July 2010 Reviews - Chicago

[porschesrule]

Again, Steamboy, thank you so much for an enlightening and well written review. Love the tech stuff!

[Steamboy]

DING DING DING Bonus Round!!!!

A grand slam with an extra point on the double play!!!

Work got wrapped up sufficiently early that (by skipping supper) I was able to make tonight’s performance, and am I ever glad I did! Tommy was on deck as Billy, allowing me to complete my first grand slam, seeing all current Billys of a production within a week’s time. Adding to the evening was the regular Tall Boy Spencer Milford as Michael, and filling in as Tall Boy was Cesar (I suppose they could have added JP as Small Boy and Giuseppe as Debbie, but that might be pushing it).

Seat was B 116, second row aisle. You can just barely see the entire floor (sightline skimming floor level), faces are plainly visible, and you can even hear natural voices for much of the show. You can also hear the cooling fans of the moving lights during quiet scenes, and the main speakers tend to blat at you a bit, but all in all a good seat.

Billy – Tommy
Michael – Spencer
SB – Elijah
Mrs. W – Susie McMonagle
Dead Mum – Susan Haefner
Clipboard Woman – Kate Marilley
Tall Boy – Cesar
Adult Billy – Nicholas Torres

Tommy gave what I consider the best performance of the week. His Billy comes across as one that is aimlessly drifting until he finds focus in dance, and his greater experience in the role shows in his acting. Some Billys I’ve seen in the past have been somewhat robotic, going here or there because they’re blocked to, but Tommy seems to be much more in the moment, and has learned that a head tilt, an eyebrow twitch, or a split second can make or break a scene. An example I’ve seen with several Billys over the years is grabbing their trainers from under the bed and holding them up while still saying ‘they’re absolutely not here”, whereas Tommy completed that line before holding them up and saying “Found them!”. The closeness of my seat to the stage, as opposed to some of the more distant or extreme side seats I’ve been in this week might be a contributing factor, but I think his acting is just a level up from many of the other Billys I’ve seen (which is now a two-digit number – I’m not singling out his current castmates). Another factor might be that I kept seeing flashes of Jamie Bell in his facial expressions – one can always do worse than to copy the original-original Billy.

Spencer earns high marks as Michael – there can be a tendency to play the role as a stereotype, and let the script do the work of providing the comedy, but Spencer approaches it with more of an eye to making Michael a real character, yet reveling in Michael’s freedom. The handwarming scene between the boys went especially well – I’ve always like Stuart Well’s vulnerability in that scene from BETF, and tonight’s version drank from that well.

A couple minor mishaps – Tommy missed his step and tripped on the stairs to his room on the eve of the Newcastle audition, but just as quickly caught himself and kept on climbing. Act II’s intro saw the next collision – when the Small Boy hides from George under his donation bucket, Cesar was a bit too close behind, and got a light whack in the face from the bucket. The stray balloon from last night was no longer on the ceiling (no idea what they did to get it down), and Tommy had a loop of flesh-colored athletic tape below his right knee.

The close-in seat let me appreciate some of the details in the set I hadn’t been able to observe from a distance. The light switches are the rocker types common in the UK, and the outlets in the walls are the round pin style used there as well (although I doubt they’re wired for 220 volt power). I was able to see the bottom edge of the upstage wall during ‘Once Were Kings’, and since it was a wavy line, I’m wondering if the section that opens is actually a heavy curtain with brick texture, instead of a sliding door. This would be easier and narrower to work with than a tracked door, or the waviness might just be for a light-blocking skirt along the bottom of a hard door.

Located to the stage left of my seat was a large black box sitting on the floor, doing it’s best to not call attention to itself (somewhat successfully, it seems, since I hadn’t spotted it before). Closer inspection revealed that it was indeed a large subwoofer, and since I hadn’t seen a similar unit on the other side of the house, I went looking (putting a sub on one side only would be an unusual choice for speaker locations). I finally found its partner hiding under the stage, on a scaffold in the pit under the stage right stairs. Since they were the same size and shape, and had the same wiring on the back, as the ones on the lighting truss, I’m assuming that the ones on the truss are indeed the effects subs for the balcony. I listened for the one next to me, and like I’d thought, it really only came alive during moments that needed extra oomph.

I was in a great position to see Jackie crack open a real egg for Grandma’s cooked breakfast, and could even hear the sizzle as it hit the skillet. A friend of mine does most of the indoor pyro for Chicago, and he’d asked me a few months ago what there were for pyro cues in BETM, as they’d been called during the production process, but not told what was really wanted, so I told him about the exploding sausage in BETMUK. Apparently, the regulations and union agreements in Chicago are such that they would have ended up hiring a crewperson for each show to do the sausage cue, and only the sausage cue, plus probably a firefighter to stand by in case the sausage burnt down the theater somehow…. So they cut the pyro effect, and the egg we have now got hired instead.

This truly will be the end of the Billython - at showtime tomorrow, I'll either be headed home, or in an argument with a crew about why my truck isn't loaded yet. A friend back home has recently gotten the Billybug, so we might roadtrip in for a weekend soon, but until then, I'll have this round of memories to savor.

[Billy Whiz]

I'll be in Chicago for the coming week (7/8 - 7/16) for work, but I don't know what, if any, times I'll have open to go catch the show... it'll be a major bummer if I'm that close that long, and can't break away!

Well you seem to have done pretty well in catching five shows

Well done and thanks for the great reviews.

[CJ-Rochester]

Thanks for a great set of reviews Steamboy! Sounds like you had quite a week.