Mitchell Oldham

The impact of the coronavirus has unalterably reached into the lives of everyone and shown us of our common vulnerability.  We will rise from the withering blow it’s dealt to our spirits and to the way we are accustomed to living our lives.  

This crisis, like most hardships, does not encroach and disrupt our lives equally.   One’s age, calling, income, zip code and profession all determine how deeply the ramifications of the epidemic affect you. 

City Pleasures covers the arts community.  Actors, dancers, musicians and the venues that showcase their talent are being devastated by their inability to either practice their craft or feature artistic talent.  Because they need our help, City Pleasures is sharing ways that allow anyone financially capable to provide support to do so.  Some of those channels extend beyond the arts and entertainment community by design and list opportunities to also contribute needed relief to Chicago neighborhoods and the most vulnerable.

There are several ways to support the theater community.  Individual theater companies as well as all non-profit arts organization accept support through direct donations, the purchase of a ticket, gift cards or subscriptions.  The homepage of your favorite theater or theaters will direct you on how to do so.

If you would like your contributions to be broad based, the City of Chicago and the United Way of Metro Chicago have launched the Chicago Community Covid-19 Response Fund “to unite the funds raised by Chicago’s philanthropies, corporations and individuals to be disbursed to nonprofit organizations across the region”, including those in the arts. 

Click here to donate:  https://www.chicagocovid19responsefund.org/

One Chicago entertainment institution’s Training Center is taking comedy to the clouds by offering classes online. To find out more about or enroll in Second City’s comedy at home lessons, visit:   https://www.secondcity.com/comedyfromyourcouch.   Areas of focus include “Creating and Pitching Your TV Series”, “Teen Standup” and “Voiceover 101”.

When Douglas Turner Ward wrote his pioneering one act play, Day of Absence, in 1965; he had a very clear intent.  He wanted to write a play exclusively for a black audience.  An audience that did not then exist. He was also working with a highly specific set of objectives.  Expectedly, he wanted to write a play that spoke to the lives black people lived, but he also aimed to create a work that was implicit and allowed his audience to fill in the blanks.  One that was subtle and edged with fine threads of sophistication.  And just as importantly, he wanted to write something that did not put his audience to sleep.

He came up with two plays, both in one acts, Happy Ending and Day of Absence that played simultaneously at the St. Mark’s Playhouse in New York.  Both plays grew legs and are regularly reprised on the contemporary stage. 

When they were originally created 55 years ago, Ward also had to track down and recruit an audience by going anywhere the black public gathered; social clubs, union halls, beauty shops to rustle them up.  His tactic worked and the productions played over 500 shows at the St. Mark’s. 

Congo Square is only presenting Day of Absence on Victory Garden’s Christiansen stage right now.  And as wonderful as it is, the current production won’t be running as long as it did when the play debuted back in ‘65.   Making it even more of a must see. Even today it’s startling to see what Ward did with this jewel.  A spare play with very few props, Day of Absence, like any top-tier theatrical creation intended for live performance, thrives on a gleaming story and fantastic characters.  And it achieves everything Ward originally hoped to accomplish plus. 

Taking an approach that says, “We know how you see us, now let us show you how we see you”, Day of Absence is all about reversals and looking at the world through different eyes.  Normally, the cast is all Black.  But this updated adaptation broadens what “black” is by making it anyone not white; resulting in cast made up of both brown and black performers.

The overriding constant is that the play is still performed in white face, (and lots of wigs) with minorities portraying whites in a small southern town.

Opening quietly, a couple of regular guys working in a mall are just getting their day started. Luke (Ronald L. Conner) and Clem (Kelvin Roster, Jr.) share small talk southern style and toss shout outs to regulars as they peruse the routine landscape of their work lives.  Clem’s older and Teddy Bear homey, Luke’s younger, gruffer and lost in his cell phone.  It takes a minute or two, more like several, but Clem finally picks up on something.  Something that’s not quite right or out of kilter.  Suddenly stricken, he realizes he hasn’t seen a black person all day.  Half the population.  Luke’s slower to accept something that ridiculous.  Until he can’t do otherwise. 

Performed as satire, Day of Absence chronicles what happens when a constant of life disappears.  One that you may take for granted, resignedly tolerate or even benignly dismiss depending on your mood.  More interestingly, it’s a story about how people react.  What do they say and do in what quickly escalates into crisis and chaos. 

Anthony Irons directed the production and achieved a master stroke by having his characters, or more precisely his characterizations, vie with the plot for overall strength.  The way Ronald Conner portrays nonchalant insouciance is about as winning as it gets.  Later we find him equally transfixing playing a completely different role.  Roston, with his delicious phrasing and the pitch perfect softness of his drawl, is just as effective as Clem.

The action streams briskly through three backdrops.  The mall, John and Mary’s bedroom and the mayor’s office.  John (Jordan Arredondo) and Mary (Meagan Dilworth) make their discovery of the vanishing rudely when their new born wails plaintively through the night and there’s no one to tend to it.  There’s no Kiki, no Black three-in-one, nursemaid housemaid cook, to intervene and relieve the stress of parenthood.    Dilworth’s Mary is so preciously inept at doing anything useful you’re tempted to feel sorry for her.  But that sympathy would be horribly misplaced.  Dilworth still makes a splendid Mary whose only skill is to function as a household “decoration”.  Arredondo as her husband fills his role to the brim with manly character and pragmatism.  When he valiantly volunteers to go the hood to look for Kiki and finds nothing short of a ghost town where “not even a little black dog” could be sighted, he’s all business and entitled indignation.

Ward created the consummate repository for the town’s angst and ire in the mayor.  And director Irons knew exactly how to shape the character as an unforgettable foil. Unflappable and supremely confident, the mayor’s sense of privilege and the power she insinuates take on regal dimensions.  In the right hands and under the right direction, it’s a fantastic role and one that Ann Joseph fills beautifully.  Ordinarily a male actor plays the part and Jackson is the last name of his female personal assistant/secretary/gopher.   Here Jackson is the second role Mr. Conner inhabits so vividly and with so much virtuosity.  Always on point and a bit self-consciously effete, he’s deferential to a fault and ever vigilant about watching his own back.

Ward shrewdly built a lot of humor into the play.  And this effort takes advantage of every morsel.  It even adds more zest causing the whole affair to frequently tip over into the hilarious.   The perfume skit alone deserves its own baby Tony award.  Despite the outright comedy, the underlying subtext couldn’t be more biting.  Bryant Hayes as Clan and Kelvin Roston, Jr. in his dual role as Rev. Pious represent the true demons Ward is battling in his lasting contribution to the American stage.

This adaptation, cleverly updated with the playwright’s permission, makes it shine like new money.  

Day of Absence

Through March 27, 2020

Victory Gardens Theater

2433 N. Lincoln Ave.

773-871-3000

www.congosquaretheatre.com

Time and a change of perspective can allow you to appreciate things you once abhorred. That maxim can be true of many things.  Music, art, food.  People.  It was true of Boys in the Band.  When Mart Crowley’s 1968 bombshell of a play rolled out on celluloid in 1970, it rightfully caused the world to shutter.  Never had anyone so boldly pulled back the curtain to reveal the inner-life of the dispossessed as vividly or as candidly as Mr. Crowley had done.  Now celebrating its 50^th anniversary, people are still wondering how accurate his painful picture of gay life is.    

Having recently experienced the very fine Windy City Playhouse immersive take on the play, there’s no doubt many will be wondering the same thing 50 years from now.

Listening to Mr. Crowley talk about how he came to write his landmark; how he was broke, out of work, without prospects and angry, the cathartic aura surrounding the play was finally given a cause.  Still, because you don’t expect friendship to take on such ruthlessly hurtful dimensions, those explanations don’t satisfy the question of intensity or the depths of some the play’s caustic plunges.

William Boles scenic design played a key role in helping to provide the audience a tactile understanding of the times, place and people at this dark birthday party Michael (Jackson Evans) was throwing for his newly 32-year-old best friend Harold.  Ushered six at a time through a tastefully appointed residential lobby and taken up the pretend elevator to the 5^th floor, the audience enters Michael’s resplendent apartment as if they themselves were guests.  The party hadn’t started.  Michael wasn’t there.  You could walk around and admire his beautiful spirit decanters.  The lovely artistic touches.  The drama of the sunken conversation pit.  70s chic at its highest.   All in deep red with accents in gold and in blue. The room radiated not only success, but power.

After everyone’s settled, Michael sweeps in doing last minute party preparation things.  Putting the food out and the music on.  You notice that even when the first guest, Donald (Jordan Dell Harris) arrives, things aren’t particularly warm.  Nor are you immediately clear on Michael and Donald’s relationship.  They’re more than just friends but not exactly lovers either?  And even though Donald’s sparring skills are impressive, Michael seems to take pleasure in baiting him with petty criticism.  Everyone else flows in shortly after Donald goes up to change.  Emory (William Marquez) and Bernard (Denzel Tsopnang) arrive together.  Lovers Larry (James Lee) and Hank (Ryan Reilly) are carrying the vestiges of a something bitter between them into the party.  It’s a spat that will continue to swell throughout the play.  Then Harold’s birthday present gets there much too early.  A prostitute, Cowboy is as dull witted as he is beautiful.  Even though he’s taunted by nearly everyone for his lack of intelligence, he’s also silently envied for his physical exceptionalism.  And there’s a straight outlier in the mix.  Michael’s close friend from college, back in a time when he was still in the closet, was in town and needed to see him.  So much so that he wept with desperation when talking to Michael on the phone.  Not being able to dissuade him, Michael invited Alan (Christian Edwin Cook) to the party as well, hoping to somehow camouflage the party’s gay complexion.

The dynamics of the party are already roiling by the time he shows up.  Emory is being quintessential Emory.  So gay.  Not defiantly; more in a liberation of self sort of way.  His racial digs at Bernard, the only Black member of the party, were unsurprisingly catty but very curious.  Were these swipes supposed to be expressions of the times are something else?   Marquez made a splendid Emory.  Later, when he apologized to Bernard for his callousness, promising not to cause such conscious hurt in the future, he was contrite enough and sincere enough to be ingratiatingly convincing.  Which highlights one of key joys of the play; it’s exceptional casting.  The spat that would not die between Hank and Larry centered on Larry’s inability, in fact his refusal, to be faithful to Hank; who had left his wife and children to be with him.  Both James Lee as Larry and Ryan Reilly as Hank deliver a lot of honesty in their portrayals of what two people, who genuinely love one another, are willing to sacrifice to conquer an imposing barrier together. 

Christian Edwin Cook’s characterization of Alan, Michael’s straight friend, proved the most surprising because of the voice director Carl Menninger chose for him to use.  He spoke with the diction and phrasing characteristic of blue bloods in the era when the Carnegies and Vanderbilts were flying high.  His speech alone set him apart from everyone else at the party.  Emory’s effeminacy however brought out his bile and even pushed him to violence.  His punishment:  he must remain at the party. 

Unfortunately, Tsopnang’s Bernard was the least developed of the eight central characters.  When Michael comes up with his insidious parlor game of calling the person you’ve always in your heart-of-hearts truly loved, and telling them your feelings for them, Bernard’s the first to gamely take up the challenge.  It was only then did we catch a tiny glimpse of his inner core.   By this time, everybody had had enough liquid courage to consider doing something so exposing and so ripe for humiliation.  Who Bernard chose to call was also marked by the kind of class and race disparities that shout futility. 

Harold (Sam Bell-Gurvitz) had grandly made his infamous “32-year-old, ugly, pock marked Jew fairy” entrance by the time the game was in full swing.  Despite it ushering in the possibility of something positive for Larry and Hank, as it continues, the game seems to dredge up nothing but pain.  Michael’s adamancy about playing it turns pathological when you realize he’s the only one not drunk.  He’s been on the wagon for five weeks and therefore without an excuse for insisting that everyone take this wanton drive off a cliff.  When it back fires, sorrow for him does not exist.  And when he makes his plea like statement, “If we could just not hate ourselves so much”, you wonder why he doesn’t just direct that question to himself. 

Stonewall happened just one year after The Boys in the Band premiered off Broadway.  Led by a fistful of outraged fed-up drag queens, another landmark, gay pride, was born.  It’s fascinating to look at these two milestones side by side.  Whether you consider them a “before and after” or a continuum, they both are about community; with all the complexity the word embodies. 

Under Mr. Menninger’s enlightened direction, and mounted on Mr. Boles sensational set, Windy City’s staging of The Boys in the Band has proven a highpoint in the theater season.  It’s also an ideal example of how well an immersive approach to theater aids in fully absorbing a captivating story.

The Boys in the Band

Through April 19^th, 2020

Windy City Playhouse

3014 Irving Park Rd.

Chicago, IL   60618

windycityplayhouse.com

Some productions rejuvenate your appreciation for theater by stripping it down and letting you focus on its two essential parts, the story and the characters.  Double Vision, a wild and smart musical now playing at the Edge on Broadway, is the kind of wacky joy ride that generate lots of grins, and an occasional groan, as it follows a group of millennial strivers trying to steer themselves to fulfillment and success.

Building the play on an unconventional framework, where comedy driven science fiction gets overlaid onto a musical, meant the audience had to pay close attention if it wanted to extract the story’s maximum goodness.  That challenge seemed to add to the play’s entertainment quotient.

Nerds abound.  But you would be hard pressed to find any more capable of sneaking up and stealing your affections as effectively as this crowd.   Pivoting around Luke Sheridan (Ryan Frenk), an astrophysics doctoral student struggling with his thesis project, Double Vision opens in tension. He’s sparring with his advisor, River (Ethan Carlson) about the slowness of his progress. Vacillating because he doesn’t trust his own abilities and fears the ramifications of failure, Luke’s crisis of confidence has him stymied.  Success would mean recognition and research funding for his wormhole, a portal that allows you to travel through both time and space.  His device isn’t as sophisticated as the alchemist’s in Ted Chiang’s lean and wonderful, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, but it looked and sounded impressive. And advanced enough to have fellow student and clandestine rival, Marty (Brian Pember) practically quaking in jealous alarm.  In the same doctoral program for nine years, Marty may be slow in achieving his goals but he’s still willing to take drastic measures to insure he’s not overshadowed by his frenemy. 

How these characters are portrayed and filling the action with comedy contribute immensely to Double Vision’s enjoyment.  Most of them are ordinary in the sense they’re going through the growing pains typical of ambitious students.  A few are quite extraordinary because they seem so blissfully unperturbed by their sexuality or in Marty’s case, his sexual ambiguity.  When Luke tells Sierra (Gina Martin) that he thinks Marty is attractive, it’s merely a statement that she doesn’t necessarily agree with and portents nothing about how Luke and Marty interact on a personal plane. 

A corresponding story about another person struggling to succeed is happening on the other side of the stage. Obsessing over a script she hopes will make her literary name, Sam (Stephanie Fongheiser) teeters uncomfortably close to an ugly implosion.  It has her sister Vanessa (Nina Jayashankar) worried; but Vanessa has her own problems.   Distracted by convulsions in her romantic life, her attentions are decidedly divided.  It’s both incidental and inconsequential that the lover’s she’s fretting over is another woman.

Frequently spoofing popular culture and iconic references to it like Star Wars and the indelibly ingrained “Luke, I am your, father”, the wit’s often wry and sometimes tinged with the sweeter side of sarcasm.   Much of the music and lyrics is engaging and appealing.  Luke’s Another You and the Sierra and Vanessa’s duet, Shot in the Dark, are two pieces that stand out.  But it was River’s Literal Space Opera solo that constitutes a wee tour de force.  Uproarious, absurd and delightful, and sung with sonorous clarity; Carlson seemed to revel in his rendition as much as the audience. 

Gina Martin’s role as the level-headed Sierra made the tale of self-discovery and traversing multiverses more grounded and helped to lend balancing gravity to the lightness of the comedy. In many ways, a faultless performance.  Frenk’s portrayal of Luke was an impressive and refreshing take on the notion of the steadfast protagonist.

Following their purpose to bring new musicals to the Chicago stage, this production of Double Vision is presented by Underscore Theatre Company.  The company also sponsors the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival; a venue where young playwright’s like Olivia Popp, who created and wrote the script, music and lyrics for this entertaining romp, can present their work.

Double Vision

Closes February 22, 2020

The Edge Theatre

5451 N. Broadway

Chicago, IL   60640

www.edgetheater.com

Sometimes dance is better understood when you try to see it through the eyes of someone who designs it.  In an interview several years ago, Christopher Wheeldon Obe, the choreographer for Commedia, the first dance opening The Joffrey Ballet’s winter season at the Auditorium this past Wednesday, talked about the beauty of having you own dance company.  He was probably aware he was also divulging some of the properties that make dance so entrancing.  Having your own company allows you “to have dancers who know just how you like them to move, the way you want them to cut shapes in space, the way you ask them to respond to music.”  These are also the key components that define what we in the audience see and how we see them.

Thinking of each of these points while recalling opening night’s performance of The Times Are Racing adds to the appreciation of the program and all that the Joffrey Ballet does.  The program covered a broad arch of dance; from classic ballet, to Mono Lisa, a dance that defies the limitations of time and the capabilities of the human form.  Mono Lisa’s choreographer, Itzik Galili, can also take credit for creating another jewel of the evening, The Sofa.  This three-person piece proves that exceptional imagination can create a story built from music and movement that’s humorous, conceptually beautiful and completely unconventional.   The closing piece, The Times Are Racing, created by the Joffrey’s Resident Choreographer, Justin Peck, is an exuberant polyglot of a dance; contemporary at its core with sweeps of jazz and tap to accentuate the dance’s exultant celebration of youth.

Both Wheeldon Obe’s Commedia and Stephanie Martinez’s Bliss underscore Joffrey’s artistic dominance in ballet. Although Commedia isn’t at all narrative, it’s still broken into different episodes that follow the mood of the Stravinsky’s music.   Dancers parody medieval harlequins, sleek jesters who mimic both the beauty and the excitement of the music; dazzling the audience with their perfection of form.  Because it’s not as structured as the opening ballet, the male dominated Bliss ebbs and flows with a slightly different energy.  One that keeps the door open to surprise and uses dramatic throws and other devices to show how strength can be grafted onto grace to produce something thrilling. 

But it was in Galili’s Mono Lisa where the tone truly turned.  Discipline, training and individual talent commanded the stage as two dancers pushed themselves and challenged each other to reach the outer limits of skill.  This dance for two was not about the delicacy we associate with a traditional pas de deux.  In this pairing, the under layer of intensity had a much stronger presence and rode the rhythmic staccato sounds of a typewriter that formed the foundation of the musical score.  Lighting resembling inverted typewriter keys blanketed the stage’s sky.  The soul rumbling sound of drums arrived later to accompany the tapping insistency of typewriter keys.   Stefan Goncalvez led with a display of dance prowess intended to impress and intimidate. It did.  Every jump, landing and rotation happened with a precision that, as they continued, seemed unfathomable.  His virtuosity was matched by that of Victoria Jaiani as they would alternate; dancing as a pair and individually, with unparalleled exactness and athleticism. Even though it’s not usually customary to go to the ballet for a visceral experience, Mono Lisa, with its demand for stamina and expertise, certainly provided it. 

From a completely different point of view, The Sofa did too.  This was a clear story anyone who’s been on the outs with their main squeeze could relate to immediately.  With some Tom Waits rusty blues setting the tone, a couple sat in vengeful silence on a comically large yellow sofa.  They scowled, they fought, they kind of made up, and fought again until they knock the sofa back; disappear, and one of them is replaced by another person when the sofa is righted again. Who that new person is, is important.  And then they go through the whole re-enactment again; only in reverse.     It all happens with the quickness of an animated movie short; the brilliance lying in the language of the dance.

Blessed with many exceptional dance companies, Joffrey Ballet still holds a unique place in the city’s dance galaxy as this year’s winter program so clearly illustrates.  It keeps improving and its talent pool keeps getting richer and deeper.  Chicago has plenty of reason to look forward to the way this company “moves, cuts shapes in space, and responds to music” for another 25 years.

Joffrey Ballet Chicago

The Times Are Racing

February 12 – 23, 2020

The Auditorium Theater

50 East Ida B. Wells Drive

Chicago, IL   60605

http://joffrey.org/performances/tickets