musical first showed audiences “How to…,” the sheer lunacy of corporate America is as much a laughing matter today as ever. Corporate bailouts anyone? There are still executives no doubt spending sleepless nights sending out emails about the excessive amount of emails going out of their offices. We still have mindless decisions made by inept committees, although we’re not sure if they are actually human or automated. By the time the next revival of “How 2” rolls out it may in fact be cast entirely with robots. I just hope they can be programmed with a small measure of the vast talent that Chicago area audiences often take for granted.

In short, Kinky Boots simply did not give me that overwhelming, enveloping feeling musicals often give you when the story and the music fill the theatre so fully that your imagination, your emotions — your very being — is held captive in awe and wonder. That is not to say others didn’t experience this: there was, after all, a standing ovation on opening night. However, this same audience applauded at the mere presence of men in drag, so . . . if that sounds like you, this musical is for you.

Moreover, the sheer number of ideas Mr. Roberts litters haphazardly throughout his play and the pedantically conclusive manner in which they are expounded (without rebuttal from likely contra-dictors, Jesus and the Holy Spirit) further impressed on me that Mr. Roberts’ obvious attempts at “controversy” were intellectually ungrounded and not seriously considered. Merely scattering scientific and philosophical claims like buckshot and mixing in some sexy jokes does not amount to a “controversial” satire — particularly when they all turn against a largely conservative perspective, the perennial scapegoat and underrepresented voice of (Chicago) theatre.