That is the unspoken whisper that hangs in the air as the lights dim and the show begins. And sometimes we are, as the power of live performance displays its ability to enrich the soul, provide self-discovery and give us a sense of shared experience.
Elsewhere in this magazine you will read what some of the paper’s critics consider their most surprising live performances. You also will read about some of the other memorable things they have seen and be introduced to some youngsters we feel are destined to make indelible memories for us and for you.
It all reminds me how fortunate we are to live in a place where live performances are so accessible, and how lucky we are to have them in such variety. Yes, some can bruise the pocketbook-a good seat for “Wicked” can set you back $122.50–and some of them invite another whisper: Be bored.
But on any given night there are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of performances taking place in all sorts of venues. In comedy clubs and jazz joints, dance clubs and ballrooms, hotel lounges with piano bars, folk clubs and cabarets, polka clubs and basement blues bars, theaters, galleries, concert halls. Even on street corners you will see and hear singers, actors, poets, musicians, dancers. Short of snake charmers-and who can be sure?-is any form of performance not available here?
No one has seen more of this world than Richard Christiansen, the former chief critic of the Tribune. Live performance has been his beat for more than half a century (not only did he see the Beatles, he interviewed them!). He brings to his essay unique expertise, a lifetime’s accumulated passion and thousands of memories.
One we share: Sitting in an upstairs space of Wisdom Bridge Theater in 1983. Bill Petersen is about to portray condemned killer Jack Henry Abbott on the opening night of “In the Belly of the Beast.” Between Christiansen and I sits my father, Herman, a former drama and book critic, a mentor to Christiansen (and, of course, to me), a man who could get misty-eyed recalling nights watching and listening to Billie Holiday, and a man who once told me: “Watching a live performance is a restorative thing. When people come together to share this experience, it saves us from despair. It gives us hope.”
The lights go down. The play begins. The whisper in the air is about to be fulfilled.
