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Regional Reviews: Chicago The Wild Party Also see John's review of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Bailiwick has brought in the perfect person to helm this music and movement heavy piece: choreographer turned director/choreographer Brenda Didier. Didier, who's performed both those duties for hits like Theo Ubique's Smokey Joe's Café and Porchlight's Putting It Together, keeps her cast in perpetual motion, whether they're executing her detailed and sensuous dances, providing a backdrop of party guests moving in ways to suggest realistic activity without detracting from the main action, or blocking scenes to suggest the sort of nervous energy of drug-influenced partiers of the New York in the Roaring Twenties. None of this is meant to diminish her skill with actors. Her cast—an ensemble effort, really—all act the heck out of the characters, taking them from evening anticipation to early morning hung-over desperation in just under two hours. In the lead role of Queenie, the vaudeville chorus girl with an abusive male lover, is Danni Smith—just as sensational as she was in the very different role of Fosca In Theo Ubique's Passion, which won her a Jeff award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical earlier this year. (Full disclosure—I was publicist for that show, but if my objectivity is suspect I doubt my assessment of Ms. Smith's two performances will be challenged.) Smith turns from the sickly Fosca to the manic flapper Queenie in an astonishing transformation. Her character grows from a girl getting along and getting by with her vaudeville castmate Burrs (Matthew Keffer) to an independent woman taking a chance on a more tender love with the handsome kept boy Black (Patrick Falcon) she meets at the party. Conquering two such difficult roles of the musical theater, involving singing music by two of its most challenging composers (Stephen Sondheim and LaChiusa), surely has to establish her as one of the city's top musical actresses, union member or not. As the Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones noted in an unrelated piece a few weeks ago, the local Equity theaters tend toward safer crowd pleasers that don't include roles demanding the sort of emotional stakes Ms. Smith has taken on twice this year. Opposite Ms. Smith as Burrs, Keffer takes a big step forward professionally as well. Though his bari-tenor has impressed since arriving in town a few years ago, this role asks him to go places dramatically we've not seen from him before. He takes Burrs from cocky, delusional jerk to a jealousy-induced breakdown. Truth be told, Keffer is probably a bit too clean-cut and handsome for the role of this sleazy vaudevillian clown, but that's not an unpleasant complaint to have. Beyond these two leads, Didier's cast knocks the rich supporting roles out of the park. Danielle Brothers is the classy-on-top, desperate-underneath has-been Delores who, a few years older than the others, knows the score better than anyone else in the room (which as designed by Megan Truscott is a perfectly shabby downtown apartment). Sharriese Hamilton is Queenie's smart, duplicitous frenemy Kate who brings Black to the party. Patrick Falcon shows the pain under Black's pretty-boy exterior, and he and Smith deliver one of the score's highlights with their duet "People Like Us." Ryan Lanning has a field day with the tragicomic Jackie—the apparently bi-sexual dandy who loses his good-time veneer under an alcohol and drug-induced haze. There are many more memorable performances in the smaller supporting roles. Christina Hall is a controlling lesbian with a much younger mousy girl-toy (Molly Coleman), a teenager who's just thrilled to be at the party. Gilbert Domally and Desmond Gray are the gay twin brothers Phil and Oscar D'Armano, while Steven Perkins is touching as the jock Eddie. Jason Grimm and Jason Richards have comic roles as the two moneymen buying the vaudeville house and moving it uptown. Khaki Pixley and Sasha Smith round out the cast as Mae and Sally. The entire cast sounds great performing LaChiusa's music. Though the numbers have strong musical hooks, LaChiusa doesn't write a lot of traditionally structured songs. They're great in the moment, though, advancing the story and establishing emotions and mood. It's a lot to take in on a first listening, but well worth repeated listens. Music director Aaron Benham is well up to the challenge of LaChiusa's jazzy, urgent music and the four-piece band of reeds, bass, trumpet and percussion provide an appropriate honky-tonk take on the complex score. It's not surprising that two composers and two sets of producers were interested in musicalizing March's story of hedonism and how life and reality have a way of barging in on the party. It's intense material that's much enhanced by music in its storytelling. Neither version lived long in New York, but they're both worth reviving. The story is no feel-good piece for matinee ladies, but it's a fun party nonetheless—and one you can attend without suffering a hangover afterwards. The Wild Party will run through November 1, 2014, at the Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. For more information, visit bailiwickchicago.com. Tickets are available by phone at 773-871-3000, online at www.victorygardens.org or in person at the Victory Gardens Box Office.
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