The Wiz Walk shows us a way forward

Theatre Y’s latest brings us home to Oz.

By KERRY REID

There are days I don’t think I can handle one more essay on the precarious state of the American theater. It’s not that I’m in denial about the existential threats facing so many institutions large and small. I just feel rather helpless to change what’s going on. And let’s be honest—even a wistful desire to return to the pre-COVID-19 days requires a lot of denial about the preexisting systemic inequities in the regional theater system, and the precariousness of the nonprofit arts model overall. The foundations were wobbly for many theaters before the virus took a wrecking ball to the structure.

So believe me when I say that Theatre Y’s The Wiz Walk was just what I needed to recharge my psychic batteries. Created by the company’s youth ensemble as a mash-up/ remix of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Wiz (the 1974 rock and R&B musical that was turned into a film in 1978), it’s a love letter to family, friendship, and faith in yourself.

This is the fourth installment of Theatre Y’s annual ambulatory, or “camino,” shows that first began in 2019 on the 606 with The Camino Project, and returned after the shutdown with YOU ARE HERE (exploring the “emerald necklace” boulevards of the city). Last year, the company, which just opened its new permanent home in North Lawndale, celebrated the neighborhood’s history and that of George W. Johnson, America’s first Black recording artist, with Laughing Song: A Walking Dream, created with and starring Chicago legend (and North Lawndale native) Marvin Tate.

This year’s show doesn’t take us as far afield in North Lawndale (there’s probably less than half a mile of ground covered), but if there’s one constant enduring lesson in Baum’s beloved tale, it’s that everything you need to imagine a better world is right in your own backyard. If you don’t know your own power, you can’t empower others.

The premise here is that sisters Doro (Braniah Townsel) and Thea (Emily Bynum), having lost their parents in a house fire, now live with their grandfather, Pa Gene (Tate), Aunt Em (Emjaiye Royale), Uncle Henry (Richard Bonds), and cousin Mickey (Christopher Bonds), who all pitch in to run the family restaurant, Ozzie’s. (If only they could find the original recipe for Grandma’s famous mac and cheese, maybe business would be even better!)

But Aunt Eve (Nadia Pillay), who’s the chief investor in Ozzie’s, is ready to shut it down and sell out to buyers interested in gentrifying the neighborhood, maybe for “a Sweetgreens, or a farm-to-table deli.” When Thea runs out with Tutti (Eric K. Roberts), the family dog, to visit her parents’ graves, Doro follows her, and the two end up following the yellow brick road (marked out with gold paint on the sidewalks and vacant lots) through you-know-where.

As they collect the famous trio of Scarecrow (Roesha Townsel), Tin Man (Jada Dunkertell-Thetenman), and the Lion (Catrina Evans), the sisters also catch glimpses of the Wizard (Tate), as he rides through the streets delivering empty bromides via bullhorn through the sunroof of a car. (“The answer to the riddle is to ask more questions.”) In conjunction with scenes set around the former Paderewski Elementary School (shuttered ten years ago by Rahm Emanuel, along with 49 other public schools), it sets up the framework for one of the political messages in the piece: you can’t depend on the folks on high to fix what they deliberately broke.

Rthe Wiz Walk

Through 8/ 12 : Sat-Sun 2 PM; performances begin and end at Theatre Y, 3611 W. Cermak, theatre-y.com, free admission (dinner included), but reservations requested.

But the show, codirected by Kaleb Jackson, Melissa Lorraine, and Pillay and featuring original music by Sharon Udoh, is far less interested in dissecting the root causes of disinvestment in North Lawndale than it is in celebrating the greatest assets of the area: its people. The combination of adult and youth actors creates a multigenerational real-time portrait of what working together for a common goal from the grassroots looks like.

Don’t get it twisted: there is a lot of humor and heart in this piece, which consistently elaborates upon the original story in simple but e ective ways. The Tin Man shares some DNA with the protagonists of the Toy Story universe, in that he was abandoned by a kid who outgrew him. Puns and wordplay abound in the script, and small touches add delightful texture. Roberts’s Tutti is a splendid tour guide, but he’s also gonna stop and check his messages, if you will, at the local fire hydrant. During the showdown with Pillay’s Evilene, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Lion is distracted, as any cat might be, by a laser toy.

By the time we’re on the rooftop of Theatre Y’s new home, with the skyline of Baum’s original “Emerald City” spread out before us, the sisters realize that they (and their traveling companions) always had what they needed to get home: each other. “You’re the homiest home I know,” Doro tells Thea, and it’s an achingly beautiful moment.

And then it’s back downstairs to Ozzie’s for a free meal of chicken wings, collard greens— and, of course, mac and cheese. Theatre Y’s The Wiz Walk invites us to consider why stories endure, what it means to create and sustain a community, and how we find our way back after loss. If that’s not the best reason for theater to exist in the first place, I don’t know what is. v

Opening

R Disney delight

Chicago Shakespeare’s Beauty and the Beast beguiles.

The stages at Chicago Shakespeare Theater are accustomed to classic tales of daring sword fights, magic spells, and a prince in disguise—just the kinds of stories that Belle loves to read. Although Navy Pier is far from Belle’s French provincial town, CST’s production of the Disney favorite Beauty and the Beast roars to life nonetheless. Directed and choreographed by Amber Mak, this enchanting family musical (score by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton) brings this familiar story to life to the delight of young and old(er) audiences alike. A er all, one can never be too old for fairy tales.

As the story goes, Belle (Audrey Hare) offers herself up in exchange for her father, Maurice (Michael Kingston), to be freed from the dungeon of the Beast (Jason Michael Evans). However, Gaston (David Sajewich) has something to say about it, as he attempts to woo the town outsider who would rather read than be bothered by him. As our heroine, Hare gives Belle the lo y voice with which we are familiar but also allows her to be silly and fun simultaneously. Sajewich too brings an air of humanity to Gaston that he so o en lacks as a onedimensional villain. But good luck taking your eyes off Sam Linda as Le Fou when he takes the stage. Who knew the sidekick could demand the spotlight so profoundly?

The ensemble transitions like mad between scenes and personas, and the design elements are also divine. Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s book-flanked set is gorgeous, lending itself perfectly to Mike Tutaj’s novel projections, which transport us through the story page by page. However, most beguiling are the dazzling costume designs by

Theresa Ham. This show is truly a feast for the senses, from glowing wolf eyes to cancan napkin dresses. (Be aware that some noises and effects may be frightening for younger children, however.) Bon appétit! —AMANDA FINN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Through 8/20: Wed 11 AM, Thu-Sat 11 AM and 2 PM, Sun 2 PM; audio description with optional touch tour Sat 8/5 11 AM, ASL interpretation Sat 8/12 11 AM; Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E. Grand, 312-595-5600, chicagoshakes.com, $42 adults, $26 children 12 and under

RThe magic of romance

Meant to Be at the Magic Lounge is a sly mind-blower.

The description for Henok Negash’s Meant to Be at the Chicago Magic Lounge makes it sound a little like a navel-gazing self-actualization exercise. Negash, we’re told, “specializes in offering a personalized mystery; meaning that he is not looking for perfection but rather connection.”

Rest assured that what you’re in for at the show is a sly and funny performance that, over the course of 75 minutes, sets us up for a mind-blowing finale. Negash is both self-deprecating and sardonic; during one trick, as he picks participants from the audience, he reminds each of them in turn that he chose them because “you’re so unique!”

Early in the show, he asks us to guess his ethnic makeup. (Spoiler alert: he’s of Ethiopian and Irish descent.) Though he doesn’t go into a lot of detail about how his parents met, the bit sets up more than Negash’s punch line about the folly of challenging him to a combination long-distance running and drinking competition. It plants the seeds for realizing that connections between people, particularly people in love, pop up in perhaps unexpected ways.

There isn’t a lot of flash to the show. Like most

Chicago Magic Lounge performances, this one is about the—yes—connection to the audience and the art of close-up magic. At the performance I saw, a couple that first met at Illinois State University in the 70s and reconnected decades later found themselves center stage. Details of their relationship popped up in sealed props in ways seemingly impossible to explain (well, unless you’ve gone to Magic College, I guess). It’s a compelling and endearing slice of sleight-of-hand. —KERRY REID

MEANT TO BE Through 9/27: Wed 7 PM, Chicago Magic Lounge, 5050 N. Clark, 312-366-4500, chicagomagiclounge.com, $40-$45

R No country for old men

No Man’s Land hits differently postBrexit.

Harold Pinter’s 1974 play No Man’s Land occupies the territory between his earlier “comedies of menace,” such as The Birthday Party and The Caretaker, and the more overtly political work he’d create in the 1980s (Mountain Language, One for the Road). But it’s primarily a comedy of language, at least in Steppenwolf’s current intriguing staging under the direction of Les Waters, starring ensemble member Jeff Perry and Mark Ulrich (a late—and remarkably good!—replacement for Austin Pendleton, who le the show right before previews for personal reasons).

The roots in the earlier works are pretty apparent. You don’t have to look hard to find parallels to Davies, the dri er who moves in with two brothers in The Caretaker in Ulrich’s Spooner, who’s come back to the well-appointed, but rather sepulchral, drawing room of Perry’s Hirst, a successful “man of letters.” (Kudos to set designer Andrew Boyce for creating that tomblike effect.) It’s not taking on human rights atrocities as those 80s pieces did. But I couldn’t help but feel that Pinter’s portrait of two aging men now serves in a roundabout way as a portrait of a country that’s been having its own identity crisis since the Brexit vote.

In the first act, the two codgers grow sloppy on drink and nostalgia. “What happened to our cottages? What happened to our lawns?” laments Spooner, sounding perilously close to those “we used to be a country, a proper country” memes on social media. With the arrival of the younger generation, embodied in loutish Foster (Samuel Roukin) and silkily sinister Briggs (Jon Hudson Odom), the stakes are raised. In the second act, the older men share memories of what might be their past history together at Oxford and a erward, much of which involves sexual one-upmanship, while the younger men seem to tighten their control.

The sense of menace here isn’t so much from outside forces as it is the vagaries of the older men’s own minds, implied by the title. Perry’s Hirst tells Spooner that he’s in “the last lap of a race I had long forgotten to run.” As usual with Pinter, we’re asked to fill in the gaps in their histories and decide for ourselves where the narrative truth may lie. But Waters’s production and the can’t-take-your-eyes-off-them ensemble fill each pause and seeming non sequitur with a blend of pathos, humor, and clear-eyed understanding that the bravado of old men (and old nations) o en hides aching voids. —KERRY REID NO MAN’S LAND Through 8/20: Tue-Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; Wed 8/9 2:30 PM only; open captions Thu 8/3 and Sat 8/12 3 PM, ASL interpretation Fri 8/11, audio description and touch tour Sun 8/13 (touch tour 1:30 PM), mask-required performance Wed 7/27 and Wed 8/9 2:30 PM; Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-355-1650, steppenwolf.org, $15-$98

R Hair metal hijinks

Mercury’s Rock of Ages is a raucous 80s jukebox celebration.

The Mercury Theater production of this five-time Tony-nominated musical re-creates the 80s with such abandon that the audience’s fervor was palpable (and loud) on the night I attended. Tommy Novak’s staging creates a fun environment where musical theater mainstays intermingle with fresh standouts on the local scene. Reminiscent of the Emcee in Cabaret, rock club employee Lonny narrates this freight train ride of jukebox nostalgia (written by Chris D’Arienzo), and Michael Metcalf exudes charmingly sleazy charisma in the role. With lots of winks and breaking the fourth wall, he facilitates audience buy-in into a world that veers from depraved to cartoonishly sweet and back again.

The central romance we’re rooting for features Drew (David Moreland, a er recent notable runs in Rent and Cruel Intentions), a wannabe rock star, and Sherrie (Kayla Marie Shipman in her Chicago debut), an aspiring actress. Both have taken detours to work in said rock club, the Bourbon Room, where their will-they-won’tthey love is scored by hits from Poison, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, Journey, and more. When the whole Sunset Strip is threatened by German real estate developers, the cast bands together with “power to the proletariat” energy to save the rock ’n’ roll haven. You’ll find layers and layers of 80s nods here that resonate no matter your connection to the decade, and Laura Savage’s choreography is spot-on. Shout-out to Donovan Hoffer as rock star Stacee Jaxx, undulating with hilariously overblown sex appeal until his last moments on the run.

—MARISSA OBERLANDER ROCK OF AGES Through 9/10: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2:30 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport, 773-360-7365, mercurytheaterchicago. com, $35-$80 v