Derailed

Holiday El Stories – Waltzing Mechanics 

For anyone not familiar with it, every holiday season, the CTA runs a holiday train around the city. The cars are decked out in lights and decorations. Santa rides an open sleigh at the front of the train. Part of the fun is that you may know which line it will be on on a given day, but not specifically when, so whenever you see it, it’s always a bit of a surprise. Like the lights on Michigan Avenue or the tree in Daley Plaza, it’s one of those signals that winter and the holidays are here.

Waltzing Mechanics production strings together a series of stories, both on the holiday and regular CTA. Some are funny. Some are sad. Some involve poop. On paper, at least, the CTA should be fertile ground for a series of stories, and the mix of excited children and drunk adults on the holiday train should add, as they do to any holiday occasion, a familiar charm.

Unfortunately, this show just never comes together. Rather than ending up with something to say about the CTA or the city, or even just a consistently entertaining string of vignettes, most of the stories felt like vague rehashings of someone on the Red Line interacting with someone experiencing homelessness or mental health issues. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t expecting Studs Terkel, but I was expecting…something. I think the problem is that for most of the show, none of the stories felt specific enough to Chicago. They could have been stories about any large city with a transit system.

A couple of the stories do work well. One about the Snowpocalypse! in 2011 when a blizzard trapped traffic on Lake Shore Drive for several hours. The other was someone running into the locally famous Red Line conductor who, with a voice meant to be a jazz station DJ, would wish the riders a beautiful day every morning, his cheeriness piercing the practiced isolation of the average commuter. These worked for me because they are Chicago specific and I remembered them both. The bulk of the remaining stories were generic by comparison.

The narrative style of the show also hit a sour note for me. The actors would narrate their actions as they were acting them, violating one of the first rules of art: don’t tell me, show me. The result was I could neither connect to the actor as narrator or character, and given the usually brief length of a given encounter in real time, constantly pausing acting out the story to explain the story in words felt like filler.

I do want to single out a couple of the cast for praise. Jordan Golding is great as he tells the story of his experience during the Snowpocalypse! trudging between two stranded buses, eventually leading a band of intrepid commuters down the off ramp on foot and back to civilization. He is very engaging and does a great job connecting with the audience, both in this story, and as a bit player in others. Darnell Jordan, the actor portraying the happy Red Line conductor, was also a delight and very underused.

There were a few genuine laughs and few moments of recognition for me, but in the balance, not much in the show really resonated with me. Maybe I’m being a little particular because I’m a native Chicagoan who has ridden the CTA his whole life, but I know there are hundreds if not thousands of stories that take place on a train or bus in this city that run the gamut from hilarious to heartbreaking. This collection of stories was not it.

Not Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented November 30 – December 22 by Sideshow Theater Company at Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 773-404-7336  or by visiting www.greenhousetheater.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.