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The Hills of California

Broadway superstar Audra McDonald begins her turn as the famed stage mother in Gypsy this week.  Jez Butterworth has given us another version of this archetype in his deeply emotional and satisfying play The Hills of California.  Mothers and daughters and dreams, the stuff of drama and growth.

Widowed at a young age, Veronica is raising her four daughters to have a life far better and more empowered than her own.  Perhaps she, like Gypsy’s Mama Rose, wants the life for them that she wished for herself.  It is a familiar story for sure.  The tension within this dramedy, however, mines new depths of sadness despite the effervescent joy of young girls blossoming under mom’s tutelage.

Veronica is training the sisters to be an act by mimicking the Andrew’s Sisters.  That gives us a few terrific old tunes to savor in performance scenes including “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy”.  In 1955 this choice seems already a tad dated underscoring mother’s missed opportunity for herself.

The play also takes place in 1976 when Veronica is nearing the end of her life.  The Webb sisters are back in their former home, a now run down guesthouse somewhere near the sea.  Will the one sister who attained some level of fame return?

The play will shift in time over the course of a very swift three hours.  Every scene is naturally realistic.  The major plot advancement includes a visitor (David Wilson Barnes) invited by Veronica to witness her assembled talents.  As the play turns we are faced with a stage mother far steelier than anything a musical could conjure.  The scene is devastating and superbly rendered under the excellent direction by Sam Mendes.

In a play with time periods separated by two decades memories will be challenged.  The shaping of perspectives is a nice layer which enriches the vagaries in the mother daughter dynamic.  What does it take to successfully climb the hills of California?  Is that the dream?  Should it be?

The acting is top notch.  Laura Donnelly is vividly cold as Veronica and equally memorable in a second role.  All of the sisters in the various age groups are excellent especially Helena Wilson as the one daughter who never left the nest.  These people (and their bitterness) are recognizable making the angst palpable.

I am a huge fan of Mr. Butterworth as a playwright.  I have seen all of his Broadway productions including the jaw dropping Jerusalem, The River and The Ferryman.  Not knowing what this play was about I went simply because his plays are so very good.  The Hills of California is no different.  This is everything an exquisitely staged and intimately written drama should be.  I cannot wait until the next one.

The Hills of California is running at the Broadhurst Theatre until December 22, 2024.

www.thehillsofcalifornia.com

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The Great Gatsby

“The best thing a girl could be in this world is a beautiful fool”.  Say it isn’t so Daisy!  After churning through another American election cycle slandering women with glee, this line came back to me.  Now seems a good time to take in The Great Gatsby.  New money versus inherited wealth.  Social classes.  A critical view of the American Dream.  Excess in abundance.  Abject racism.  Take your pick or consider them all.

I was never a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel.  I could not get through it in high school.  A brilliant off Broadway production entitled Gatz straightened me right out.  (That production is back for its twenty year anniversary.)  In that play, Nick reads the entire novel – every single word – in an office.  The action morphs from there with co-workers.  If you can still snag a ticket, go.

If you rather a lesser but still entertaining evening of theater, the new musical offers some real pleasures.  The show is absolutely stunning to look at.  Scenic and Projection Designs were crafted by Paul Tate dePoo III.  His set transitions are awe inspiring.  Linda Cho’s Costume Design is a never ending avalanche of Jazz Age treats to savor.

During the 1920’s women’s fashions began to relax and become more casual with shorter hemlines and looser fabric.  The next decade would welcome the Hays Code and motion pictures were required to follow morality guidelines written by a Catholic priest.  Some turning point occurred.  Maybe the Great Depression was a part of the catalyst?  Conservatives and religious zealots clamping down on individual freedoms?  Impossible now you might think.  Eyes wide open because we may be exiting another Gatsby cycle and letting women know they have advanced too far.

Please note that this fluff show is nowhere near that dark but it does make you think.  The music and especially the lyrics are forgettable.  There is a bizarre yet effective scene in the second act where a death happens.  The music screams Sweeney Todd which is jarring but at least interesting.  A musical with subpar tunes is usually a no go for me.

Visually, however, this show is sumptuous to experience.  The plot is well known and handled here with some small adjustments.  The performers are generally far better than the material they are given.  Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, Bonnie & Clyde) portrays the titular character Jay Gatsby.  He sings well and is appropriately vague.  Daisy Buchanan was played by understudy Traci Elaine Lee (Shucked).  She was really quite fine and appropriately shallow and self-absorbed.

In the role of white supremacist Tom Buchanan, John Zdrojeski (Good Night, Oscar) nailed his underwritten character.  Paul Whitty and Sara Chase were also memorable as the Wilson’s who play a pivotal role in contrasting financial fortunes.  Samantha Pauly (SIX) shined as the sarcastic Jordan Baker.  I had not realized until writing this blog that the character was named after two Cleveland car companies (Jordan Motor Car and Baker Motor Vehicles).  Her name alludes to her “fast” reputation and comments on the new freedoms won by women during this era.  Not surprisingly this novel is a banned book.  Back to making babies and doing laundry ladies!

Nick Carraway narrates the story (less pronounced in the musical than in the novel).  His optimism will fade as he assesses this world around him.  Noah J. Ricketts does a nice job representing the “us” as we gaze at the wealthy excess of the American Dream of inequality and selfishness.  The Great Gatsby is an average musical but I found the themes incredibly timely.

The Great Gatsby is running at the Broadway Theatre.  Mr. Jordan’s final performance is January 19, 2025.  Gatz is being performed at the Pubic Theater through December 1, 2024.

www.broadwaygatsby.com

www.publictheater.org/gatz

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Our Town

“Whenever you come near the human race there’s lots and lots of nonsense”.  That chestnut is uttered by Jim Parsons as the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.  I have never had an opportunity to see this famous play performed.  This revival, directed by Kenny Lyon, is excellent from start to mesmerizing finish.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, this incisive drama brilliantly incorporates metatheatrical devices.  The Stage Manager hosts the audience, comments on the action and occasionally performs a character.  Over three acts (here performed without intermissions) the American small town of Grover’s Corner will showcase the ordinariness of the human condition and also its universality.

People have their everyday jobs like milk delivery guy and town newspaper editor.  Some in school are growing up and falling in love.  The town alcoholic is known.  Class and position in society, religious demographics and the lack of culturally broadening perspectives are topics chewed on.  There are so many timeless themes in this 1938 study of who and what we are.

Not knowing the play to any extent I was treated to the superlative surprise that is Act III.  Everything staged before built to a thrillingly thoughtful critique on life, death and what we do with the molecules holding us together while we visit this Earth.  What is the purpose of all of this?  Our Town doesn’t answer that question completely but instead invites us to Grover’s Corner to contemplate everything from the mundane to the otherworldly.

Mr. Parsons is in confident command of this large cast who each excel in this contemplative, swirling, often funny dissection.  As the young couple brimming with the promises of life ahead, Ephraim Sykes and understudy Emily Webb shine brightly with demonstrable chemistry.  Their Act III moments are, therefore, powerfully realized.

This talented group includes Michelle Wilson, Billy Eugene Jones, Richard Thomas and Julie Halston.  The show was cast diversely and there is not a second of self-acknowledgement of that choice.  This material can be and should be absorbed by everyone.

I am struck by a visit to the simpler times in Grover’s Corner.  Our American small towns seem far more complicated now given the dynamics of a century of changes – for the better and the worse.  I wonder what the residents would think of the the presidential candidate who pantomimed fellatio with a microphone last week?  Savior?  Fucked up freak?  That the human race is overwhelmed by “lots and lots of nonsense” is indisputable.

Thornton Wilder’s play is a still relevant gem.  The piece is wildly theatrical and laser sharp in confronting its audience about the meaning, value and gift of life.  This production of Our Town is highly recommended especially if, like me, you’ve never taken the trip before.

Our Town is running on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre through January 19, 2024.

www.ourtownbroadway

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Drag: The Musical

Ru Paul’s Drag Race has been nominated for 85 Emmy Awards over the last fifteen years and winning dozens including eight for the host.  This now mainstream classic has spawned a worldwide industry of performers across many disciplines.  One of the big names to come from this pedigree is now Off Broadway starring in Drag: The Musical.

I have been fortunate enough to see Alaska Thunderfuck’s solo shows in the past.  Writing as Justin Andrew Honard, this uber talented queen joined forces with Tomas Costanza and Ashley Gordon to pen the book, music and lyrics to this silly, campy, sweet and dippy delight.

The plot centers around two drag clubs which sit across the street from one another.  Alaska portrays Kitty Galloway, the proprietress of the Cathouse.  Nick Adams (Priscilla Queen of the Desert) headlines the Fishtank as Alexis Gillmore.  Get it?  She just so happens to be Kitty’s ex.  What happened between to two is unspoken and a running joke.  Cue the soap opera histrionics!

This shiny bauble of a show takes its ideas and mixes them in the blender at all speeds: blend, chop and even frappe.  Comedy (those eyebrows!) and melodrama (coming of age experiences) combine with the spasmodic energy of the television show’s Rusical concept.  Sling it against the wall, ham it up and keep the pace frenetic.  They’ll never see your mascara running, darling.

Oh but we do.  Drag is a nicely staged production brimming with songs containing rock, pop, disco and punk influences.  The camp factor is high.  The thematic messaging, as on tv, is slathered on histrionics.  The sets and costumes are top notch.  Drag is a super fun show and a very fun time in the theater.  Unfortunately it misses classic but does offer hints.

Alaska is a star.  She commands the stage and there is an effortless ease by which her character is played.  Of course she’s a bitch.  Why would we go if she wasn’t?  Her enemy ex-lover Alexis is also sharp-tongued but has more baggage to deal with in this show. Her brother is present to help with the club’s dire financial situation.  He puts “the douche in fiduciary” highlights the lightly raunchy tone.

Brother Tom’s son hangs backstage and befriends his Uncle Alexis.  This family conflict meets healing is basic vanilla stuff for sure.  Joey McIntyre (New Kids on the Block) as the Dad and Remi Tuckman (can that stage name be real?) as his son are outstanding despite the sappiness overload.  Mr. McIntyre’s big number “Straight Man” is a high point.

There are drag queens everywhere.  Most are female impersonators, one is actually female (Liisi LaFontaine) and one sports a beard (Nick Laughlin as Puss Puss DuBois). Luxx Noir London edges her fellow queens for the Chante You Stay award but many familiar names get their chance to show off and chew the scenery including Jan Sport and Jujubee (a noticeable audience favorite).

Broadway veteran Eddie Korbich (The Drowsy Chaperone) kills in his Drunk Jerry persona.  J. Elaine Marcos also slays in multiple zany characterizations.  There is a lot of talent on this vividly imagined stage.  The material, however, can be predictably preachy as in “what’s between my legs is none of your fucking business”.  The seams between camp and earnestness show too readily.

Drag includes more than twenty numbers and they sound great.  For Off Broadway this is a large scale production.  Two hours fly by as fans of the genre revel in the sequins and lap up the schmaltz.  You will have a good time.  Everything is so ridiculous how could you not?  You will also see a gorgeously lit scene with Alaska brooding at a table.  That moment is a welcome tableau of greatness amid this gleefully stupid romp.

Drag: The Musical is running at New World Stages, just down the hall from The Gazillion Bubble Show (which supplies one of the show’s welcomely meta laughs).

www.dragthemusical.com

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Sump’n Like Wings (Mint Theater)

Should women have freedom to make their own decisions?  In today’s America, that is a topic with very different points of view.  A century after Sump’n Like Wings was written the Mint Theater resurrects this play which considers that question.  The ramifications of that freedom, whether allowed or taken, is the most interesting and dispiriting peril addressed.

Willie Baker is a restless, petulant, uneducated sixteen year old young lady living with her mom.  Swimming with boys, even in a mixed group, is a punishable offense.  Mom is overworked running the dining room of the St. Francis Hotel for Ladies and Gents owned by her bachelor brother.  The year is 1913, six years after Oklahoma achieved statehood.  The promise of change – its enticements and its dangers – is everywhere.

Boys are trouble.  That is the mantra espoused by Mrs. Baker (Julia Brothers) as she clutches her Bible.  A married young man named Boy Huntington (Lukey Klein) shows some interest in Willie as they playfully flirt and tease each other.  This territory is familiar and the choices made will impact where life will lead.

Uncle Jim notes “she’s got sump’n inside of her like wings, and she’ll beat off the cover, and she’ll go away.”  His affection for his niece is readily apparent.  And she sees things similarly.  “They’s sump’n in you ‘at has to be free – like – like a bird, or you ain’t livin’.”

Playwright Lynn Riggs is most famous for 1931’s Green Grow the Lilacs which became the source material for the classic American musical Oklahoma!  About half of his thirty plays take place in his home state.  Claremont is his birthplace where Sump’n Like Wings is set.  Mr. Riggs “wanted to give voice and a dignified existence to people who found themselves, most pitiably, without a voice, when there was so much to be cried out against”.

As a gay man existing during this period, Mr.  Riggs’ plays focus on the resiliency of people who survive – and sometimes even flourish – despite the odds against them.  The ending of this play doesn’t intentionally answer that survival question in any satisfying way.  The “lid” referred to by the characters is akin to the glass ceiling of today.  A woman feels in control of her decisions but at what cost?  The ending is memorable.

There is much to chew on in this under directed production.  Unfortunately the cast is all over the place.  Some are far too contemporary and stand out of place.  Others, like an effeminate choice for Willie’s Boy, don’t make sense given the dialogue.  This never fully produced work is, unfortunately, a subpar viewing.

Mariah Lee is excellent as Willie.  She’s surely a spitfire but the hesitancy of fears remain visible.  Ms. Brothers portrayal of her mother is nicely representational of the period and the scariness of changing times.  The two villainous men in this play are smaller roles confidently inhabited by Andrew Gombas and Mike Masters.  Both of their scenes with Willie are effectively disturbing and sadly realistic.

While many technical elements in this production are fine as one would expect from the Mint, there is not enough clarity in the storytelling to elevate this lost work.  Sump’n Like Wings did, however, make me hope for a revisit of some of his other works encompassing Native American stories.

Mr. Riggs was part Cherokee.  The comprehensive program notes highlight that several of his plays contend with his complicated and conflicted nature existing as mixed race in a country whose policies aimed at either annihilating or assimilating Native peoples.  Historical analyses of race relations, just like women’s freedoms, remain important as our nation bravely attempts to move forward despite a concerted and unending pull backwards.  Or worse; to hide the history as too uncomfortable and thus purposefully forgotten.

Sump’n Like Wings is running Off Broadway at Theatre Row through November 2, 2024.

www.minttheater.org

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Twelfth Night (Axis Company)

I have seen Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will on Broadway and off many times.  My most recent encounter was a college production at St. Mary’s in South Bend, Indiana.  As an avid fan of Axis, I wanted to see what Director Randall Sharp developed for this ninety minute shortened version.  Even the title is abbreviated to simply Twelfth Night.

Evocative yet starkly simple settings are a trademark of this theater company.  When coupled with the creaking noises heard, I imagined a ship’s hull forever groaning amidst the turbulence all around.  The play begins with two shipwrecked twins and their journeys, while purposefully comedic, are definitely on shaky ground.

All of the sights and sounds are additive to the mood.  The entire cast is doused in dashing grays, mirroring the walls and floor.  What can sometimes be a brightly hued celebration of gender misidentification coupled with the courtly intrigue of plotting and scheming is instead here only colorful on the tongue.  With some excess libations of course!

The actors are all dialed into this swirling world which was originally designed as a Christmastime entertainment.  This version contains nice underscoring (Paul Carbonara) and musical numbers.  The elements are all there.  Despite knowing the play fairly well, I found myself a little adrift at sea here.  Knowing the material seems to be a prerequisite to following along.

I understand some of the goals of Marc Palmieri’s adaption were to keep the length to ninety minutes and to make the language more accessible.  Much of the plotline is clear but everything moves so quickly that certain connections were fuzzy to me.  That seemed more prevalent in the secondary and more comical subplots.

Britt Genelin’s Viola/Cesario duality was superb and her charismatic scenes with real or desired suitors anchored the production.  When twin brother Sebastian (Eli Bridges) appears the resemblance was totally believable adding to the fun.

Jon McCormick’s Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia (Katy Frame) who in turn is in love with Cesario, a mustachioed Viola.  Round and round we go for the eventual comic payoff and happy ending.  Everyone in this cast was laser focused on their particular story as evidenced by wordless body language on the sidelines of the stage.

This Twelfth Night is perhaps best enjoyed by those who, at least, read a synopsis beforehand.  The environment is coolly minimalistic to match the excised text.  The overall impact, for me, was slightly off-kilter.  The ship was listing and I couldn’t grab a guard rail to steady my senses as I witnessed the familiar cunning notions of this classic drag play.

Twelfth Night is running through October 26, 2024.

www.axiscompany.org

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Once Upon a Mattress

If you have the urge to smile, as you must in these days of political woe, then head on down to the intensely fun antics of Once Upon A Mattress.  This revival has been born as part of the Encores! series.  As such the sets are minimalistic but enough.  The performers here are the reason for the joy.

First of all, Will Chase (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, High Fidelity) perfectly embodies Sir Harry, the noble knight of this 15th century kingdom.  His two duets with glorious voiced Nikki Renée Daniels (The Book of Mormon) are utterly transporting back sixty years in the theater.  Romantic duets still exist but this style is past.  So remarkable then to bask in this truly exceptional display.  Mr. Chase gives a memorable nod to Robert Goulet realness and, somehow, the spur jokes never failed to land.

The plot here is a retelling of The Princess and the Pea.  Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) is quite the royal pain, to put it mildly.  She screeches as she dismantles any hope of her son Prince Dauntless finding a suitable mate.  When Princess Winifred arrives – a mess – the courtly proceedings take on a decidedly different and far sillier turn.

Of course Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, the Drowsy Chaperone) is delightfully goofy and supremely athletic as Fred, her preferred name.  Fun fact:  Carol Burnett made her Broadway debut in this role.  Michael Urie (Buyer & Cellar, Torch Song) portrays the childlike Prince who becomes instantly smitten with the bedraggled Fred.  Both of them exude charm and nicely balance the old school ridiculousness and sheer charm of this show. Fans of both will be rewarded here.

The performers are really very good with the unusual exception of Brooks Ashmanskas (Something Rotten) as the Wizard.  I’m a big fan and he is usually an outsized presence on stage.  This outing was oddly back burner.  Step in David Patrick Kelly as King Sextimus the Silent for all the required clowning and then some.  Daniel Breaker’s Jester number “Very Soft Shoes” was a highlight as well.

Overheard leaving the theater: “that was fun and I liked the colors of the costumes”.  Indeed.  And that is why this little musical has been produced by high schools and community theaters everywhere.  The parts are great, it’s old school musical comedy and the audience leaves both entertained and in a great mood.  We can’t ask and shouldn’t expect this revival to wipe the political television ads from our minds or the incessant money begging texts from both parties.  At least I forgot that for a couple hours and time traveled back to an idealized Broadway from days gone by.

Mr. Chase also slayed, as any good knight should, in delivering the night’s most fabulous ad lib.  He ran onstage in response to a question and blurted out “the Yanks are down 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth!”.  We all howled and this very talented, very experienced cast absorbed the moment brilliantly.  Yes it’s very old school.  But this production is also a reminder of the intoxicating draw of live theater where moments like that become unique memories that keep this entertainment form vital, exciting and surprising.

Shows like Once Upon a Mattress don’t come around very often.  With this high octane cast, now is the time to see if the bed is lumpy or to your liking.  The worse thing that could happen is you laugh.  A lot.

Once Upon a Mattress is running at the beautiful and comfortable Hudson Theatre through November 30, 2024.

www.onceuponamattressnyc.com

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The Beastiary (Ars Nova)

“Medieval meets modern” in The Beastiary.  Ars Nova’s company-in-residence On The Rocks Theatre takes a stab, literally, at slaying the monsters of nightmares and the evils of humankind in an apocalyptic smorgasbord of visual and aural stimuli.  The overall impact is a mixed bag of admirably loony ideas confusingly presented.

The Greenwich House has been, once again, transported; this time into a silly, scary fun house.  The stage is inside the mouth of a three-eyed beast with jagged, menacing teeth.  Banners with coats of arms are hung around the room.  The walls are dark with gold stars.  You’ve seen this painting or read this depiction of the period.  The setting conjures a delicious mouthful of anticipation.

An extraordinary musical score begins this production.  Cornelius Loy plays the Theremin and sci-fi vibes will exquisitely set the mood.  He is accompanied by Ellen Winter who adeptly plays an assortment of other instruments including a kazoo.  While the show  sometimes feels like a roller coaster with frequent lulls, the music is a high point from start to finish.

This pageant of the apocalypse is jam packed with ideas.  The last human baby has been born into a world where beasts have reclaimed the Earth.  Thirty years, nine months and six days of tribulation thereafter we travel to see the “last eight souls ever to walk this wild world”.  So begins a long series of time adjustments which are part of a deadpan running joke yet also muddy the proceedings.

Puppetry is used to create the beasts referred to in the title.  Giants, gryphons, demons and a lizard creature are employed to scare and also elucidate the thematic evils of mankind such as greed, elitism and the destruction of the environment.  There is also a ridiculously memorable Blemmyae.  That one was new to me.  A headless blue giant with a man’s face on his chest sporting a large blue erection.  This beastiary features a little bestiality.  Is it funny or just bizarre?  Probably both but you decide.

Weaving throughout this macabre goofiness is meta-like commentary like “before our stories begin their eclipse, a brief interlude is required, in which, through song and dance, a farmer learns his fate”.  What follows is an inspired song about scavengers.  We learn that these devils are not bad beings but truly serve an important purpose in promoting the decomposition of organic matter to save the world from decay and disease.  The clever song, like other scenes in the show, hangs around a bit too long so the zaniness wanes.

The best performances chew the scenery (and other things) with relish.  Special kudos for Rebecca Miller who fills the roles of the Queen’s Mum, merchant’s daughter, demon #2 and the child bride with vivid facial impressions and hilarious body language.  Even her sections, however, suffer a little from the often rushed delivery of lines.  Perhaps the words are not as important as the mood and visuals but you really have to concentrate to follow along.

The time changes are confounding as are some of the tonal shifts.  The ending is visually memorable but shockingly serious.  Who or what exactly impregnated the nun?  We had many theories which made for good post-show banter.  The Beastiary, as a whole, could benefit from some editing because there are stimulating and well-designed visual and aural moments which are often transporting.

The Beastiary is running downtown at the Greenwich House through November 9, 2024.

www.arsnovanyc.com

www.ontherockstheater.com

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Poor People! (Hell in a Handbag, Chicago)

Why do so many musicals feature death and the downtrodden?  Why do these characters burst into song?  Is this how we come to terms with the less fortunate?  Hell in a Handbag Productions is back with the answers.  Poor People! is the show.  You will laugh until the revolution is won or The Groomer of the Flop’ra (Shane Roberie) gets his comeuppance, pun intended.

This parody musical is a giant send-up of Broadway.  The lead character is Li’l Orphan Arnie (Dakota Hughes).  “They” have a mean caretaker named Miss A (Sydney Genco).  She’s just one of the villains in this mash up.  The previously mentioned Groomer is a mask wearing creep with any number of sexual perversions.  Add in a conservative freak named Mama Moneybags (Brittney Brown) and the plot thickens.

The tale attended here involves time travel through a manhole.  Li’l Arnie escapes the orphanage and falls into Paris, 1815.  We are in Les Misèrables territory.  Eponine is now Epipen (Taylor Dalton).  Fantine is now Pantene (Caitlin Jackson) with significant hair issues.  Fagin (David Cerda) from Oliver! appears in a mature guise.  Even the Beggar Woman (Elizabeth Lesinski) from Sweeney Todd knows things ain’t right in this world.

Tyler Anthony Smith wrote this hilarious spoof and also plays Nance, the large breasted whore with a heart of gold (or not).  Avid musical theater fans should pounce.  Perhaps not as elegantly as Fosse Kitty (Matty Bettencourt) who meows through this life-sized cartoon in full jellicle fashion.  Maybe hellicle is a better descriptor.  Things are indeed rotten when you have no food, missing teeth, STDs, and a Pretty Rich Boy (Tommy Thurston) courting one of the most beautiful prostitutes in all of gay Paree.

Of course it’s a hard knock life.  Smith coaxes enormous fun out of the ridiculous plots, blends them with lowbrow humor and rewrites well known ditties to celebrate and offend in equal measure.  The show is scandalous, sacrilegious, sassy, silly, sexy and screamingly hilarious.  Poor People! has drag elements but that’s not the main point.  While not necessarily family friendly, this show never goes too far into the gutter.  Or, more accurately, doesn’t linger there too long.

Knowing the shows being lampooned adds to the party.  Things happen in “Oui Oui Suite”, a trio number for the villains.  Fans of Annie will recognize one of that musical’s best numbers “Easy Street” renamed and repurposed.  Three villains making dastardly plans against a freckled face orphan.  Truly afflicted theater nerds like me will completely appreciate the homage to that number’s original choreography (by Christopher Kelley).

Stephanie Shaw staged this mayhem and the lunacy is entertaining throughout.  There is a song “borrowed” from My Fair Lady which absolutely slays.  One friend commented that she witnessed the “most alarming taxidermied rodents” she had ever seen.  For a mere tuppence, you too can be alarmed.  It’s priceless.

Poor People! is being staged in the basement space of the Chopin Theatre.  I suggest a plunge down into the sewers, grab a cocktail at the bar and take a seat.  Some unfortunate souls may die of tuberculosis or face another gruesome fate but you will laugh at them, with them and very, very hard.

Poor People! has been extended and is running through June 23, 2024.  A VIP ticket will get you very close to the rodents but take the chance!  Fosse Kitty will there to protect you (or at least twirl and kick with abandon).

www.handbagproductions.org

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Turret (A Red Orchid Theatre, Chicago)

Outside the Turret the air is poisonous.  Inside a jogger runs on a treadmill with  sensors attached to his head.  Is this a future world?  Grant Sabin’s cold steel set surely suggests that possibility as do the vivid technical and projection design elements.  What is inside, however, happens to be poisonous on another level entirely.

The young man’s name is Rabbit (Travis A. Knight) and he is partnered with Green (two time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon).  The hierarchy is obvious.  One is in charge, the other follows orders as trained.  Whatever war has occurred leaving this dystopian world is unclear.  They are trapped and always on the lookout.  Excursions outside must be carefully timed and planned.

Two men confined in tight quarters leads to conversation.  Green tests Rabbit’s memory.  A whiskey bottle provides some relief.  Are there others alive out there also hunkered down for survival?  What exactly is going on?  When an idea forms, the play abruptly toys with time and reality.  It’s déjà vu all over again.

Levi Holloway wrote and directed this fascinating piece of theater.  Layers will be peeled back and reveal themselves.  Those reveals are as murky as the world in which they live.  What is actually going on?  At intermission I was not sure.  At the end I was not sure.  The ride home sparked spirited conversations about the meaning of it all.

Mr. Holloway’s program note to theatergoers indicated that he started this play just after his father passed in 2020.  He finished it four years later just after his son was born.  There is a definite presence of generational pull in his dialogue.  The younger following the instruction of the elder.  Emerging independence and conflicts.  Who exactly is taking care of whom?  And how? And why?

A third character (Lawrence Grimm) emerges who seemingly resides in a different turret.  Things appear to be worse there.  Who is this person?  He’s a brooding spirit who also has a taste for whiskey.  The bizarrely fake stability of the duo’s world is shaken up as more events unfold.

Turret is a psychological thriller which contains a slow burn fuse that never goes out.  I cannot be certain that the events were intended to be science fiction or self-empowering therapy.  The set design, after all, could also be the inside of one’s mind with the cylindrical jogging chamber functioning as a symbolic cerebral cortex.  Or maybe that’s totally wrong.

What I do know is that my mind felt challenged as I puzzled through the pleasant and unpleasantness of multi-generational testosterone fueled men taking stock of one another.  I saw pride and pain.  The whiskey never too far way for healing to commence.  I have a definite opinion of what the three characters represent amidst the framework of a loosely constructed plot.  I’ll leave that interpretation in my own turret.  The joy of this journey is to experience its mysteries and come to your own conclusions.

If you have something to say, Green instructs Rabbit, it should be kind, necessary and true.  All of the performances in this play were captivating (kind).  This play is for those who can embrace non-linear storytelling (necessary).  I thought about this one for days afterward (true).

Turret might morph into movie form.  I hope its searing analytical terrors remain fully intact, confoundingly perplex and emotionally resonant.  I believe I cracked the code (password!) but not being 100% positive makes me want to take it all in again, déjà vu style, as hypothetical subject number 3689.

Turret is running at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago through June 22, 2024.

www.aredorchidtheatre.org