8-15-08
A Passable Merchant
For its time Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was a remarkably liberal depiction of the covetous Jew: a staple of the day. Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta offers much the same story—a merchant borrows money from a Jew to help his friend’s romantic efforts and finds his life in danger when he cannot fulfill the bond—but without any mitigating factors to the Jew’s villainy. For Marlowe, the Jew’s evil stems from his inherent wickedness. But Shakespeare found little satisfaction in such a simplistic character. His Shylock has clear reasons for viciousness. Antonio seems to have made a career out of impugning Shylock’s character. He has stepped in to help those who could not pay interest on loans from the “wealthy Jew” as he is consistently described. He has called him a dog in public. In short, he has made Shylock’s life doubly difficult. But Shylock seeks to return these injuries many times over by taking Antonio’s life.
It seems clear, in retrospect, that Shakespeare found his antagonist more interesting than his protagonists. The latter are a mealy lot. Antonio’s a moper. Bassanio’s a spendthrift who causes his friend’s distress. Portia, at least, has some backbone. But Shylock’s the one who gets the best speech (“Hath not a Jew eyes?”), and faces the greatest injury.
Fortunately, we live in an age where most theatre audiences find casual racial slurs less acceptable. That makes The Merchant of Venice tough sledding, particularly for a young company like Bohemian Theatre Ensemble. Director Peter Robel’s nine person cast generally handles the verse well and clearly. His cutting keeps the play’s running length to a manageable two hours and 15 minutes. The Heartland Studio’s a tiny space, but Stephen M. Genovese’s set design and Michelle Julazadeh’s costumes make for a reasonably handsome presentation.
But the performances lack a spark that would elevate the bland protagonists. It’s hard to sympathize with a blatant racist like Antonio, but it’s just as difficult to feel for a man, in Shylock, who has every opportunity to take the high road but just can’t let go of his need for vengeance. Without the chance to identify with a character, the rambling story leaves us cold. Robel has a conceptual idea that involves whispering city-folk—perhaps to personify the pressures of society—but the device’s final contribution is unclear.
While Bohemian’s production is well spoken and has its moments, not enough has been done to overcome the play’s flaws. The result might be of interest to those who haven’t seen Merchant previously, but it isn’t enough to speak to a modern audience.
The Merchant of Venice, Bohemian Theatre Ensemble
Kerry Reid, Tribune—“Most effectively, Robel’s entire cast serves as a whispering chorus scattered throughout the space during key moments, hissing ‘daughter, sin, shame’ during Jessica’s betrayal of her father and turning the Rialto into an early 20th Century version of TMZ, where citizens gather to spread the latest gossip and calumny. Stephen M. Genovese’s cunning set design, composed mostly of sliding panels and shutters, continues the theme of duality, and R. Bradley Criswell’s projections add depth and texture to the environment, particularly in the casket scene where Portia’s suitors meet their fate while the sneering lady looks on.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“This ultra-streamlined and fast-moving adaptation, cut to the bone by director Peter Robel, makes very clear its perspective from the outset by the constant presence of characters whispering, both in audible actuality backstage and silhouetted against screens and throughout a very cleverly constructed soundtrack, allowing the entire ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ theme of the play to emerge in sharp relief to demonstrate what a collective effort any ostracization of one group by another must always be.”
Christopher Piatt, New City—“It’s a standard revival of the storefront vintage. Robel’s production manages to highlight Boho’s greatest strength and weakness at the same time. As usual, a dewy crop of young talent, most of whom are unfamiliar faces, goes at the text with as much grandeur and professionalism as the tiny raw space allows. And as usual, an unsure design aesthetic holds the troupe back a notch or two. Michelle Julazadeh’s costumes are frilly and flattering, but Stephen Genovese’s confused set, a clutch of asymmetrical doors and poorly executed shadow panels, might have been better as bare black walls.”
Web Behrens, Free Press—“In the end, BoHo delivers a compelling Merchant but that can’t change the challenges inherent to this script. Perhaps Shakespeare was attempting to make a point about how a lifetime of mistreatment breeds a dark heart bent of revenge, but in the end it comes down to an issue of balance. Sure, there are Jewish villains in the world, but what about Jewish heroes? Where, in Shakespeare’s plays, are his other Jewish characters? To put this in a more modern context, consider the depictions of queer people in Hollywood: For decades, we were rarely seen on screen—and then, so often, we were bizarre predators.”
Co-Ed Prison Sluts, Annoyance Theatre
Chris Jones, Tribune—“It’s good to see the Sluts come back, especially since they’re never going to dedicate a library exhibition to this particular show, despite its huge historical importance to the Chicago fringe theater. And on Friday night’s re-opening—in honor of the Annoyance’s 20th anniversary—there was a bifurcated audience, consisting in equal parts of student-age revelers and thirty- and fortysomethings looking to relive a memorable experience from a decade ago or longer. To the pleasure of both groups, most of the original experience is impressively intact, including the late start, the indulgent length, the annoying sound of kicked beer bottles hitting the floor of the theater and the sense of collective, petty rebellion.”
Jack Helbig, Reader—“The first, and still one of the best, of the Annoyance Theatre’s trademark vile musical comedies. Directed by Mick Napier, this show about a ragtag group of prisoners in a dysfunctional (and, oddly, coed) prison seemed bracingly fresh and original when it opened in 1988. Faith Soloway’s songs are at once amazing parodies and solid compositions in their own right. Unsurprisingly, the first production became a late-night hit and ran for 12 years, a record for a musical in Chicago. Now the Annoyance folks are finally reviving what they call their ‘flagship show.’ It’s been too long.”
Web Behrens, Free Press—“Co-Ed Prison Sluts has some genuine humor, in between the dopey and tired sodomy jokes. Still, it’s not as easy to be outrageous today as it was 20 years ago. Audiences are both savvier and more jaded now—we’ve seen everything from ‘South Park’ to Monica Lewinsky to Larry Craig. One way to make the show click better today would be trimming it down to one tight act. Nevertheless, at just $15, the price is right for some live late-night yuks—as long as you can find the humor in a song-and-dance show that loves to slip in some jokes about cannibalism and pedophilia.”
Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“If the cast is good comically, musically their singing is nothing to write home about. Perhaps I’m being too harsh for what aims to be nothing more than a late night show for tipsy crowds to laugh their heads off. After all, Co-Ed Prison Sluts came of age in a time when it was easier to shock. Now it looks juvenile in light of the competition.”
Glengarry Glen Ross, Redtwist Theatre
Nina Metz, Tribune—“…a grand experiment is playing out at Redtwist Theatre where a revival of Glengarry Glen Ross features a coed ensemble, and a rather good one at that. The women have arrived—though only one manages to stake her claim. Mamet’s camp signed off on the concept, providing there be no script changes. So, on occasion you hear women referring to one another as ‘he,’ or introducing themselves with names like Richard, John or George. It’s not a big deal. Curiously, the female element doesn’t really add or detract from the play itself, which won the Pulitzer in 1984. So you have a couple of saleswomen instead of salesmen pushing shady land deals—so what?”
Kerry Reid, Reader—“What happens if you introduce women into David Mamet’s hyper-macho world of rapacious, desperate real estate salesmen? Judging by Adam Webster’s staging for Redtwist Theatre—in which the pronouns stay the same but women play some roles—the answer is, nothing special. If the underlying motive behind the gender-bending in this otherwise well-paced, entertaining production is to show that women can be as ruthless as their male counterparts, that point’s been made many times before.”
Christopher Piatt, New City—“With actor Brian Parry in the driver’s seat—his work as desperate huckster Shelly Levene has thrumming, almost musical syncopation—Adam Webster’s brisk, modest production takes a straightforward approach to the text. So even though Jacqueline Grandt’s Ricky Roma is more of a clammy WASP than a smoldering cigar-butthole, and even though Debra Rodkin plays patsy George Aaronow as a hysterical soccer mom rather than pathetic fall guy—neither performance feels in touch with the hardheaded material—all the actors ultimately get out of the way of the play itself. At the end of the evening, you can still hear its menacing cadences in your head.”
Brian Kirst, Free Press—“The dynamics of feminine intervention ultimately add new layers to the show and provide a significant level of enjoyment to the proceedings. What one discovers, though, despite Jacqueline Grandt’s amazing, powerfully nuanced performance of Ricky Roma, is how well Mamet initially did his job. The rhythm, power and brutal honesty of his writing is distinctly Y chromosome, so Brian Perry as the struggling Shelly Levine and Eric Hoffmann as the bitter Dave Moss are the most natural and engaging performers here. Mamet’s language is at one with them and they provide performances that are both realistic and aurally beautiful.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“Rather than crippling the text’s dynamic, however, this break with convention amplifies the psychological warfare unfolding before us. Office manager Williamson’s phlegmatic veneer emerges as icier for residing in a severely suited schoolmistress-surrogate. Aaronow’s meek capitulation to his colleague’s bullying is far more apparent when he is allowed to collapse almost into tears. And if a bedazzled client cannot resist the seduction of a sleekly dressed stranger’s graphic disquisition on body fluids, sybaritic sex and seizing the moment, imagine his response when Ricky Roma’s sermon is preached by a statuesque woman wearing a Medusa hairdo and shoes with heels suitable for cardiac surgery.”
Plaza Suite, Eclipse Theatre Company
Chris Jones, Tribune—“You wish the whole thing would just dig deeper, raise the stakes and take some more risks. But the well-paced show still delivers some big belly laughs and contains some pleasingly quirky performances, including a nicely nuanced turn from Frances Wilkerson, who plays a repressed suburbanite in love with a glamorous high school old flame (played by Nathaniel Swift). And in the last and funniest playlet, the terrific Jon Steinhagen and Cheri Chenoweth whip up some dangerously scary comedy as the parents of a terrified potential bride locked in the bathroom of a suite at the Plaza, lest she turn into her folks.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“If you initially groan at the very thought of revisiting Simon’s unquestionably mid-20th century, pre-feminist musings on midlife crises and marital (and extra-marital) meanderings, this production suggests there are still some laughs to be had, and that there is some behavior that doesn’t change in any appreciable way.”
Lawrence Bommer, Reader—“There’s tragedy in the trivia that unfolds at the Plaza Hotel as three couples are caught up in midlife crises circa 1967. Detailing their despair from a safe distance, Neil Simon orchestrates the cascading calamities with glib one-liners and revealing cross talk. Director Steve Scott fully embraces Simon’s psychology of failure, tracking the pain behind the false fronts. Scott’s eight players never condescend to the characters even when Simon seems to milk their miseries. The guilty pleasure being purveyed here is simple: peeping-hot eavesdropping. And we don’t even need a pass key.”
Craig Kellar, New City—“Which isn’t to say that Eclipse’s belated check-in at the Plaza is joyless—far from it. Frances Wilkerson, as the unhappy New Jersey housewife seduced by a high-school flame–turned–Hollywood producer, is a nervous wreck worth a gaper’s block on the Eisenhower. And Jon Steinhagen and Cheri Chenoweth channel The Honeymooners in the tonally schizo play’s slapstick third act, in which a couple pulls out all the stops to persuade their betrothed daughter to emerge from a locked bathroom. But even in the somber first act, when a workaholic husband divulges an affair with his secretary, we learn nothing about how these caricatures arrived at their impasses. And Simon’s women especially fall short of three dimensions.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“So in 2008, do you indulge nostalgic ‘tired-businessman’ Simon fans enjoying a chortle at the superficiality of affluent New Yorkers? Or do you appeal to contemplative audience members searching amid the parochial period references for a lesson to take home with them? Director Steve Scott attempts to bridge the stylistic gaps, his actors retaining their comic timing while simultaneously imposing a wry inflection on now-antiquated intergender dynamics. Overall, he succeeds, despite the imbalance of ages represented among the cast members and a final moment that sidesteps the question of whether the reluctant bride’s fears for her future will, indeed, be manifested.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“If Tang isn’t shorthand for pop culture kitsch, I don’t know what is.”—Nina Metz reviewing Sandbox Theatre Project’s production of Multi-Purpose Doom in the Tribune.