Act 1 of the new musical at the Broadway Playhouse, “A Taste of Things to Come,” is set in a Winnetka kitchen in 1957, amid women bonding over (and singing about) pregnancy, cooking, thwarted career ambitions, flawed husbands or the lack thereof. For a while, I thought that the creative team wanted most to bathe its audience in the warm haze of nostalgic memory, much as, say “Jersey Boys” did for folks who vividly recall hanging out under lampposts, being up to no good.
Then I did the math. In order to have been in such a kitchen and, like the four women in this piece, in your mid-20s, you would now have to be at least in the latter half of your 80s. I still know quite a few loyal theatergoers in that rich sector of life, but they’re not a huge group and, believe me, not all of them are going for nostalgia. The ones I know prefer to stay on top of what’s new and hot.
Which is not how you would describe “A Taste of Things to Come,” which is inoffensive, intermittently amusing, replete with a melodic original score, exceptionally well performed by a charming, Broadway-caliber cast and thoroughly formulaic.
Unnecessarily so, to my mind. Given that most of us aren’t here to remember, but rather to look for meaning.
Take the premise of the opening act: The women have decided to enter a menu-making contest sponsored by Betty Crocker (not that there really was a Betty Crocker). There is some very light dabbling with stuff on the countertop and some pouring of cocktails, but not for a second do you believe that these are real North Shore women, really cooking together in service of a protofeminist communal achievement. Their typology keeps intruding: If only the set-up could somehow be more organic, more true, and if only the heart could be more engaged. Sure, the idea of the kitchen as a crucial place of bonding and achievement is in the air — the show is not dumb — but the commitment to some kind of truth and reality needs to be so much stronger.
By Act 2, we’re in the 1960s and able to watch the women 10 years later. This is by far the stronger act, quite enjoyable even, although you’re still not entirely sure where the show wants us to travel. Half of the set has flown out by now, replaced by a vista of the show’s all-woman band, and it feels like we’re in a TV studio rather than a kitchen, but the switch in style is never explained. We’re told that the reason for this reunion of the Winnetka cooking club is a big surprise, but, when it arrives, it does not carry enough oomph to send you away satisfied. The show, all in all, needs a whole lot more at stake.
If you like the music of these two eras, you’ll enjoy the totally original score (no jukebox stuff here), penned by Debra Barsha and Hollye Levin, especially in Act 2, when it clings more closely to the material and better connects emotionally. You’ll have some mild laughs throughout. And when I say the cast — the women are Libby Servais, Marissa Rosen, Cortney Wolfson and Linedy Genao — is strong, that is not at all faint praise. They’re really great, all four of them, and they work like crazy to fire up the room.
But, especially in the first act, which remains very problematic, the show, which is directed and choreographed by Lorin Lattaro, does not feel to me like it really figured out its own reason for being, beyond a commercial musical featuring characters in whom we maybe can see fragments of ourselves. Maybe. If we think we are a type. The more these fine actresses are allowed to build the freshness, specificity and originality of their charges, the better for the movement.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “A Taste of Things to Come” (2.5 stars)
When: Through April 29
Where: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St.
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Tickets: $30-$70 at 800-775-2000 or www.broadwayinchicago.com
