Tag: Broadway in Chicago
Roald Dahl’s Classic Comes to Life
Matilda, the Musical – Broadway in Chicago
Roald Dahl’s popular children’s fantasy about a little English girl who endures emotional abuse from both her family
Read More‘In the Heights’ tour features big talent and big voices
By Devlyn Camp
Not so far away from the tunes tapped on Broadway, the Washington Heights barrio features it’s own melody. It took years of effort, but finally, the 2008 musical In the Heights breathed Broadway life into the Latin and hip hop scores of the streets, going on to win the Tony Award for Best Musical and, of course, hit the road. In this production, now at the Ford Oriental Theatre, a new cast introduces Lin-Manuel Miranda’s (Music, Lyrics) original story.
Usnavi (Perry Young, in Miranda’s original role) tells the barrio’s story, although the acting is sometimes flat and awkward. He finds a quirky spot in Vanessa’s (Presilah Nuñez) heart though, and one can’t help but root for him. That every-leggy Nuñez is glamorous, powerful, and knows how to drop jaws with a silky solo number. In Vanessa’s effort to find a new home, she falls for Usnavi, who wants to leave his home, too, and head for his home country, the Dominican Republic. The cast also features strong voices in nearly every performer, among a dash of less-than-decent acting. Nina’s (Virginia Cavaliere) milky high notes in her song “Breathe” are even more appreciated when put next to her dull character. It’s difficult to put your finger on it, what’s wrong with the performer. Bad acting is just something one knows when they see it. When an audience member remembers that they’re in an audience watching a play, the dream broken, that’s probably when they’re watching something not click onstage.
Although among the lows, the production has many highs. Sonny (Robert Ramirez), Usnavi’s little cousin, is so smug and adorable. He is the comic relief of most scenes and leads the show’s funny bone along with the gossipy salon women. When the full cast finally comes together in the song “96,000,” there a vocal strength that outshines any flaw one caught earlier in the production. The sound is precise, the lights follow suit, and choreography is so wild it’s difficult to process in words. When the number is over, the audience has to catch their breath too.
Each song and scene is decorated with citizens walking around the barrio in contemporary choreography. The walking movement is altered to match a hip hop sound underscore. (The music, by the way, is a pretty impressive work by Miranda.) As each character focuses on how to find their way home, Abuela Claudia (Christina Aranda) happens to find her success very late in life. The younger generation, who were brought to this town by Claudia’s generation, seeks to leave to find new territory, not recognizing the past’s sacrifice. In a twist for the better, a sense community is recognized and the friends-are-family theme is utilized. While seeming commonplace here in the written text, onstage it is quite a beautiful layout. This street intersection (a gorgeous forced perspective set design by Anna Louizos) is where the insanely talented common people call home. Their everyday problems are supported by the friends on this block, and, as the smart lyric directly states, “When you have a problem, you come home.”
IN THE HEIGHTS
Broadway in Chicago
Through January 15, 2012
Tickets $25-$75, available at BroadwayInChicago.com
Photo courtesy John Daughtry
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Holland Taylor’s ‘Ann,’ Equal Parts Funny and Smart
By Devlyn Camp
Holland Taylor has never written before, but you’d never guess. Judging by her one-woman play Ann, one would think she’s been writing for years. Inspired by the innovations of Texan Governor Ann Richards, Taylor began researching Richards’s life and wrote the ultimate homage to the political pioneer. The play, in which Holland Taylor also plays Governor Richards, begins with Ann giving a serious, yet comical commencement speech at a fictional college, which digresses into the past, allowing the show to let us see her at work in the Governor’s Mansion. She rambles off little stories and anecdotes of her life bookended by witty jokes and little lessons she’s taken to heart. While talking about her childhood Ann says, “I suppose we were poor…but I don’t like the word. I prefer ‘hardworking.’” And that she was. Ann moves from her home with a difficult mother to raising a family to alcoholism to politics and beyond. Between loosing her marriage and fixing up her “Republican hair,” Ann still finds the time to jab at political scandals and somehow make every profound moment more serious with a joke.
Her story questions the possibility of being able to “have it all.” Ann’s political career only briefly overlapped with her marriage. She couldn’t find the time in her work to completely satisfy housewife duties and vise versa, so she chose the work that she loved. Taylor’s play is about moving on, going ahead and passing fear without stopping to examine it. After learning her place as society saw it should be, Ann learned where she thought it should be and made a new mark in women’s history. But not only does she speak to the imaginary graduates about making one’s self a profound person, she carefully examines the importance of enjoying your own personality and relishing in being loved by someone. Taylor’s play takes the difficult task of one-woman show and triumphs in making the singular actress completely captivating throughout the piece.
“She meant more to me than I had known,” Holland Taylor says in a post-show interview. In its fifth presentation and Broadway bound with more changes to come, Ann showcases an edged personality with a proper understanding that being alive is something bigger than your self. Taylor (Two and a Half Men, Baby Mama) spent several months researching the governor and also spoke to several of Ann’s close friends. Having only met her once, Taylor watched several videos of her to understand the physicality of the woman’s odd quirks. And that is quite obvious when she is on the stage, giving no sign of the actress recognized for her Emmy-nominated roles. “She was Elvis,” Taylor says. A politically brilliant superstar. She didn’t write the biographical play as a career move, she says. She then goes on to say, “I didn’t write it for her fans. I wrote it for America.”
ANN
Bank of America Theatre
Through December 4th, 2011
Tickets starting at $20, available at BroadwayInChicago.com
What are your thoughts on the one-woman play? Good or bad, let’s talk. Comment below.
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Quick! ‘Step in Time’ to ‘Mary Poppins’ before she’s gone.
By Devlyn Camp
The winds must have changed again because Mary Poppins has returned to the Cadillac Palace Theatre. With a whole new cast and the same enchanting spell, Poppins is entertaining the masses just as she always has. Rachel Wallace has taken on the many iconic clothing articles of this particular nanny – the coat, the hat, the bag and, of course, the umbrella – and brought a little Julie Andrews and a lot of realism to Mary. Although it’s hard to catch as a child watching the classic film, seeing Wallace portray the character revealsa Poppins who is quite full of herself, but rightfully so. More expressed in the book than the film, the story is actually rather dark. In living form, tableaus of Londoners in dreary clothes and umbrellas among the steamy wet streets stage a darker world. When Mary arrives, the gorgeous grays flash away and the winds whip in with electric color.
The sets are filled with life. Kids are dazzled by the enormous foldout house, awakening statues, and rolling smokestacks – not to mention the anticipated magic of Mary’s bag and enchanted umbrella. There is no disappointment in the screen-to-stage transition. The musical has every piece of the film and more from the original P. L. Travers book from which it’s based. Adding the charming touch of live theatre to the pair makes this show it’s very own form. There is no other way to see this perspective on the tale of the nanny who brought magic to commonplace life.
Just as fascinating as when you were a child, this production is a fantastic few hours of familiar song and dance, striking costumes and chimney sweeping. Even with its spooky touch, Mary Poppins is simply – gosh darn the cliché – practically perfect.
MARY POPPINS
Cadillac Palace Theatre
Now through November 6th
Tickets starting at $25, available at BroadwayInChicago.com
Nicolas Dromard and company. Photo courtesy Broadway In Chicago.
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Carrie Fisher Lives to Tell in “Wishful Drinking”
By Devlyn Camp
When Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli had Liza, a star was born. When Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher had their daughter, star quality was born. A girl, who could have taken it easy after sci-fi fame surprised her, pushed forward into her own kind of enchanting celebrity. Though she sang, wore all black and shot glitter into every nook and cranny of the Bank of America Theatre, Liza she ain’t. Triumphing over the insanities of celebrity parents, drug abuse, her stay with a mental institution and more, Carrie Fisher gladly points out, “If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true.” And that’s what the wonderful Wishful Drinking is all about.
Fisher’s one-woman show is comedic therapy, a sort of audience-interactive stand-up show for the crazy lady in all of us. Carrie lets her viewers ask her questions about waking up in bed with a dead guy, and she’ll even buy you a drink if she really gets along with you. She’s up for anything, as long as it’s funny. If it’s not, she knows how to make it so. Carrie invites her audience into her wacky, eclectic set like she’s been waiting in her living room for years to tell you her story. Two couches sit between side tables holding nick-knacks and Star Wars toys. It’s warm and inviting, welcoming everyone into Carrie’s living scrapbook, where she tells stories using the upstage screen’s old photos and videos. And yes, she plays Star Wars. And yes, she remembers all her lines.
Former Princess Leia runs around her stage barefoot and wigged telling the whole world all about “Hollywood inbreeding” among her divorced parents who habitually remarried other stars. The woman is a delightful wreck. If you’re looking for Nerd Nirvana, here it is: Star Wars, celebrity pop culture past and present, and hundreds of gays on the edge of their seats waiting for Carrie’s next syllable. For anyone that ever wondered, “What happened to Carrie Fisher?” they can safely say she turned lemons into some delicious lemonade, and Obi-Wan is far from her only hope.
WISHFUL DRINKING
Bank of America Theatre
Now through October 16th
Tickets $25-65
Available at www.broadwayinchicago.com
Photo courtesy Cylla von Tiedemann
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
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