In the 12 months’ traffic of our stages, one of the major news stories of the year was what did not happen.
In 1996, none of the major bricks-and-mortar projects that had been anticipated and hoped for in theater and dance were started.
The renovation of the downtown Oriental Theatre by Livent Inc. as a home for large-scale musicals, a plan unveiled with fanfare in January, did not begin, although Garth Drabinsky, Livent’s chief executive officer, expects work to get under way in the new year, with an opening sometime in 1998.
Two other local downtown theaters also languished in limbo, their building plans all in order but their funding sources unresolved. The proposed 1,500-seat Music And Dance (MAD) Theater Chicago, its design revealed more than two years ago, did not reach the promised groundbreaking date in late fall; and Goodman Theatre’s long-held hopes of moving from its present home behind the Art Institute to a new complex to be fashioned from the old Harris and Selwyn theaters remained stalled.
There were many and complex reasons for the delays, and both MAD and Goodman executives were insistent in doggedly affirming that the plans eventually would reach reality. Whatever the reasons, the conclusion is inevitable: If these projects want to jump off the drawing board and into construction, they will have to start moving ahead dramatically in 1997. Otherwise, there is the danger that they will be considered unnecessary and impractical.
Some building plans did move ahead. Northlight Theatre, which had its own tangle of problems in finding a new home, is ready to move into the new North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie next spring. And the newly merged Organic/Touchstone by next season will have established itself in the Organic’s North Side home.
Meanwhile, the work of the moment continued, at a quicker pace and with what seemed to be more activity than ever.
The big revival of “Show Boat” arrived, happily, and held forth through the year in the Auditorium Theatre, while the old Shubert Theatre, once considered a losing proposition in an age of big, high-tech auditoriums, kept busy with its own subscription season and a variety of rental attractions.
A look at the Top Twelve shows of the year shows how varied and fruitful the resident theater scene was in 1996.
And there was more. The Goodman Theatre Studio, for example, was host to the startling and eloquent voice of playwright Kia Corthron, who made her local debut with “Seeking the Genesis,” an uneven drama with a consistently fine, fierce play of language. And Pegasus Players, always outdoing itself in realizing grand projects with limited resources, brought off a cohesive, forceful staging of Robert Schenkkan’s “The Kentucky Cycle,” a theater marathon that in its writing ran weakly in the home stretch.
A slew of autobiographical one-person shows brought riveting performances from such big names as Mandy Patinkin and Spalding Gray, as well as from many local players on smaller stages, including Alexandra Billings in her account of her sexual journey from man to woman, “Before I Disappear.”
Gay theater, once an oddity in the theater schedule, became a mainstream staple (“Love! Valour! Compassion!” at Organic/Touchstone) and an annual occurrence through the Bailiwick Repertory’s Pride series and a new and promising company, About Face, dedicated to exploring the gay experience.
With “Show Boat” still going at the Auditorium, with “The House of Martin Guerre” and “Randy Newman’s Faust” doing big business at Goodman, and with the inevitable Donny Osmond still selling out in his third engagement with “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the Chicago Theater, song and dance had a good year here, although the slow box office start of the excellent holiday show,”That’s Christmas!” at the Shubert was a late-season puzzlement.
The year had a bounty of bravura performances: Amy Morton’s grieving, embattled wife in David Mamet’s “The Cryptogram” at Steppenwolf; Michael Shannon’s nerdy goon, in his death throes, in Jez Butterworth’s “Mojo” at Steppenwolf Theatre; Nick Offerman’s brutish, buffoonish Pa Ubu in Defiant Theatre’s “Ubu Raw”; Steve Pickering’s flamboyant newsman Walter Burns in “The Front Page” at Next Theatre; Jenny Bacon’s lost, valiant “Molly Sweeney” at Steppenwolf; Mike Nussbaum’s decent, troubled cleric in David Hare’s “Racing Demon” at Organic/Touchstone; Demetrius D. Thornton’s brilliant, hurting teenager in “Seeking the Genesis,” and Robert Petkoff’s Byronic young Dane, hurling himself headlong into the Napoleonic court of “Hamlet” at Shakespeare Repertory.
One nasty little piece of unfinished business as the year ended was the contretemps between the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee and the managements of four theaters–Goodman, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens and Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre–over the annual awards structure and the increased role that the theaters wanted to take in setting the direction of the Jeffs. After months of negotiations, the whole affair began to look like a stale, sour joke.
The sooner this dust-up is resolved the better. Perhaps it’s a project in which Marj Halperin, the new executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres, might test her negotiating powers.
Peace on Earth to them–and to one and all.
AND NOW THE YEAR’S TOP 12
The top 12 productions staged in Chicago area theaters in 1996 are, in order of their opening dates:
“Twelfth Night” (Shakespeare Repertory): A charming, imaginative, delightfully enacted production of the Shakespeare comedy, staged by the English actor-director Michael Pennington, who made himself right at home in Chicago.
“Having Our Say” (Briar Street Theatre): The lives and times of the Delany Sisters, two spunky black centenarians, beguilingly presented by adaptor-director Emily Mann.
“Arcadia” (Goodman Theatre): Tom Stoppard’s glittering philosophical comedy, staged with clarity and polish by his foremost American director, Michael Maggio.
“Show Boat” (Auditorium Theatre, still playing): The blockbuster revival of the classic American musical, lavishly and truly revived in a Class-A production.
“A Touch of the Poet” (Goodman): Director Robert Falls and actor Brian Dennehy, combining to bring off a rousing rendition of this sometimes ponderous yet essential drama by Eugene O’Neill.
“The Cryptogram” (Steppenwolf Studio Theatre): David Mamet’s chilling drama of innocence lost and parental betrayal, powerfully portrayed by Amy Morton, Marc Vann and the youngster Zaks Lubin.
“Passion” (Pegasus Players): A well-sung, well-staged version of the dark musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, beautifully realizing the noble ambitions of the adventurous Pegasus production.
“Ubu Raw” (Defiant Theatre): Alfred Jarry’s landmark nihilistic farce, powered by a sensational jolt of Chicago off-Loop energy in this elaborate, hell-bent staging.
“The House of Martin Guerre” (Goodman): A new folk musical by the young Canadian composer Leslie Arden, expertly shepherded to a lovely production by director David Petrarca.
“Molly Sweeney” (Steppenwolf Theatre): Superb acting and inventive direction (by Kyle Donnelly) in Brian Friel’s dazzling trio of monologues on the life of a blind woman who regains her sight and loses her soul.
“Randy Newman’s Faust” (Goodman): Wit, laughter, great songs and a most engaging staging, in a musical that was not yet quite together.
“Hamlet” (Shakespeare Repertory): Director Barbara Gaines’ striking production of the great tragedy, played with intelligence, imagination and energy and featuring a stunning central portrayal by Robert Petkoff.
