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

Hit movies are turned into Broadway musicals regularly.  Some are great (The Outsiders).  Some are mildly entertaining (Back to the Future) and some are less so.  Death Becomes Her, despite this week announcing its upcoming fall opening in New York, is not quite ready for the big time.

The Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis film was a major hit and won an Academy Award for special effects.  That imagery is what I remembered from the film.  Surprisingly some of that silly fun is captured here, most notably in a slow motion staircase tumble.  Unfortunately there are long stretches of boring in between.

Marco Pennette’s book seems to follow the movie plot and does have some terrifically bitchy zingers.  Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard, two proven stage actresses, take up the mantel of the warring over-the-hill actress and her meek writer frenemy.  They compete for the love of plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Christopher Sieber, another top tier musical comedy specialist).  Shenanigans ensue as the rivals battle each other until the show ends with a very flat tire.  In truth it was like watching a slow leak.

I cannot say that the score of this show is particularly memorable although Mr. Sieber clearly has the best number.  The staging of his big moment is whimsical and enchanting so it stands out.  In general, however, the show plods along under Christopher Gattelli’s lukewarm staging.  Zany is promised but seldom achieved.  You can see the strain.

It certainly does not help that the two leads wear costumes that absolutely swallow them whole.  Paul Tazewell obviously designed them to be outsized.  Unfortunately you can see the effort it takes to move in them.  This satiric black comedy needs to be screamingly over-the-top to work.  Here the jokes land sometimes and the songs even less frequently.

Why did this show need a musical version?  Perhaps the Side Show 11:00 number homage sung by the two women side by side?  I have seen both of these women kill on stage; Ms. Hilty stopping the show cold in Gentleman Prefer Blondes and Ms. Simard chewing the scenery most recently in Once Upon A One More Time.  They give it their all but the core is a bit flimsy and perhaps too concerned with storytelling rather than buffoonery.

The biggest shortfall, however, is the character of Viola Van Horn played by Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child fame.  This is the character who promises eternal life via a magic potion.  There is absolutely no character created so any campy fun is completely extinguished by a performance which faces the audience blankly and sings as if in concert.  The discomfort of her being carried overhead by ensemble members was noticeable.  Why is this in the choreography?

There are moments here and there to enjoy.  Some ballroom dances look good but do they make sense?  Death Becomes Her may be suffering from only one person directing and choreographing the production.  If this material is going places, some rewrites and rethinks are advisable.  These three actors have the chops.  Give them even more bloody revenge (and vicious tongue lashings) to sink their teeth into.  There might then be a show which savages our all too recognizable world of distorted Botox faces and garish chipmunk cheeks.  We certainly can – and want to – laugh at that.

Death Becomes Her is playing in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre through June 2, 2024.  Broadway previews are scheduled to begin October 23rd.

www.deathbecomesher.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/theoutsiders

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/backtothefuture

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/onceuponaonemoretime

“Life and love and luck may be changed / Hope renewed and fate rearranged”.  That’s the promise contained in the title track of 1978’s On the Twentieth Century, a grand old school musical comedy.  I was fortunately in Chicago this past week and decided to pop in to one of my favorite shows visiting a company I had not yet seen before.

The pedigree of this show is impressive (and I wrote about it six years ago in my Retrospective Series).  Three of us headed to the Andersonville neighborhood and the welcoming venue of the Bramble Arts Loft to jump aboard this Art Deco masterpiece to “ride that mighty miracle of engineering trains”.

How would this modestly sized, non-equity theater company manage to sing this fairly difficult score with its oversized operetta-like bombast?  Happy to report that this cast was completely up to that task.  The band led by Musical Director Aaron Kaplan nicely performed the memorable train-rollicking score.

The staging occurs in a small black box theater within the Loft complex.  I was drawn to see how this behemoth of a musical could be staged on a smaller scale.  I’ve seen this show five times on Broadway (twice in its original run) and my memories of the “She’s A Nut” still rank high for its jaw-dropping set design.

The good news is that the enterprising Blank Theatre Company makes a case for downsizing this farce and allowing the madcap hijinks to shine up close and personal.  Using suitcases and trunks set the tone and framed the location nicely.  Movable chairs here and there were the other major props (although a few more would be welcome).

Since one of us was a newbie to 20th Century (and two were musical theater actors), we had some lively discussion during intermission and afterwards.  Given the minimalist staging by Director Danny Kapinos, could the story be understood?

The answer is not always.  An example is the duet between Lily Garland’s (Karilyn Veres) two self-absorbed suitors Oscar Jaffe (Maxwell J DeTogne) and Bruce Granit (Christopher Johnson).  They are singing “Mine” in competition with each other in adjoining drawing rooms on the train.  There is no way to clearly see that in this “buddy song” presentation.  The side by side train rooms “A” and “B” are not delineated strongly enough and the song loses  bit of its witty bite when less aggressively competitive.

In addition to the occasionally hazy locales, the show hurtles through its plot at breakneck speed.  That is understandable given the storyline lunacy.  All three of us felt the show could slow down a minute here and there to breathe and let the comedic shenanigans sink in even further.  Movement on stage, especially down front, was a bit hectic.  “Babette” was far too rushed to land its “gin is never strong enough” asides.

Our unanimously favorite performance was by Nick Arceo as Oliver Webb, one of Oscar Jaffe’s alcoholic henchmen.  Alicia Berneche had a blast stopping the show in her character’s “Repent” classic.  Everyone had their moments, however, and the ensemble in particular worked as if three times their number.

Now for the great news.  A top ticket price of $35 guarantees exceptional value.  Here is a chance to pop into one of the last American book musicals of the era prior to the British invasion of kicking felines and falling chandeliers.  For my money On the Twentieth Century is a luxury liner train ride worth taking.  The ambitious Blank Theatre Company makes a good case for a smaller scale interpretation in this most intimate setting.

All aboard!  On the Twentieth Century is running through June 9, 2024.

www.blanktheatrecompany.org

www.brambletheatre.org/arts-loft

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/onthetwentiethcentury/retrospectiveseries

Islander (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)

A perfectly sized theater houses the intimate and unique musical Islander.  Fifteen year old Eilidh is the youngest inhabitant of Kinnan, a small island near Scotland.  She lives with her Gran, the oldest person there.  Many residents have left to find better futures on the mainland.  The plot loosely considers the question of whether to stay or go and become a “biglander”.

Originally conceived by Amy Draper and a big hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Stewart Melton’s creative book playfully meanders through a series of vignettes.  “There is a Whale” announces the first thing to appear on the beach and set the plot in motion.

This piece combines Scottish folklore with heart-stirring fairy tale.  The musical opens with the song “The Splitting of the Island” which reflects the divide between those who will stay on the land and the others who will turn to the sea.  This being folk tradition, the characters are not only human but also selkies and merpeople.  A whimsical enchantment hangs in the air above the very ordinary problems faced by this maturing young woman and those surrounding her.

The nicely tuneful music and lyrics are written by Finn Anderson.  They are moody and atmospheric rather than typical show tunes.  What makes them extraordinarily interesting is the use of electronic looping.  The two actresses who portray more than two dozen characters are not simply the vocalizers.  They are also the operators of the technology which layers singing, clapping and breathing on top of each other.  The audience watches the magic unfold amidst the storytelling.

Stephanie MacGaraidh and Sylvie Stenson were the performers I saw (the roles alternate with two other women every other night).  Ms. Stenson’s main job is to guide Eilidh through her growth and decision making.  Ms. MacGaraidh shines in many roles, notably as Gran.  For those who have seen the television show Cunk on Earth, she reminded me of that host.  Without ever leaving the stage, both excel at switching personas and locales in Eve Nicol’s effective staging.

The technical elements in support of this show are simple yet complex.  Emma Bailey’s scenery showcases an island, its claustrophobia and hints at its edge-of-the-world inhospitableness.  The lighting design by Simon Wilkinson is stunning for its simplicity and variety.

Sound Designer Sam Kusnetz makes Islander an unique theatrical experience by allowing the inputs of speech, song, sound effects and island enhancements wash over the listener.  That we experience this aural feast while watching everything as it is happening is an absolute treat.

The government has offered to resettle the residents of this island.  That is the device which may forever alter Kinnan.  To be an Islander or not is the universal question.  To experience Islanders is the imperative.  This show is truly unique, wholly absorbing, often funny, dramatically realistic and, like a great day at the beach, softly soothing as the waves crash against the shoreline.

Islanders is running at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater through December 17, 2023.

www.chicagoshakes.com