In the last few years many Broadway-bound musicals have had their initial tryouts in Chicago for fine-tuning before moving on to successful runs in New York - “The Producers” and “Movin’ Out” readily come to mind. Two others - “The Addams Family” at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts and “Banana Shpeel” at the Chicago Theatre - hope to take similar routes.

The Oriental Theatre, with its rococo, exotic décor, seemed the ideal setting for a musical based upon Charles Addams’ ghoulish characters created years ago in his off-beat New Yorker cartoons. So, I was anxious to see if this absurd and weird humor could be translated into musical theater.

All the ingredients are there - special effects with a carnivorous potted plant, an animated mop, Cousin Itt, and a love-starved giant squid in the cellar (I love my wife, but, oh, you squid!). Nathan Lane is perfectly cast as Gomez, the patriarch of the family, as is the beautiful Bebe Neuwirth in the role of Morticia, his vampirish spouse, and Adam Reigler and Krysta Rodriguez as their odd children.

The production, with book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, has some a few musical gems, by composer Andrew Lippa, including an outrageous tango by the macabre couple and a bizarre love song as a floating Uncle Fester (Kevin Chamberlin) serenades his “true love” - the moon! And then there is the familiar finger-snapping theme from the TV series, an audience favorite. Unfortunately, the musical seems to lose all of its Charles Addams peculiar charm as it dissolves into a messy love fest, focusing on the love affair between daughter Wednesday and a comparatively normal boy (Wesley Taylor).

On the other hand, Cirque du Soleil’s “Banana Shpeel” may be beyond saving. Billed as “vaudeville, as you’ve never seen it,” I’m sure the show sounded better in its proposal than in production. Picture a few characters from the audience being brought up to “audition” for the show. An “impersonator” who imitates ordinary people, including someone with a sore knee, by limping about the stage, saying “ouch.” The “world’s oldest mime,” a decrepit old man, with a walker, who surrounds himself with an imaginary glass enclosure and then can’t remember which way to turn. And a ventriloquist with a deaf puppet who must respond in sign language! The show is rescued somewhat by some great acrobatic acts - it’s what Cirque du Soleil does best - and they should stick to it!

Although David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” has been performed many times since its 1975 premiere in Chicago, I doubt that you will ever see a better production than the one recently mounted at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, directed by ensemble member Amy Morton.

Along with a magnificent Kevin Depinet set depicting a disheveled junkshop, filled to the brim with clutter of every description, it has great performances by three superb actors - Francis Guinan (Don), Tracy Letts (Teach) and Patrick Andrews (Bob) - who are able to transform Mamet’s obscenity-laced script into a work of art.

The play is a Chicago tale of three down-and-outers who plan on robbing a coin collector to recover a valuable American Buffalo nickel, as well as other coins in his collection. It is filled with long ranting riffs of general complaint as well as stretches of humorous dialogue between Don and Teach. The ones where the two discuss how a friend cheats at cards (which he never does) and how to break into a safe ( though neither had done it before) are comparable to any Abbott and Costello routine.

Mamet’s works are known for their use of foul language, but when used, as here, with dramatic perfection, it becomes - like iambic pentameter - an essential component of the play.

Lookingglass Theatre’s world premiere at the Water Tower Water Works of “Icarus,” written and directed by David Catlin, is a well-intentioned but good example of “too much, too soon” and “more is less.” The play is an adaptation of the mythical Greek gods and the boy who flies too close to the sun. Despite the theater’s small space, it is filled with well- executed, but, in-your-face, acrobatic stunts, that I found very hard to take at such close range. And although it was a short play, presented without intermission, I often found myself looking at my watch - never a good sign.

I rest my case.

Final Verdict:
The Addams Family — 3 Gavels
Banana Shpeel — 1 Gavel
American Buffalo — 4 Gavels
Icarus — 2 Gavels

SHAW, JACOBS & ASSOCIATES, P.C.

Garfield & Merel, Ltd.

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Chapter 7

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Paul Detlefs

Opening Statement: Broadway, here we come

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