Steadstyle Chicago
June 2009 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
City of Angels
If movies are all about shadows and images, then musical plays are about energy and style. Wheaton Drama's production of "City of Angels" has a serious deficit of both. If ever a show was in need of a caffeine fix it is this one. I have always been a supporter of community theatre and Wheaton Drama has proven itself in the past productions I have seen, but they have missed this one by a long shot. The choice of show is a problem for starters. Even in the hands of professionals, this 1990 Tony Award winner is a tough one to pull off successfully. It needs the right mix of film noir and jazz sass to deliver Larry Gelbart's dense script and Cy Coleman and David Zippel's swinging score. What it gets at Wheaton is a utilitarian, bare-bones performance marred by weak voices and even weaker acting.
Close-up on Los Angeles, circa 1940's. A corpse is wheeled onstage on a gurney, which should give you an idea of where the evening is headed. The body belongs to a hardboiled private dick named Stone, who we find is actually the literary creation of novelist Stine (Stone/Stine, get it?). The author and his creation are both poised to make the jump from the black and white ink and paper of the small time dime novel into the brilliant Technicolor wonders of the movies, so long as Stine can play ball in the Hollywood game.
The Hollywood Production Code is in full force and Producer Buddy Fiddler holds the leash on the studio's purse strings. The stories of detective and novelist cross-fade from one to the other as the duo get mixed up in murder, adultery and artistic compromise. In one of the show's best numbers, "You're Nothing Without Me," we get a Pirandello-like confrontation between the artist and his own subject. Is the writer's pen mightier than his subject's sword?
In the original production, the transition from "real" to "reel" time was creatively handled by dividing the costumes and sets into black and white and color. No such distinction exists at Wheaton. Everything remains in a drab monochromatic palette that grows visually boring during the long and sluggishly paced production. An 8-piece offstage band sounded as if it were playing Cy Coleman's jazz flavored score down the block. Is that percussion actually live or Memorex, it was hard to tell?
The same sluggish anemia seems to have affected the acting as well. Douglas Orlyk looks as if he were sleep-walking as the Detective. As the novelist, David Pfenninger has the best voice in the cast, even if his meek nebbish of a character seems flat and uninteresting. And the rest of the large cast generally fall into a case of indifference in every department. I am sorry to report that this "City" is artistically desolate.
"City of Angels" plays through June 28, 2009 at Wheaton Drama, located at 111 North Hale Street in Wheaton. Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $18 and $21. Call 630-260-1820 or visit www.wheatondrama.org.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for
the past twenty-five years. He served as founder, producer and
Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland
and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions
have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap,"
"The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker,"
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie
Brown" and "Godspell". He has also performed
leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin,"
"The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and
most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for
Waukegan Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial
Art from Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has
reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major
regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey,
Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in
Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).