When sitting down for breakfast with three characters named Butternut, Maxwell and Bean, you’d better be prepared to drink some coffee. Lots of it.
On this lovely Saturday morning after a late Friday night, the guys are getting fueled up for the first of three packed performances of their perky comedy revue “Triple Espresso,” the next attraction at Chicago’s Mercury Theater.
Hugh Butternut, Buzz Maxwell and Bobby Bean are better known to their families and friends as Michael Pearce Donley, Bill Arnold and Bob Stromberg. These new-age vaudevillians, all of whom hail from the Twin Cities, have spent the better part of the summer and autumn here beside the sea, telling the musical tale of three star-crossed performers who reunite 20 years after a bitter split.
Described as a combination of “new vaudeville and interactive theater,” “Triple Espresso” is a peppy revue that showcases the work of these three savvy troupers. Needless to say, they’re not nearly as clueless or bereft of talent as Maxwell, Butternut and Bean.
Still, perusing the mostly ecstatic reviews for “Triple Espresso,” one is struck by the number of times the word “corny” is mentioned.
In critic-speak, the term generally applies to a type of unsophisticated, G-rated humor that appeals simultaneously to children and adults. Generally, the writers hate it.
Most of the corn in “Triple Espresso” is shucked during the “interactive” portion of the program. It includes sing-alongs, hand wagging and mime, none of which seemed to bother the paying customers at the Friday-night performance.
When informed Chicago is the kind of town where sing-alongs are limited to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”–and fans who try to start a “wave” are ostracized–the lads insisted they don’t expect their efforts to be met with the deafening sound of silence.
“I marvel when people sing `My Home Is Montana’ with us,” admits Stromberg, a human Slinky who graduated from Chicago’s North Park College before moving to Maine to study mime. “But we’ve done a hundred shows in Minneapolis, another 100 here and conventions around the country. Never once did people not respond the way they did last night.
“If we can get them to sing, we’ve got them.”
Before committing to “Triple Espresso,” Stromberg performed before school, church, camp and convention groups, doing motivational material that combined storytelling, music and comedy. Although a student of the silent art–his gorilla is a show-stopper–he’s not blind to its detractors.
“When I left mime school in 1977, I swore I would never pretend to lean on a cane on stage or pull a rope,” he says. “I started studying mime when it was real cool. Then it got to be a terrible joke.”
Arnold began learning magic when he was 19, learning one trick at a time to impress his friends at parties. He affects a deadpan personality in his act–recalling “Mr. Carlin” of “The Bob Newhart Show”–which he has performed at conventions and for Prison Fellowship gigs.
Donley is a singer-songwriter who has a great deal of fun with the ’70s lounge material, but stops short of parody.
“I don’t want to make fun of the people whose songs I’m playing,” he explains. “I know that, for the audience, these are memories–something that associates with an earlier time they feel nostalgic about.”
After being launched last year at Minneapolis’ Cricket Theater, where the Mercury’s Michael Cullen first saw the show, “Triple Espresso” was remounted and showcased for hit-starved commercial producers from around the country. Lamb’s Players Theater first brought it to Coronado, then moved the revue to San Diego’s Gaslight District.
The team knows it faces a daunting assignment in Chicago, where the cast is virtually unknown and must compete against established companies and such new arrivals as “Rent” and Blue Man Group.
If they win over Chicago audiences, though, “Triple Espresso” could follow the same path as longshot hits “Defending the Caveman,” “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Always . . . Patsy Cline.”
“Our goal is to have other casts doing it around the country, in other theaters,” says Stromberg. “But our vision is not so much to create an actor’s piece as a vaudevillian’s piece.”
Thus, where the current show highlights mime and magic, another trio might focus on other routines.
“If we found someone who was doing ventriloquism successfully, we’d take the magic out and put ventriloquism in,” Stromberg suggests. “Or, my part could go to somebody who juggles. But not just someone who can juggle . . . somebody who really has 10 minutes they can kill with.”
In an effort to get help the word out in Chicago, “Triple Espresso” producers have enlisted Starbucks Coffee as a promotional partner. In exchange for allowing posters and fliers to be placed in its locations, the chain’s employees will be invited to shows, and matinee tickets also will be provided to the Literacy Foundation, which Starbucks supports.
Executive producer Dennis Babcock says: “We are starting from scratch in Chicago. Our focus has been to reach out to target groups–concierges, churches, hairdressers–and try to put together incentives for them to see the shows during the first two weeks.
“Of all the shows I’ve worked on in my life, I’ve never seen one that has such a strong word-of-mouth. That’s what you need.”
To that end, Babcock is willing “to paper the first two weeks with people who are going to talk.”
Meanwhile, the Mercury Theater’s group-sales department has been working overtime to fill seats.
“We’ve been making phone calls to groups that we’ve worked with in the past . . . schools, banks, senior citizens,” says the Mercury’s Jo Flash. “We’re sending out fliers and copies of reviews. We’ve also offered individual members the opportunity to view the show during the first week on us so they can go back to their members.”
Her biggest problem is that most organized groups are so active they already have locked in their plans well into 1998.
“A lot of the groups are already booked,” she explains. “But they are interested in my getting back to them, if the show should be extended into the spring.”
One of the key selling points for “Triple Espresso” is the trio’s willingness to make the show accessible to a wide range of audiences. In San Diego, they’re working six days a week with three shows on Saturday and two on Sunday. The matinees have drawn school and scout groups, as well as birthday and office parties.
The lively, family-friendly material on stage reflects the actors’ values and isn’t likely to offend any segment of the audience.
“I’ve been trying to explain the show to people for a year now, but it’s difficult,” observes Babcock. “So, I just say, `Look, it’s fun, you’ll have a great time. You can take your mother and not have to worry about it. Trust me.’ “
It somehow seems strange that the more wholesome a show is, the more challenging it is to sell to the public.
But, declares Stromberg, “it’s who we are. We’re not rigid people, but we all share the same faith. It informs the kind of stuff we write, which we want to be clean and funny.
” `Triple Espresso’ is an adult comedy that’s appropriate for the whole family. We feel pretty confident Chicagoans will love our play.”
