St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Chicago

The Muny wraps up this short-but-most-welcome season with Chicago. And what a treat it is. Anyone familiar with the show knows about the delightful Kander and Ebb score – think “All That Jazz” - but the Muny brings us more. Lots more, in fact, starting out with the choreography that pretty much opens the show.

This is a show with Bob Fosse’s fingerprints all over it, of course. After his then-wife Gwen Verdon read the script for a straight play based on the original true story, she suggested to Fosse that it would make a good musical. He eventually obtained the rights, and the couple, along with a man named Richard Fryer, became the producers. They hired Kander and Ebb to write the score, Fosse and Ebb wrote the book, and Fosse directed and choreographed.

Denis Jones, who now qualifies as a Muny regular (and who’s a former winner of the St. Louis Theatre Circle Award) takes on those same roles, director and choreographer, here. The results are great. It’s hard to imagine just how many feet are raised above chest level in Forest Park every night with this show, so vigorous are the dance routines. It’s easier to count the laughs.

It takes place in and around the justice system of Chicago in the Twenties, complete with murder, adultery, yellow journalism and the expected bad language. Chorus girl shoots lover, gets arrested, and, bingo, she’s in the city jail. What could go wrong?

Sarah Bowden returns to the Muny as Roxie Hart. the chorine with poor impulse control. The role exemplifies big shoes to step into – the Muny’s first production of Chicago starred Ann Reinking, another Fosse connection – but she’s a fine example of playing the character, not the star. Her Roxie is indeed a small person desperate to become Big. Making us “get” Roxie opposite this particular Velma Kelly is even more of a challenge.

That’s because Velma, in a Muny casting coup, is played by J. Harrison Ghee, whom Muny audiences first saw when he played Lola in Kinky Boots. It’s a straightforward performance, no camping it up, at least relative to Velma’s generally high-voltage approach to life. Ghee is just fabulous. It’s the role he was born to play. As he and we, the audience, settle into the evening, it’s a high-voltage piece of work, with gender totally irrelevant. The combination of Bowden and Ghee works very well indeed.

James T. Lane is Billy Flynn, the high-rolling lawyer who masterminds the defense (or lack thereof) of both Roxie and Velma. Billy’s ego is exceeded only by his hypocrisy. Lane is totally straightfaced about the latter but gives the former a wide-open field in which to operate. Emily Skinner, another Muny regular, is the jail matron, and sounds great. It’s good to see the familiar face of Adam Heller back, playing Amos, Roxy’s working-man husband, and giving us a fine rendition of “Mr. Cellophane”.

Delicious costumes of the Roaring Twenties are courtesy of Emily Rebhotz, complemented by wigs of Tommy Kurzman. And a particular tip of the critical cap to the pit orchestra helmed by Charlie Alterman. There’s nothing quite like a good pit orchestra, and this is a score that shows off their work exceptionally well for a relatively contemporary show.

One more throwback note, this one for Law and Order fans – Jerry Orbach, Lenny Briscoe in that series, was the original Billy Flynn.

I missed On Your Feet! and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but of the three shows I saw this season at the Muny, this is the star in the crown. Go and have some very adult fun.

 

Chicago

through September 5

The Muny

1 Theatre Drive

Forest Park

muny.org

A couple of historical plants and their fruit, all with strong Missouri/Midwestern connections, brought us to "The Book of Difficult Fruit".

https://www.stlmag.com/dining/the-book-of-difficult-fruit/

The Glass Menagerie

It is, surely, heresy to compare Tennessee Williams to William Shakespeare. And yet every summer that Carrie Houk’s brainchild, Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, comes to fruition, it’s hard to resist the urge. The range of human experience, American-style, is evoked in lovely and unlovely ways, the conflict between aspirational dreams and everyday necessity drawn in bold strokes.

In this year of struggle to return to live theatre, Houk and director Brian Hohlfeld had only 2 ½ weeks to rehearse the show they’d been dreaming and plotting and planning for this year. It’s Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. If there is such a thing as a classic St. Louis play, Meet Me in Saint Louis only wins in the musical category. Menagerie is surely the great St. Louis drama.

The venue is a parking lot behind one of the numerous addresses the Williams family had in the Central West End and University City, so that it’s easy to put to good use the fire escapes where Tom Wingfield, the narrator of the play who is clearly the young Williams himself, steps out of his mother’s apartment finding a relatively quiet place to dream.

For those unfamiliar with the story, which takes place during the Depression, Amanda Wingfield, a faded Southern belle whose husband bolted some years ago, lives with her two adult children. Tom works in the warehouse of the International Shoe Company. (Why, yes, that is indeed the building now housing the City Museum and The Last Hotel.) Laura, his sister, is traditionally played with a limp – there’s discussion at one point of her having worn a brace in school, and Amanda will absolutely not hear the word “crippled”. She’s very shy, loves her long-gone daddy’s collection of old Victrola records and a small collection of little glass animals.

Amanda worries what will become of her children, particularly Laura. About the only possibilities for the young woman are an office job or marriage. Unknown to Amanda, she’s dropped out of a commercial business college. As to what Amanda refers to as gentleman callers, there have never been any. She considers Tom an impractical dreamer. While her motives are pure, she is constantly nattering at them. She is, to use a word none of them would probably recognize, a noodge.  Can’t Tom, she pleads, find someone, the right sort of someone, of course, at the warehouse for Laura?

Hohlfeld and Houk have assembled a balanced team, which is what this script needs, four actors, each strong in a particular way. Brenda Currin is a petite, seemingly fragile and clearly aging Amanda. Unlike some portrayals of the character, hers is less acerbic, letting us understand her worries and fear. Tom Wingfield, played by Bradley James Tejada, holds his temper pretty well, considering his mother’s persistent imploring and demanding, but it’s obvious that he would rather be almost anywhere but in this situation. He’s mostly guarded in his responses to his mother, even to his sister, until he erupts at Amanda in a torrent of invective. Elizabeth Teeter’s Laura is docile enough except when she faces us instead of her mother. She clearly has what we’d now consider social anxiety disorder. When she deals with her mother’s encouragement that she, too, can be a social butterfly just like Amanda was in her youth, she looks just like a modern young woman, glaring and rolling her eyes out of her mother’s line of vision. All she’s missing is the iPhone.

Drumroll, please. Enter The Gentleman Caller. Well, okay, his names is James O’Connor, but that’s not how we know him, at least at first. Chauncey Thomas’ TGC is a charmer, self-assured, not overwhelming but warm and encouraging despite Laura’s near-terror at his arrival. It’s a particularly remarkable rendering of the character, bigger, more rounded and approachable than most. He delights Amanda, who’s hauled a remarkable dress out of a trunk for the evening. He keeps the dinner table conversation going despite the power going out. Is he a diamond that’s not so rough or a cubic zirconia?

It’s pretty amazing sitting in a parking lot watching a set that feels like a near-abstract dream, the product of scenic designer Dunsi Dai, with lighting punctuating the movement of both time and memory, courtesy of lighting designer Catherine Adams. Hooray for Kareem Deanes, whose has the sound near-perfect. That amazing gown of Amanda’s plus the more mundane late-Thirties clothes come from Michele Siler.

On my visit, one of The Caller’s big speeches was punctuated by fire trucks. The breeze was right. It was summer in St. Louis. And the Wingfield family lives on in memory – which is clearly what Williams intended in the play.

 

The Glass Menagerie

through August 29

Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis

various festival locations

twstl.org

'ART'

Nobody has to explain outdoor theatre to St. Louisans, one would think. Not with our century-long tradition of the Muny, and the now-established popularity of Shakespeare Festival-St. Louis with its increasingly varied venues. But somehow, the side lawn of Tower Grove Abbey feels new and different. Stray Dog Theatre is offering ‘ART’ – while adhering to careful COVID protocols.

Artistic director Gary F. Bell is functioning as de facto maitre d’, greeting theatre-goers at the walk and escorting them to their two-seat pods, all numbered and spaced, and giving directions on the procedure for any trips to the restrooms, which involves a one-way loop. Masks are required unless you’re in your seat.

‘ART’ is a good choice for the temporary stage erected at the back of the lawn. Three actors, a simple set, only one prop. And what a prop it is. The story revolves around three long-time friends after one of them buys a very serious piece of art. At least he feels it’s serious.

Yasmina Reza, the author, always writes great dialogue, giving actors a chance to shine. Stephen Peirick, Ben Ritchie and Jeremy Goldmeier are the friends. Peirick goes to visit Ritchie, who reveals that he’s paid beaucoup francs for a painting, which he proudlly exhibits. It’s solid white, or pretty much so – that’s one of the bones of contention – with three diagonal lines sliding across it. Peirick’s character laughs at the painting, kicking off the disagreement. Goldmeier, who’s a peace-at-any-price guy visits later and says he rather likes it, but dissembles somewhat when he and Peirick are together. Chaos, of course, ensues, questioning the basic nature of their friendships.

While it’s a serious drama, there are some very funny lines (interesting what happens to audience laughter when carefully spaced outside) and the timing among the three is very well done. It’s great ensemble work, including the non-verbal. All three actors pull their weight, Peirick as the surprisingly nervous Marc, Ritchie who’s not as self-assured as he comes across and Goldmeier, who’s facing his wedding with increasing discomfort, not to say his new job with his bride’s family.

Director Gary F. Bell has orchestrated this to perfection. It’s a very satisfying ninety minutes. That leaves time to stop for a drink on the way home and discuss which character resembles someone you probably know. Good fun for a summer night.

 

‘ART’

through August 21

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee Ave.

straydogtheatre.org

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music: Is it a musical theatre cliché? For those who’ve seen it many times, it surely might be. It verges on teeth-on-edge sweet. It’s not the best of Rogers and Hammerstein’s scores. And having it played over and over via video recordings may have put some folks over the edge. (Not that this happened in my family, but….)

I’m happy to report that the Muny’s current staging is a pleasure. In avoiding the excesses we tend to think of with the show, they’ve come up with a charming, easy-to-enjoy rendition. It left me walking out thinking, okay, exactly why did I find this so likeable? One tries to avoid the critic-as-curmudgeon thing, for sure, but WHY is a constant question in this line of endeavor.

Director Matt Kunkel has chosen to go in the direction of subtlety. On a stage this size, it’s easier to deal in broadly drawn manifestations of character, but Kunkel has throttled back just a tad to let the story and the music reveal themselves without that push. Kate Rockwell’s Maria does not run around figuratively leaping on rocks to show us her zest for life. She’s certainly warm and relatable when we first meet her apologizing to Reverend Mother Abbess (Bryonha Marie Parham), but not hyperactive. Captain von Trapp, played by Michael Hayden, despite his hard-nosed insistence on discipline early in the play, relaxes pretty quickly, rather than remaining stiff but slightly warmer, as has often been the case in the past.

Even Frau Schraeder, the widowed Captain’s fiancee-to-be, here played by Jenny Powers, no longer seems to be an ancestor of Cruella deVil, just an upper-class woman who thinks the Captain is a good match for her. And Max Detweiler, the family friend and concert impressario, usually played pretty broadly, is given a more subtle turn by John Scherer. Even the children, who were clearly cast for their singing abilities, not because of how well they stairstep down the age gradient, come across that way.

All this adds up to a story that’s more human and less Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It becomes the love story of a marriage.

Rockwell sounds great, Hayden perhaps not quite so remarkable but his acting makes up for it. There’s good chemistry between them. Parham turns out to be a Missouri native, and every once in a while you can hear it in the way she handles a note, not quite the staid and proper abbess, but very satisfying. The children, some of which are clearly old enough to be irritated by my use of that category (which means about 9 or so, in my experience), are Elizabeth Teeter, Victor de Paula Rocha, Amelie Lock, Parker Dzuba, Jillian Depke, Abby Hogan and Kate Scarlett Kappel. Young Ms Kappel is the only one given the green light to be aggressively Cute, and is appropriately delightful. The offspring sound particularly wonderful.

Paige Hathaway’s scenic design gets particularly high marks for the wedding scene, using all the Muny’s new toys to maximum advantage, in conjunction with Caite Hevner’s video design, to be sure. Ben Whiteley directs the pit orchestra, an ensemble that Rogers and Hammerstein always made full use of, and it’s very satisfying. Beth Crandall’s choreography adds to the romance. Tristan Raines’ costumes are also in keeping with the non-comic book look of the show, although in honesty one cannot help but be taken by Max Detweiler’s clothing, a symphony in plaid. Notice that in the last scene the children become clad in colors that would blend right into that mountain that they’re about to climb.

Definitely worth a second – or even a fifth – look.

 

The Sound of Music

through August 9

The Muny

1 Theatre Drive

Forest Park

muny.org