Film actor Timothée Chalamet recently sparked controversy in the performing arts world by characterizing ballet and opera as dying art forms — not a novel sentiment, of course, but rather the latest foray into an ongoing debate. I couldn’t help but think of Chalamet’s comments as I watched the characters of “Changing Channels,” a play by John Reeger now in its Chicago premiere at City Lit Theater, adjust to an entertainment landscape drastically altered by the rise of television in the early 1950s.
Protagonist Maggie Carlin (Kat Evans) grew up performing in vaudeville acts and is now a promising TV comedian, while her husband, Peter Bell (Skyler Tipton), is a former stage thespian turned radio actor. With TV’s predominance seeming more and more inevitable, they face serious career decisions that will affect their young family’s future. While TV versus radio versus live theater isn’t the main conflict of the play, it’s an important backdrop to what follows: Maggie and Peter are both accused of communist affiliations during the Cold War-era “Red Scare,” when such allegations often resulted in being blacklisted or worse.
Directed by Kevin Theis, this backstage comedic drama evokes the tone of classic sitcoms such as “I Love Lucy,” with cheesy puns and physical humor flying both on and offstage. In Maggie’s opening scene, the lively redhead is preparing to go on air for a recurring sketch in which she and co-star Eddie Gillroy (Orion Lay-Sleeper) play a bickering married couple who always manage to make up by the end of the act. Eddie, a blustering man who’s often the loudest to laugh at the fat jokes hurled his way, is on the cusp of landing a new contract for his own variety show at CBS, a much larger network than his and Maggie’s current employer. And he wants his trusted co-star to change channels with him, promising to triple her salary.
When the publication of the Red Channels list (an actual document that named prominent artists such as Leonard Bernstein and Orson Welles) threatens to derail this major career leap, Maggie denies that she’s a communist but nevertheless objects to signing CBS’s mandatory loyalty oath on principle. Regardless of her political views, she strongly believes that official conformity shouldn’t be a prerequisite for employment. Anachronistically paraphrasing famous quotes attributed to broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maggie asserts that “Dissent is not disloyalty,” and “If you choose to do nothing in the face of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Although the plot is fairly predictable, the themes of “Changing Channels” are obviously relevant in a time when political influence in media seems on a one-way upward trajectory, whether the means are direct governmental pressure or the financial influence of billionaires. What saves this show from becoming a straightforward morality tale is the fact that the respective decisions of Maggie, Eddie and Kenny (a young studio assistant played by Andrew Pappas) aren’t without nuance. Maggie has children depending on her; Eddie has lower-level employees depending on him; Kenny is just getting started in the entertainment business. None of their situations makes the choice easy.
Eddie, who initially comes across as affable but rather selfish and misogynistic, has the most interesting character arc in the second act, when he experiences some pensive moments. In a conversation with his agent, Bullets Bloomquist (Johnny Moran), Eddie laments the current climate of fear and mistrust. After achieving victory in World War II, you’d think the American people would feel confident and safe, he muses. If only that darned Joseph Stalin hadn’t come along.
Eddie’s comments touch on an enduring dilemma faced by every democratic society: how to strike the right balance between freedom and security. While the media, technology and global politics of the 2020s look quite different from those of the 1950s, this question remains as urgent as it was during the heyday of McCarthysim.
Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.
Review: “Changing Channels” (3 stars)
When: Through April 12
Where: City Lit Theater at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $40 at 773-293-3682 and citylit.org
