Coming Into the Light

Songs for a New World – Theo Ubique

Most theatres share a commonality, now that we’re finally coming out of the pandemic and presenting live shows. We are seeing more modest, smaller cast productions, typically a musical revue or a one-person show of some kind, that creates an immediate feeling of intimacy between the audience and the performers. At Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, this style of show is their specialty, as one can tell from the company’s name. Also, no one in Chicagoland produces a more polished show than Artistic Director Fred Anzevino. This visionary Director and multi-Jeff Award winner is once again collaborating with his gifted, award-winning Musical Director and pianist, Jeremy Ramey. And once again the duo have brought magic to their audiences. Joining these two gentlemen, Theo Ubique newcomer Jamal Howard brings his own talent as Associate Director and Choreographer, to help guide this polished, professional production toward perfection. The result is a 90-minute show, with intermission, that sparkles with a welcoming glow as, after almost two years, we can finally return to live performances.

Tony Award-winning playwright and composer, Jason Robert Brown, whose works include “Parade,” “The Last Five Years,” “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “The Bridges of Madison County,” began his career writing with this song cycle. “Songs For a New World” would become Brown’s first major New York production. The show has been called a song cycle or abstract musical, because it’s a series of songs sung by different characters, all connected by the theme of having to decide what to do, and the moment when that decision takes place. Brown himself says, “It’s about one moment. It’s about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or taking a stand, or simply turning around and going back.”

Divided into two acts, the musical features 19 vocal selections, some performed by a single voice, others by two vocalists, and still others become a harmonic anthem that beautifully blends the talented four-member company into one gorgeous sound. The show, nicely accompanied by Mr. Ramey and percussionist Lior Shragg, begins with a two-part Opening Sequence, with the second part taking place “On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492.” The musical closes with the company “Flying Home,” a “Final Transition: The New World” and the glorious “Hear My Song,” all performed by the entire cast.

The talented four-member company consists of Nora Navarro and Emily Goldberg as Woman 1 and 2; and Eustace J. Williams and Matthew Hunter as Man 1 and 2. Individually each singer is a powerhouse, yet collectively this cast blends into some of the sweetest sounds ever heard in this theatre. Remembered from her excellent performance in Theo Ubique’s “Hello Again,” Ms Navarro passionately sings I’m Not Afraid of Anything,” reflecting on her character’s apprehensions concerning those she adores and how they’ve prevented her from fulfilling her dreams. With her lovely “Christmas Lullaby,” Nora’a character muses about her pregnancy and imagines herself as the Virgin Mary.

Emily Goldberg makes her Theo Ubique debut, but has distinguished herself in theatres all over Chicago, most notably in her Jeff-nominated role in Porchlight Music Theatre’s “Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.” Here she humorously portrays a wealthy woman contemplating suicide on a window ledge in “Just One Step.” Ms Goldberg gets to wrap her velvety voice around one of the popular pullout songs from this show, the exquisite “Stars and the Moon.” In it, a woman ponders her decision to marry for wealth, while leaving behind the men who offered her true love. In a song reminiscent of Kurt Weil, Emily turns into the dissatisfied German hausfrau of Kris Kringle in the side-splitting ”Surabaya-Santa.” And in a more somber mood, Ms Goldberg buries herself in her needlecraft as “The Flagmaker, 1775,” while sadly recounting the last time she saw both her soldier husband and son.

An incomparably talented newcomer to Theo Ubique, who was last seen in Porchlight Music Theatre’s smooth “Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies,” Eustace J. Williams is absolutely wonderful. While listed in the program as the understudy for both male parts, Mr Williams has stepped into the role of Man 1 permanently. And what a treasure he is! He grandly leads “On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship” as the Captain praying for the safety of his crew. He joins Man 2 in a moving “The River Won’t Flow” and closes Act I with “Steam Train,” portraying a disadvantaged youth whose wishful thinking imagines him rising above the poverty that’s kept him down. In Act II, Mr Williams demands his freedom so that he can become “King of the World;” and as a departed soldier, Eustace and the company sing about how he died in battle and will cross over to another life in “Flying Home.”

Matthew Hunter, whose talents have been enjoyed at both Porchlight and the Black Ensemble Theatre, shares how the woman he loves keeps tight reins on him whenever “She Cries.” A song filled with regret, Matthew shares the stage with Nora Navarro for “The World Was Dancing,” recounting how their father purchased and lost a store when they were children. The two performers join together again as a couple who lament at how life turned out once they’d split up, and why they should reunite, in “I’d Give It All For You.”

This often moving, sometimes humorous, often abstract musical revue sometimes feels as if it hasn’t got a through-line to connect the songs. But looking at it carefully, audiences will see that this is a musical about hope, reconciliation, healing, and moving on. These themes are particularly important as we start returning to a normal way of living, after eighteen months of being quarantined because of a life-threatening pandemic. True, Covid-19 hasn’t completely gone away, but the world is on the mend. By deciding to take the vaccine and wear face masks properly, like the audience at Theo Ubique, we will survive and go on to better days. In many ways, this is the mighty message that Jason Robert Brown’s song cycle brings to audiences of today.   

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented September 24-October 24 by Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, 721 Howard Street, Evanston, IL.

Tickets are available by calling 773.939.4101 or by going to www.theo-u.com.

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