PeoriaStory

Civic Center Broadway Theater Series ends with a whimper

PEORIA -- The Peoria Civic Center's Broadway Theater series ended with a whimper, not a bang.  The Rat Pack is Back played May 2, but was a very mediocre show, a C-minus, compared with the others this season.

I was worried when I found out there was not even a program to identify the performers. No program?  What is that?

Four unidentified guys played Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop.  They performed Sinatra-era songs interspersed with lame jokes, including one that mentioned the film Brokeback Mountain, which the rat pack certainly never saw.

There was no narration, no plot and no sets unless you count a rolled out table of liquor. They laughed about hanging out at the Par-A-Dice casino and Big Al's, out of character.

The 12-piece orchestra on the stage was the best part of the show, playing jazz-laced numbers with verve.

Otherwise, the singers, who slightly resembled the rat pack characters, lacked the talent to carry off the roles.  They could sing, but let's face it -- the authentic  rat pack had outsized talents, way beyond what these performers could do. 

This show has been touring for years, and there are lots of sites on the Web for it. In one version Marilyn Monroe appears. Not the one in Peoria, though, which makes me wonder if this is a low rent copy of the original show.  If so, shame on the Civic Center series for booking it and fooling the customers.

There also were technical problems with the sound system -- unexplained booms and pops.  The Sinatra character kept fooling with his malfunctioning earpiece. Quite distracting.

Rat Pack was a sad contrast with Shrek the Musical which played April 25, beautifully done with brillant sets and costumes and talented performers who acted, sang and danced. The dragon puppet was especially interesting.

It was a fine show for children as well as adults.

The Rat Pack is Back could have been so much better, with period videos, a story line, and more talented performers. The songs were wonderful but not enough to carry this type of show.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Russian ballet: spectacular

PEORIA -- The Grigorovich Ballet of Russia opened on March 2 at the Peoria Civic Center, and plays again on March 3, performing Khachaturian's Spartacus. 

If it's half as well done as the March 2 show, it's a dont-miss event! 

The March 2 show, Legends of Russian Ballet, lived up to its name with short pieces from Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, a scene from Raymond by Glazunov, and choreographed numbers from composers including  Chopin, Shostakovich  Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin.

The two-hour show was wonderful, with exotic costumes and scenery, and especially the dancers, all flawless in body, face and form. 

What's not to like when a show includes fencing, leaping men in tights, ballerinas in tu-tus, eight toreadors, and slaves at the sultan's court in blackface. (How long has it been since that occurred on a Peoria stage?)

A couple of flaws: The printed program was too brief, and contained no information about the dancers, leaving the audience to wonder about their training and background.

Luckily, the web helps. Grigorovich, himself, is quite a story.  He leads a world-class ballet troupe.

The music was recorded, not live, but the sound system was perfect. 

The Civic Center had reduced the price of tickets to $25, a wise move as that apparently allowed many children to attend. There was nary a bored moment from any of them. They were transfixed.

We had paid full price, and got a refund for the excess at the box office. That was nice, though the show was worth way more than $25.

Ballet is such an astonishing combination of art and athleticism with obvious erotic overtones. Amazing.

  - Elaine Hopkins

 

Show Boat in Chicago: Terrific

CHICAGO -- If you're in Chicago, don't miss the vintage musical/opera Show Boat at the Lyric Opera.  It runs until March 17, intermittently with other productions.

It's pricey but worth the money.  You might try picking up a ticket outside the theater, for a discount. But the Lyric Opera is a huge, gorgeous venue, so take binoculars to feast your eyes on the spectacular costumes and sets.

Show Boat, dubbed Jerome Kerns's masterpiece, was written and performed in the 1920s, and it remains alive today, a kind of current/back to the future, story.

The songs are familiar, embedded in the pop music cannon, and the themes -- interracial marriage and issues, and show biz striving, remain alive.

The huge cast is half black, half white, half Broadway performers, half opera performers.  All are wonderful. 

This show set the stage and themes for subsequent musical theater -- and as a founder it remains one of the best. Like "Ole Man River,"  it keeps flowing through our minds. 

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Rock of Ages a satire on rockers and their music

PEORIA -- The musical Rock of Ages is a high energy, slickly done but loud satire on rock music and the people involved with it. A kind of low rent Rent without the real issues and emotions of that fine play. 

The musical rocked into the Peoria Civic Center on Jan. 17 and plays again on Jan. 18. It features scantily clad, sexy females and rocker-guys, backed by on-stage rock musicians. Everyone sings and dances well, though this is not an Actors Equity cast. 

The set and special effects are brilliantly done, with artifacts from the past including a TWA travel bag, a giant mobile telephone, vintage t-shirts and a boom box. The play is set in the 1980s.

But no cliche is left unmentioned in the characters and plot, making this a very odd play -- a satire that also loves its subject.

The almost sell-out crowd was mostly 40 and 50-somethings, very happy to re-live their youthful days when rock was young and hip. Those older members of the audience were not as enthusiastic, and may have been baffled by unfamiliar rock music from the past.

This is not Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Weber, or even Wicked.

It's amusing, OK for an evening's entertainment, but not nearly so good as many other plays in the Broadway series recently. 

The weakness is the book, obviously crafted around the classic rock songs -- that once seemed fresh but now seem repetitious -- that the producers were able to get permission to use.  It's pretty good, but not great.  And loud. 

Here's the well done PJS preview story on the show.  It plays in St. Louis, Mo. on Feb. 3-5.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

 

Heartland Festival: Wow

WASHINGTON, IL  -- Sweet, spicy, then wow!  That's what happened at the Heartland Festival Orchestra's Jan. 7 New Year's Greeting concert, Vienna to Broadway, at the Five Points Center, just outside Peoria.

Two Broadway stars, superb singers and actors Elizabeth Southard and Gary Mauer, wowed the audience as they sang and acted songs ranging from a medley from Show Boat to  "All I Ask of You" and "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera.

They were marvelous! Slick, professional,beautiful, brilliant performers.

The orchestra was amazing, swinging from light classical numbers such as Blue Danube Waltz to the jazz big band sound of "All That Jazz" and the "West Side Story Overture."

There was even a number, "Feuerfest Polka" by Johann Strauss, Jr. which featured two antique-looking anvils played with hammers, to comic effect.

The Heartland Orchestra was beautifully turned out, in tuxes and colorful gowns, but that didn't prevent the atmosphere of informal intimacy that always prevails in its concerts.

After the standing ovation, and an encore, the evening ended with colorful balloons falling from the ceiling to offer a final celebration to the new year.

Every Heartland Festival concert seems better than the previous one, but besting this concert may be impossible.  It was that good.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

Dickens alive

PEORIA -- The brilliant language and unforgetable characters of Charles Dickens are as alive today as they were in 1843. 

Actor Doug Dan proved that during his skillful reading of A Christmas Carol, a Dec. 4 fund raiser for the GAR Hall in Peoria. It was lovely event, riveting, actually, and should become an annual holiday presentation.

Ebenezer Scrooge is -- wouldn't you know it -- a banker!  Part of the 1 percent. 

He refuses to give to charity and praises jails, work houses and child labor (the predecessor of Newt?). When told people, even children, might die, he cynically responds "decreases the surplus population." 

Then he confronts the ghosts of his dreams, who teach him a painful lesson leading to his redemption."The time before him was his own -- to make amends."

Day skillfully played the various characters, in an audiobook-quality performance.

"I love his language," Day afterward said of Dickens.  Scrooge is the Lloyd Blankfein of his day.  Dickens was the original Dennis Kuchinich, he said.

Day added that Dickens pioneered liberal attitudes, "caring for other people, thinking of others, people helping others. It's very timely." 

Dickens' portrait of family life at Christmas, with food, friends, games, family and warmth, is also enduring,  Day said.

Imagine that -- no TV blaring in the background, no incessant texting, no earphones isolating those wearing them from everyone else.

Let's hope there's a repeat performance next year.

-- Elaine Hopkins

 

Skirting Convention fascinating

PEORIA -- They travelled, they taught, they joined together to promote the arts, and their art; they formed radical societies and created museum-quality art from everything.

That's the message from Lakeview Museum's lovely exhibit, Skirting Convention: Illinois Women Artists 1840-1940.  It runs until Jan. 15, 2012,and is well worth seeing.

The art works themselves are varied and fine: imaginative oils, watercolors, drawings, sculpture on a variety of subjects.  The artists, women in a man's world, were amazing.  They did it all, as the exceptional commentaries beside their works reveal.

Lakeview Museum, at 1125 W. Lake, deserves much credit for creating this fascinating exhibit. Don't miss it.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Gloria and Requiem: interesting music

PEORIA -- Two modern choral works, Poulene's Gloria (1959) and Durufle's Requiem (1947), were well performed at a Nov. 20 concert St. Mary's Cathedral, by the Bradley University Community Chorus and Bradley Symphony Orchestra.

These beautiful, modern, and at times dissonent works, sung in Latin, echoed through the tall cathedral, which has lovely accoustics for choral and symphonic music.  A children's Treble Choir in the second balcony also sang during the Requiem, adding an angelic flavor to the piece.

The many people involved in this program deserve congratulations for presenting these difficult but beautiful choral works. 

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Young Frankenstein a Blast

PEORIA -- The Peoria Civic Center's Broadway series has a second hit with Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein, a very funny and well done musical playing twice only on Nov. 12. 

It's a risque satire/farce that makes fun of, among other things, monsters, egotism, old musicals, science and especially love.

Set in 1934, it has georgeous costumes, an adequate set, and two dozen singers/dancers/actors who perform beautifully. It's as old as slapstick and vaudeville, and as new as the latest TV variety show.

The sound was a little off at times at the matinee performance, something that never occurred at the lst show in the series, Wicked. After we politely complained during the intermission, we were told that the sound system travels with the company. Apparently the message was received. It was better during the final half of the 3-hour production.

The musical as a whole left us pleased and laughing, in a good mood despite the troubles of the world. It's definitely worth seeing as it travels throughout the US.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Wicked: Just see it

PEORIA -- The Broadway musical Wicked is now playing at the Peoria Civic Center Theater. It's terrrrific!

It's an all Actors Equity (union) cast and production, and it shows. Every actor is extremely skilled, the production itself takes the breath away, the songs are easy to hear and grasp, and the language of the play is very, very clever. 

This is an A plus production and event, one of the best I've seen on the Civic Center's Broadway series. It's also suitable for children. (No nudity, swearing or skimpy costumes.)

I saw Wicked a few years ago in Chicago. It was fine there, but this production is even better.  Don't miss it in Peoria.

 -- Elaine Hopkins