cherries, dried flowers, basil and the (P.S.: I don’t really have any fears about Italian DRINKING & DINING ever-present fresh tobacco found in most all wine and you shouldn’t either.) TOP 5 chianti-style wines. This is a wine fit for most occasions, ready to drink and approachable As I was completing this, I thought it would 1 The Walnut Room. Macy’s. DECEMBER 2021 Newcity enough to go along with most Italian cuisine be a good idea to get Brian Duncan’s take It is the archetypal Christmas . on Italian wines, particularly ones that are restaurant, with a giant tree, room- • COS Frappato (about $27). Traveling south somewhat bubbly. Of all wines, Champagne roaming fairies and classics like Mrs. to Sicily, we arrive at an island most famous is probably the most preferred vino for the Hering’s 1890 Original Chicken Pot for Mount Etna, the volcano that overlooks holidays, and although Champagne can be Pie and Frango Mint Cheesecake. the Italian coast. With this you get volcanic made only in France, Italy has some bubbly Throughout December soil, porous with great drainage, and grapes wines that offer pleasant and high-value with unique qualities. COS is the project of alternatives to French bub. Duncan had 2 Desserts in December. benchmark Sicilian producer Giusto Occhip- some solid recommendations, also available Loyola University. Brought inti, whose family has made several at Binny’s. to us by Student Diversity and fantastic wines that have been pulling more Multicultural Affairs, this event brings attention to this region of winemaking since • Tessari, Avus Brut Garganega Sur Lie a little sweetness into the lives of the 1980s. Frappato itself is the less- ($21.99). Sparkling and Champagne-like industrious students (and even er-known grape of Sicily compared to the with a biscuity yellow fruit flavor profile. The slackers). December 3, 5-7pm more popular Nero d'Avola. COS Frappato re-fermentation takes place in the bottle is light in structure and bright in flavor. Like from Garganega grapes. Built to accompa- 3 Run for Beer. Spiteful Brewing. taking a handful of berries, this wine is full of ny everything throughout an entire meal, It’s kind of a run, .5 K, and that cranberry, strawberry and raspberry. This is very versatile and deliciously intriguing. the minimal exercise part is a ready the perfect patio wine, and it can be excuse for the beer-drinking part, enjoyed with a light chill, the perfect solution • NV Pruno Nero Cleto Chiarli (Lambrusco di as if any excuse were needed. for those who enjoy white wine dishes but Modena) ($15.99). This is an incredibly fizzy, December 5, 11am-2pm are red wine drinkers. very drinkable and food- friendly wine that deserves a place at your table, for every- 4 TBOX: Back to the Nineties, • Lunae Bosoni \"Grey Label\" Vermentino thing from appetizers such as charcuterie Sorry About 2020. Cubby (about $20). Located at the northern coast and cured ham, sausages and meats, to Bear and eleven other bars. The of Italy in Liguria, the Lunae wines have sushi (a revelation), BBQ, spicy ethnic Twelve Bars of Xmas celebrates its been awarded the Tre Bicchieri for five years cuisines (Indian, Caribbean, Mexican, Asian). twenty-fifth anniversary, and if you in a row. Their Vermentino is known for its Works well at the end of a meal with strong plan to go, you might want to set lush and expressive fruit and a nice punch cheeses, especially the blue-veined variety. up your designated driver now. of acidity to the wine. The Lunae Grey label December 11 has a very fresh and pleasant nose with Bill Terranova of La Storia filled us in on his qualities of white peach and grapefruit, as love story with Lambrusco, and we’ve enjoyed 5 Drag Brunch. The Moxy. well as slight honey, making this wine it many times since. “Back in the 1970s,” Some say it’s not Xmas until perfect for those who enjoy Sauvignon Terranova remembers, “Riunite was a Hans Gruber falls off Nakatomi Blanc but are looking for a slight change. widespread jug wine version of ‘Lambrusco.’ Tower; we say, it’s not Xmas until This wine is great for pairing with non-red It was really Lambrusco in name only and was a drag queen serves you holiday sauce pastas, seafood, as well as white considered by many to be a cheap, overly cookies. December 11 meats and vegetables. sweet, soda-pop wine. It was made for the undereducated American market that, at the Vermentino has been one of my favorite time, was into easy-to-drink sweeter wines, summer sips for years now, but it took a like White Zinfandel. It was also tank fer- Vermentino from Barboursville, Virginia, to mented; a true Lambrusco is usually fer- introduce me to this wonderful Italian grape. mented by the metodo classico, where the Taking Bement’s advice to heart, I cast off fear second fermentation is done in the bottle, of Italian wines and boldly strolled into Anfora establishing its characteristic fizz. This is the Wine Merchants, an Oak Park Italian wine same method used with Champagne and store; I proudly returned home with an Italian Franciacorta.” Vermentino from Sardinia. It was a lovely bottle of wine (less than $20), with a light crispness Since chatting with Terranova, we’ve enjoyed that makes it an ideal accompaniment to fish, a few bottles of Lambrusco, and we like it seafood, cheese and vegetables. Though a because it combines the palate-cleansing lighter wine, Vermentino has a complexity that sparkle of Champagne with the lush body of makes it a good sipping wine. I’m buying a a red. It’s a perfect holiday wine because it case, because immersion seems the surest works so well with so many different foods, way to overcome any fears about Italian wine. but never so well as with Italian food. 51
Film \"Nightmare Alley\" Newcity DECEMBER 2021 Endings, inferior to home flatscreens? Can filmmakers Beginnings And sustain careers in the post-pandemic Something In Between economy and landscape? It’s Not The End Of Movies This season, the all-star team of established career directors is about to give it their all. By Ray Pride The movies may be a nudge over a hundred years old, but who's breaking from the gate Robert Altman was a conversational If it's about movies and moviemaking, at the perceived end of the pandemic? wiseacre. He liked to say he knew only one conversations that reflect sudden death rise Ridley Scott, at the vital age of eighty-four, is way to conclude the long, winding river of a like the sun in the morning lately. Will the film onto his second release (after \"The Last movie and its tributaries: not just death, but industry survive? Can theatrical exhibition Duel\") in under two months, the madcap sudden death. (Pity poor Barbara Jean in come back in sustainable form despite \"House of Gucci\"; in December, \"West Side \"Nashville.\") industrial multiplexes with sound and image Story\" is the full-on choreographed musical Steven Spielberg, seventy-five, has promised for decades; \"Parallel Mothers,\" is described as a drenching summa of the themes and passions of Almodóvar, who is seventy-two; and Joel Coen solo-directs a thorny \"The Tragedy of Macbeth\" at the age 52
of sixty-seven. Among the younger set, ing in all matters of the culture.\" FILM TOP 5 Guillermo Del Toro cuts to the noir with \"Nightmare Alley,\" fifty-seven; Lana Wa- Anyone who's watching the movies or 1Parallel Mothers. Opens Friday, DECEMBER 2021 Newcity chowski, fifty-six, mounts the epic, watching the movie watchers isn't just December 24. Late-career world-making \"The Matrix: Resurrections\"; prognosticating or reading tea leaves, Almodóvar is just as good as early Paul Thomas Anderson, fifty-one, remains they're considering whether there's a fate for career and mid-career; his best work at his San Fernando fortifications in \"Licorice movies in the middle, ones that fall between, continues to thrill and even astonish. Pizza\"; and baby-of-the-bunch Sean Baker, say, $500,000 and $100 million. And with fifty, remains our most vigorous and the movies themselves, the jobs in produc- 2 The Matrix: Resurrections. empathetic observer of hardscrabble tion and post-production and exhibition and Opens Wednesday, December American poverty with \"Red Rocket.\" popcorn and soda and hot dogs and 22. It's a family: writer-director- sweeping up after... producer Lana Wachowski brings on Lots of experience, lots of life, right? Gotta novelist-co-writers Aleksandar Hemon be a little greatness in there, right? Almost Anderson again: \"The theatrical exhibition and David Mitchell, as well as Tom all of these movies will be screened for industry had a much-needed and long-com- Tykwer and Johnny Klimek (\"Sense8\") reviewers (in movie theaters) in the week ing kick in the pants, didn’t it? They built as composers of a fourth \"Matrix,\" after I press \"send.” But it sure looks like twenty-five-plexes and thirty-plexes... and it which has to be swell to have elicited there's a tunnel, or maybe a pipeline, of got bigger and bigger and shittier, and you a blockbuster budget in our era of movie love at the end of the light. What's know what, you’re shocked that they’re waning corporate ambition and scale. good? What's lasting? empty? Well, what did you think was going to happen? They built these pyramids for 3 Red Rocket. Opens Friday, Paul Thomas Anderson is out of the gate their demise.\" December 3. Another portrait with his first \"Licorice Pizza\" cover, at Variety. from the other side of town from Asked if he worried about the fate, or the Garfield once more: \"Money is the thing that one of America's greatest and most health, of movies as an art form as shown to has corrupted all of us and led to the terrible consistent mid-career directors, crowds gathered in theaters, he said, \"Who ecological collapse that we are all about to Sean Baker. doesn’t? But you know what? I worry a lot die under.\" less than I did five weeks ago. With each 4 The Tragedy of Macbeth. passing week it seems like films are doing Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder! Adam Opens Saturday, December 25. better. 'Venom 2' did well. James Bond did McKay's all-star \"Don't Look Up\" arrives on Coen brother Joel directs alone in well. It seems to be clawing back. The bad Netflix for a vast, mass worldwide audience a highly stylized black-and-white part would be if we clawed back to right on Christmas Eve, two weeks after a adaptation of the Scottish play, where it was and we’re making the same old theatrical airing. It's an \"apocalyptic satire.\" with Denzel Washington, Frances shit and shoving it down people’s throats The scientists in his latest world-aware McDormand, Corey Hawkins, and they’re buying it again.\" Anderson's comedy, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Brendan Gleeson and Harry Melling. plaint doesn't apply only to multiplex junk. Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Mark An independent writer-director who will Rylance, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Tyler 5 Nightmare Alley. Opens remain unnamed ruefully observed to me: Perry, Rob Morgan, Ariana Grande, Friday, December 17. \"Most of the shitty indie art movies not made Timothée Chalamet, Melanie Lynskey, Kid Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan for a general audience that i see aren't really Cudi and Himesh Patel—are expecting a adapt the William Lindsay Gresham that smart or terribly hard to unpack.\" short-and-sweet obliteration six months novel (1946) that was made into a hence by comet. \"The simple, raw idea harrowing 1947 noir; geeks beware. But in general, the flat truism that screenwrit- behind it was we have seen 10,000 movies er-gadfly William Goldman (\"All The Presi- where you always see [the heroes] reach dent's Men,\" \"Misery\") notoriously wrote in their lowest point at the end of the second \"Adventures in the Screen Trade,\" \"Nobody act—Thor is not going to save the day, or knows anything...... Not one person in the they’re not going to put out the fire—and entire motion picture field knows for a they always solve it. And I do think there’s a certainty what's going to work. Every time out legitimate power to that, that sort of it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated narrative repetition,\" McKay tells the L. A. one\" is more of a goddam bullseye than ever. Times' Mark Olsen. \"Then you hear people say about the climate crisis, 'Oh, we’ll figure Experienced hands are piping up about it out.' I think Elon Musk was quoted as compromise enforced by those who are saying, 'Technology will solve it.' And it’s like, entrusted, ennobled, even, to presume that 'Hey, motherfucker, you got to actually do it.' they know what's going to work. \"The focus You can’t just say, 'It’s going to end.' That is less on the soul of it and more on ensuring reeks to me a little bit of the sense like we’re we make as much money as possible,\" actor living in a movie. Like we just think that third Andrew Garfield recently told the Guardian at acts always work out.\" the end of what reads as a genial ban- ter. “And I found that—find that—heartbreak- Suddenly: this season. 53
Newcity DECEMBER 2021Lit Courting Gioia Diliberto Controversy Photo: Stephanie Krell A Conversation with 54 Novelist Gioia Diliberto About Coco at the Ritz By Christine Sneed In Gioia Diliberto’s elegant new novel, “Coco at the Ritz,” we encounter the legendary Coco Chanel. Fashion designer, self-made woman, complicated feminist figure, trying amidst the turmoil of World War II to protect her assets: it isn’t hard to imagine the famously prickly Chanel insisting she wasn’t a feminist; yet, at a time when most women did not work outside of their homes, let alone head an international house of haute couture, the feminist shoe fits. Set during World War II, mostly in Paris, Diliberto has written a novel that centers on an episode in Chanel’s life of which very little is known—at the end of World War II, she was questioned by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) about her intimate relationship with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German spy, with whom she was involved throughout the war and for some time afterward. With the keen eye of a seasoned journalist and the soul of a novelist, Diliberto vividly imagines the interrogation scene between Chanel and the FFI as well as events populating the years immediately preceding it when Chanel and von Dincklage resided in Paris’ storied Ritz Hotel. “Coco at the Ritz” is an addictive page-turner as well as a virtuosic character study: utterly absorbing from the first scene to the last. I corresponded with Gioia Diliberto via email about “Coco at the Ritz.” You’ve written about Coco Chanel in a previous novel, “The Collection.” What is it about her that continues to fascinate you as a subject? I’ve always thought Chanel was one of the most interesting women of the early twentieth century. She raised herself up from a grim childhood in a convent orphanage and wedged herself into the world of wealth
and celebrity in Paris, not exactly a society You initially wrote “Coco at the Ritz” LIT TOP 5 DECEMBER 2021 Newcity conducive to upward mobility. And she did as a stage play. What prompted you it at a time when women had virtually no to write this in novel form? 1 Kevin Boyle. Evanston status and few opportunities to advance Public Library. The North- themselves other than through marriage. In the play, all the action happened on stage, western professor discusses I was interested, too, in her aesthetic, how and I observed Chanel from a distance. “The Shattering: America in the she revolutionized fashion by getting women There were no interior monologues. I wanted 1960s” with Peter Slevin in an event out of corsets and creating a style of simple, to explore Chanel’s thoughts, emotions co-sponsored by Bookends and pared-down elegance that still defines how and motivations, to get inside her head. Beginnings. December 2, 5:30pm women want to dress. I saw a lot of interesting So, I decided to write the story as a novel. connections between what Chanel was doing Also, I felt on firmer ground with prose than 2 Why You Need A Writing in the ephemeral art of fashion, and the bold with drama. Workshop. American innovations in the modernist works of painters Writers Museum. Ronit Bezalel, like Picasso and writers like Hemingway. I found the form of a play extremely difficult. Della Leavitt, Sarah Schwarcz and Chanel was one of those people who, in her In fact, it’s probably the most challenging Tom Sundell discuss Off Campus personality and accomplishments, seemed literary form I’ve ever attempted. As a prose Writers Workshop on the occasion to symbolize the spirit of her era. writer, I had a great deal of trouble avoiding of its seventy-fifth anniversary. all exposition and telling the story through December 2, 5:30pm When I researched Chanel’s life for “The only dialogue. Collection,” which was set in 1919 after the 3 Gioia Diliberto. Exile first World War, I learned about her arrest A play is an extremely delicate thing. It’s in Bookville. The novelist and interrogation at the end of World War II easy to misstep, and if you do, you risk discusses “Coco at the Ritz” on charges of treason to France, stemming losing the audience. In a narrative, you can with critic Hedy Weiss. from her relationship with Hans Gunther riff and digress a bit, and readers will stay December 7, 7pm “Spatz” von Dincklage, a German spy. with you if you’ve engaged them at the start. I thought this was the most fascinating In a play, you have to escalate the stakes 4 Annie Leibovitz. Harris moment of her fascinating life, and yet almost with every dialogue exchange and build Theater for Music and nothing was known about it. None of the to a revelatory climax, another thing I found Dance. The iconic photographer myriad books about Chanel—including my hard to pull off. in conversation as part of the own—dealt with it. In fact, her biographers Chicago Humanities Festival. barely even mention it. I became obsessed I have to ask about the research December 7, 7pm with the story. Because of the scant record, you did in preparation for this novel— the only way to explore it was imaginatively. what did it consist of? And how many 5 Michael O’Loughlin. drafts did you write before you sent Catholic Theological Union. Through hard work and business “Coco at the Ritz” to your agent? Do The Chicago writer discusses savvy, Chanel managed to build a you have a few readers of early drafts his book, “Hidden Mercy: prestigious fashion empire, with some or one trusted reader? Catholics, AIDS, and Untold help along the way from influential Stories of Compassion in the figures, some of whom, famously, I researched Chanel and the period obsessive- Face of Fear” in an event were her lovers. Knowing all you do ly. I read every Chanel biography and dozens co-sponsored by Seminary about her personal and professional of books about the Occupation. I had trouble Coop. December 10, 7pm choices, do you think above all she finding a structure that worked and wrote was being pragmatic when choosing many, many drafts. At one point, my agent a German spy as her lover during the asked for revisions, but before I had a chance Occupation? I.e., her calculation was, to complete them, I took a job ghostwriting “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”? “The Watergate Girl,” Jill Wine-Banks’ memoir of her time as a Watergate prosecutor. I wrote Chanel was lonely and Spatz was the Wine-Banks’ book proposal and then the available man. He was thirteen years younger book itself on a draconian deadline—it had than she, handsome and cultured, and he to be completed quickly to capitalize on the spoke impeccable French. He’d lived in Paris parallels between Trump and Nixon that were for years, and she’d first met him before the resonating so deeply around the 2020 election. war when he was an embassy attaché. Still, It was an intense project that also involved he was an enemy of France and a member research and interviewing, and I couldn’t get of the Nazi Party, and another woman, one back to “Coco at the Ritz” until it was done. who wasn’t so opportunistic, would never have gotten involved with him. No doubt My husband is my first reader. I also have living with Spatz made Chanel’s life a lot several writer friends (yourself at the top easier in occupied Paris. But I think it was of the list!) whose judgment is impeccable more weakness than wickedness that led and whom I trust to tell me the truth. her into his arms. She did things that were much worse than sleeping with Spatz. It seems fair to say the most significant scene in the novel occurs after the In one of her most dishonorable moments, liberation of Paris, when Coco is ques- she tried to use the Nazi race laws to wrest tioned by the FFI, which investigated full control of her company from her Jewish people alleged to have collaborated partners. (At the time, they were safely with the Nazis. You imagined this scene relocated to New York, so their lives weren’t wholesale (and wholly convincingly). in danger.) They outsmarted her by having I know this is the work of a fiction their shares in the company transferred writer, but I’m curious about how the temporarily to an Aryan businessman, who scene came together in your mind returned the shares to them after the war. and on the page. 55
Virtual with The Book Cellar I had a lot of latitude here remain murky. Chanel was the because nothing is known about consummate opportunist. She Chanel’s interrogation. There wanted to stay on the Germans’ RSVP via email to [email protected] are no records—as there good side, in case they won would have been in a real court the war, but I don’t think she Annual Holiday Sandy Colbert case—and Chanel never talked believed in their cause. about it. It’s unknown who Who are some of your biggest literary in uences? Book Rep Night “Cher Ami and exactly arrested her, where Do you often seek out ction Major Whittlesey” she was taken, what transpired based on historical gures? December 1, 7pm CST during her interrogation, or why in conversation with she was released two hours later. I read widely and voraciously Photos with Santa! I imagined the scene as a battle and have since I was a girl. Kathleen Rooney of wits between the famously Back then, I devoured books by December 4, 11am–1pm in person December 13, 7pm CST acerbic Chanel and two hostile Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, interrogators, which gave me a George Eliot, and whatever Erin Hahn (in store) great set-up for dramatic tension. I found on my parents’ book- shelves: “Lady Chatterley’s “Heavy Metal Symphony” The New Yorker’s My rst rule in writing historical Lover,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” ction is not to contradict the in conversation with Rachel Syme known truth. I knew there were Alyssa Palombo December 7, 7pm CST “Revelations in Air: A Guidebook To Smell” in conversation with Shop Late Jude Stewart some things the FFI probably “Goodbye, Columbus,” “The Lincoln Square December 14, 7pm CST would not have known about Good Earth,” “Ship of Fools.” Chanel—for example, her two As an adult, I don’t often seek With a raffle of a full-sized “Christmas trips to Berlin on a Nazi pass, Story” leg lamp, a cookie cutter with which were conducted under out ction based on historical cookbook purchase, and a wine tasting. the deepest secrecy. But they gures, though I’ve certainly might have known about one read and admired many. I’m just December 9 and 16, 6pm CST of Chanel’s trips to Madrid, now nishing John Banville’s Go to our website for virtual event details, when she met with several “The Untouchable,” based on book clubs and more! British diplomats in the city. the life of Anthony Blunt, a It seemed plausible that word member of the World War II Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square! would have gotten around Cambridge spy ring. about, say, her meeting with 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago the British ambassador. A few books stand out as 773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com in uences since I return to In his 2011 book, “Sleeping them again and again and feel With the Enemy,” journalist inspired upon each reading: Hal Vaughan charged that “The Complete Stories of Anton Spatz von Dincklage had Chekhov,” “Madame Bovary,” recruited Chanel to join him “Anna Karenina,” and, of course, in spying for Germany. Do “The Great Gatsby.” you think there’s a bona de You’ve written several novels factual basis to this claim? as well as several book- length works of non ction Vaughan had discovered (aside from, most recently, declassi ed documents “The Watergate Girl”). Do you describing some very shady nd one genre more satisfy- schemes involving Chanel, including a harebrained mission ing than the other? Is one more demanding? she cooked up with Spatz to negotiate a separate peace. The plan involved Chanel going It would be dif cult for me to say which is more satisfying or to Madrid to talk to Winston demanding. I nd them both Churchill, with whom she was absorbing and extremely hard! Pre-registration is required! friendly, when the prime minister When I’m writing a book, I live was on his way back from in it. I love inhabiting the world a conference in Tehran. But I’m writing, no matter the genre. For locations, fees, hours and to pre-register visit Churchill never did stop in Madrid, I will say, though, that writing www.ChicagoParkDistrict.com/ice-rinks and the scheme collapsed. ction and non ction is a kind Newcity DECEMBER 2021 Vaughan claimed that Chanel of intellectual and creative agreed to spy for the Germans cross-training. It’s strength- in exchange for them releasing building. From ction you develop your storytelling skills, her beloved nephew André Palasse, her dead sister Julie’s including pacing, scene writing and dialogue. With non ction son, from a Nazi POW camp. Palasse was indeed released, but you exercise your skills in it’s unknown if Chanel’s activities conducting research, in culling the kinds of telling details from had anything to do with it. documents that bring a story to For more information about your Chicago Park District visit www.ChicagoParkDistrict.com or The details and signi cance of the life on the page, which is very call 312.742.7529 or 312.747.2001 (TTY) City of Chicago, Lori E. Lightfoot, Mayor documents Vaughan discovered useful in writing historical ction. Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners Rosa Escareño, Interim General Superintendent & CEO 56
Music Spektral Quartet Photo: Sally Blood (Sandy Morris) Beyond It was somewhere in the middle to attract audiences, donors and DECEMBER 2021 Newcity Livestreaming of this year, about the time we subscribers well beyond Chicago. were realizing that the Summer of And we weren’t even posting new Musicians Chart a More Complex Future Joy was going to be something content yet. else, that I remember thinking our By Seth Boustead collective mania for livestreaming This was before so many of us had jumped the shark. musicians pivoted into being video producers, broadcasters, emcees Though the pandemic has been and social-media mavens. At first brutally difficult for performing arts we were posting content we had, organizations, many of us found rummaging through hard drives serious consolation that our digital to find concert videos, interviews, media content was attracting a anything we could post to show huge number of viewers. that we were staying relevant. And it was all getting a record Last year I heard from colleagues number of views; in 2020 you that this was the beginning of a could post just about anything new world in which we’d be able and there were folks to watch it. 57
Newcity DECEMBER 2021 MUSIC TOP 5 And gradually the content started getting So the bad news is that, for most of us, better and better and we started making livestreaming and other digital media are 1 Jeff Tweedy. Metro. The Wilco new content. Musicians made videos of not the panacea we hoped. Audiences for frontman assembles a band of themselves playing to click tracks and then DIY digital media productions will likely never Chicago rock royalty to launch his synched them up, added snazzy graphics again approach the levels we saw in 2020. new album, “Love is The King / and titles, we learned how to use streaming Live is The King,” a bonus-laden software and started adding lower thirds. But many of the digital media programs repackaging of his 2020 release created during COVID have the power to “Love Is the King.” December 22-23 I was convinced we were on the precipice transform the way we think about music, of a broadcast revolution. I got so swept up and point to the way forward. 2 Kurt Elling. City Winery. in it all that I told the board of my non-profit, The perennially preeminent Access Contemporary Music, that we should Musicians have always made and distributed jazz baritone and Chicago icon start our own Roku channel. (And I was music, and that won’t change, but I saw a swings into the season with a serious.) It seemed like people were genuinely trend in the last year or so toward programs holiday show; count on plenty more interested in watching music concerts that place music in a larger context. For of recalls from his 2017 album, and productions than they had been since at instance, Spotify now encourages artists to “The Beautiful Day: Kurt Elling least MTV launched. release tracks as part of a podcast so that Sings Christmas.” December 19 there is a story for every song. Livestreaming will be a permanent feature 3 Shemekia Copland. of the musical landscape going forward, so it’s This idea of a one-way street—where we make City Winery. The powerhouse not like the skills so many of us learned will go the music and you listen to it, and like it or blues vocalist tours her 2020 album, to waste; but reality has also set in. Starting don’t—was already dying before COVID, but “Uncivil War,” the pleas of which for last summer, we all saw fewer people on our the pandemic accelerated the change greatly. community, civility and change are livestreams, YouTube Premieres and other Music is becoming more experiential, and the more urgent now than when she digital releases, and I don’t see that changing. listener wants to be part of it—or at least learn recorded them. December 16 more about the process of making it. There are a lot of reasons this is happening, 4 The Flat Four. Space. including simple screen fatigue. I can As such, the kinds of digital content that will The four-member vocal hardly fault anyone for not tuning into some- be relevant in 2022 and beyond are programs supergroup—comprised of Nora thing I’m doing online when I myself am that broaden access, encourage participation O’Connor, Kelly Hogan, Scott Ligon, limiting my screen time, aided in part by and allow conversation among people who are Casey McDonough—started as an the rediscovery of something called books. not in the same geographic area. annual holiday season event; and Another reason of course is that we have while their fluid harmonies and competition again. Heck, for most of 2020 Here in Chicago there were organizations on the cheeky wit have expanded to we didn’t even have sports. front end of this trend. The Experimental Sound the rest of the calendar, there’s Studio began Quarantine Concerts, a series something iconic about seeing But now sports are back and so are the that morphed from well-produced but fairly them right now. December 15 major film studios who have not only started standard livestreamed concerts into participa- making and releasing movies again but are tive talkback sessions in which artist and 5 Beach Bunny. Riviera Theatre. heavily targeting home release. And we have audience jointly explored the creative process. Pop-rocker Lili Trifilio’s band competition in our own field. If you’re an got us through the autumn with the ensemble and you want to make a lives- Doyle Armbrust from the Spektral Quartet driving infectiousness of their single, treamed show, you’re now competing for told me that one of the programs they “Oxygen.” Now their international attention with every other ensemble that’s launched during the last two years that they’ll tour brings them in triumph to a also livestreaming, many of which have large definitely be continuing is the New Music Help hometown stage. December 18 production and advertising budgets. Desk, a “unique opportunity for composers and performers to get face time with Spektral— 58 At the same time as the reality of dwindling to ask pointed questions about notation, viewers is sinking in, we’re also wrestling with feasibility, tuning systems, harmonics, or the costs of producing high-quality digital simply how to stay motivated in the midst content. If you’re doing it right with multiple of a quarantine.” (As we were going to press, cameras in HD, a live camera operator, lower Spektral announced that they will be disband- third graphics, proper mic placement for every ing after the 2021-2022 season.) instrument, singer and anyone addressing the audience, plus ideally a social media person Third Coast Percussion converted its practice moderating chats and livetweeting the stream, space into a livestream studio, invited the it can be easy to conclude that it isn’t worth audience into its rehearsal process, and is the effort if your view count is going down. even producing its holiday party this year as an open-to-all virtual event. I spoke with many of my fellow musicians and producers about their plans for 2022 All of these programs are process-based, and while there is a lot of uncertainty, most interactive and broadly inclusive. It’s true we are telling me they’re planning on a hybrid can no longer just go live from our living rooms model of in-person and virtual. But no one and expect a large audience; but the invest- is sure how they’ll pay for it or how they’ll ments we made in digital media will continue handle the added burden of developing an to pay off if they are used judiciously and, online audience in addition to filling empty most importantly, if we have a powerful seats in the venue, or even how many empty opportunity to redefine how we create and seats to try to fill. share music. I’m excited to see where it leads.
Stage Alaudin Ullah photo: Amir Hamza What is the Alaudin Ullah grew up as your misbehavior—I was intrigued. Glencoe DECEMBER 2021 Newcity American typical New York City kid—Yankees, is not exactly known as a multicultural Dream Knicks, hip-hop. George Carlin hot spot but here it is, putting on a Worth? inspired him to get into comedy, and South Asian Muslim show at Christmas- he moved to Los Angeles to try and time. Add to this mix the director Chay Alaudin Ullah Tells a Father make it. In the post-9/11 environment, Yew, the well-regarded artistic director and Son Story in \"Dishwasher he soon discovered that \"typical\" roles of Victory Gardens who exited that role Dreams\" at Writers Theatre were not available to him: he was in 2020 only to see the aftermath of always asked to audition for the role his departure mishandled in a very By Brian Hieggelke of a terrorist or a taxi driver. So he public way. We had lots to talk about. decided to lean into the culture of his parents that he had rejected, I met with Ullah and Yew in the who were Bengali Muslim immigrants. spectacular Studio Gang-designed Among his new pursuits, he collabo- Writers Theatre building after a rated with Vivek Bald on an upcoming recent rehearsal. This is an edited documentary, called \"Bengali Harlem,\" version of our fascinating conversation which led him to try and understand about family, immigration and the his father's life, struggles and triumphs. American dream. When I heard that Writers Theatre Alaudin: I was a really young is programming his solo drama comedian, so when I went out to \"Dishwasher Dreams,\" as its return Hollywood, I was very impressionable, to live theater—and its first show and you know, being from New York, since its founder, Michael Halberstam, Los Angeles is a real culture shock. resigned this summer under a lingering You have to have a car. I just felt so cloud of allegations of backstage alone in California. I felt like a foreigner. 59
It was like an epiphany. I was saying to people. Why would you ask me to do that? myself, if I feel lost in Los Angeles, at least The ultimate irony is, here I am, defending I can speak the language; I can navigate. Muslims, and I'm about as Muslim as What must it have felt like to be a foreigner, Pee-wee Herman. years ago in New York, without knowing Chay: I think being an immigrant to this how to survive? country, I really identify with the parents' I kept on saying to casting directors, Muslims struggle. And definitely in terms of looking don’t talk like this. I was reading for terrorists at one’s parents, one part of you saying, they are from the old world, and this is me in a and cab drivers. And it was ironic because new world. And I can run faster than they I had rejected my culture. I was from the ever will. So, the tension between immigrants streets of New York. I had no affinity for and the children of immigrants has always Bengali culture. I was so disconnected from had a special place for me. my parents. Yet, what was happening was I always was going up for auditions to play the stereotypical Bengali character, or Indian At some point, we realize that no matter how American you wanna be, you can’t be. So, at character. All I was doing was impressions some point, you want to go back and figure of my father. In auditions, I kept on saying, out who you really are. The sojourn back to “No one talks like this. Do you know any one’s self and culture. So, this play figures very Muslims?” And a really well-known director largely about how Alaudin wants to become was like, “Well, maybe you should write it.” American, and the American performer, only The thing is, I grew up in Spanish Harlem. to realize who he really is, ultimately, is the best of these two worlds. STAGE TOP 5 So, being Muslim, being Bangladeshi, I felt 1 Holiday Shows. The House, like a freak. I was constantly getting bullied; Alaudin: Lisa Ling has a new show out on Strawdog, Goodman, Northlight, Paramount, American Blues, I was constantly getting teased. I didn’t feel HBO Max. It’s all about the history of Asian Cirque du Soleil, Hell in a Handbag, Nuns4Fun, Broadway in Chicago, like I belonged. I used to make the joke, I restaurants in America. They’re doing a Chicago Shakespeare, BrightSide and Chicago Opera Theater, Theater Wit. said, “You know, being Bangladeshi Muslim segment on Indian restaurants, and my father Nothing says “normal” (and helps theaters carry on) like a holiday show. in Spanish Harlem is like being the only had one of the first [Indian] restaurants in New 2 Ramy Youssef. The Den. Amish guy at a rap concert.” My mother The Golden Globe winner— was wearing a sari; my father was traditional. York. So, there’s a segment about me, talking for his brilliant, subversive Hulu about my dad and how he–which is also show “Ramy”—returns to stand-up. They were fresh off the boat, and they didn’t December 3-4 care about assimilating. They stayed Bangla- in our show—how he came up with the restaurant. My father was so proud of being 3 8 Track: The Sound of the deshi until they died. ’70s. Theo Ubique. Expect Bengali, he felt that other restaurant owners exactly what its title promises, in an intimate setting. Opens December 3 I’m laughing about it now, because as a little were using the word India as a marketing thing. kid, I felt embarrassed by that. I would go on My father was like, I’m going to name my 4 Dishwasher Dreams. Writers field trips, and when my mother would come restaurant Bengal Garden. So, my father said, Theatre. Post-Victory Gardens “I’m Bengali, and I’m proud to be Bengali.” Chay Yew directs Alaudin Ullah in his with our class on field trips, I felt ashamed tale of immigration and assimilation at That’s why this is so weird, because I used to post-Michael Halberstam Writers. that they were like, “Why is your mother Opens December 9 tell my father, “I’m from New York. I’m a Knicks wearing a curtain?” I was the only one in 5 The Play That Goes fan; I’m a Yankee fan.” My father was like, Wrong. Broadway Playhouse. our community, our neighborhood, that had A murder mystery described as “No, you’re Bengali.” I rejected that. “what would happen if Sherlock a Bengali mother. I had no preparation for Holmes and Monty Python had an illegitimate Broadway baby.” Opens that shock of feeling like an outsider. It was on 46th and 8th Avenue. And here’s December 14 I felt the only place I belonged was in sports the connection. George Carlin told me, “Don’t 60 and arts. It was the only place I felt I could worry about the showcase clubs. Just create really be myself. But more so in the arts, your own show.” That in the sixties, they were because it embraced the outsider. And being a just creating their own shows in coffee clubs comedian, I had met friends, fellow comedians and whatnot. And they would just get stage time and hustle. I was like, okay, great. Now, who felt like freaks, too. When I saw George Carlin on stage, I said, that’s what I wanna do. I’m outta high school. I don’t know how to book a show. There was a club on 46th Street Like that’s the voice of the voiceless. and 8th Avenue called Don’t Tell Mama. It was I always made this joke: “I have this a gay cabaret club, but right across the street problem; it’s called integrity.” I wasn’t was where my father’s restaurant was. willing to play those parts so that my career could move further along. I felt like, at that time, These are all the things that made me have a deeper appreciation for my parents, because I didn’t have any allies; I didn’t have any champions in the room with me; I didn’t have I didn’t know any of this stuff. I just thought my father got on a jet and came here. My uncle Newcity DECEMBER 2021 an agent; I didn’t have a manager. Without said, “No, we came here on a boat. We were giving out names, the ones that did manage me, they were saying, “Just do this.” And I just undocumented.” And this is how much of a dummy I am, they said, “Well, we weren’t felt that, because my parents raised me a welcome.” I’m like, yeah, whatever. When I particular way—that’s the irony, here I was, found out about the Chinese Exclusion Act, rebelling against my parents, and I had to I was like, wait a minute. Time out. There was make the hard decision: do I want to play a Muslim that my father would be ashamed of? a law that said you weren’t welcome here? And even though I’m not devout, I just felt like I had a responsibility. I would tell the agents and Chay: But the beautiful thing, too, is one of the interesting things about American narratives, the managers, if you’re Jewish, or you’re the immigration trope is very unique to our story- Italian, you wouldn’t want to do that for your
do. He basically told my grandfather, “I don’t want to wake up at five in the morning and be a farmer.” I feel like my father sounded like me. And they were saying, “Yeah, your father was really rebellious. He was against his father. He was totally radical.” He said, “I’m going to go to America and live a better life.” I said, “You talking about my father?” Chay: You give things up because you think that there’s going to be something here. And sometimes what you learn is, you are never going to get what you completely want, but then, this is home. There are very few places in the world where you can actually do that. And even though I do know that it’s a very complicated thing about this country and opening up of one’s borders, and how to figure out immigration, it's always been. I think we saw America in an interesting sort of way through literature. Through books and novels and film, probably most of all, and music. And we say, this is how I can be. I can be free here. Which is very interesting. But once you realize, you’ve come to the border, you can’t get in. Or once you made it through the border, you realize, like when I was younger, I’m going to come to this country because you know, this country treats women very fairly. Look. You see Mary Tyler Moore. She’s a liberated woman. And then you realize they’re not getting paid the way that men are getting paid, and they’re still passing laws against the reproductive organs. So, the idea of what’s in the thought, which is ultimately the American mythology of the dream, and how you parlay that to American reality is very interesting. Alaudin Ullah Alaudin: Yeah. I think that’s kind of like photo: Amir Hamza what we’re discovering in this play. It’s like, I really thought I had an idea of what being telling. Whether it’s literature, or music or plays. no. You’re going to have a Muslim name. a comedian, going out to Hollywood was, DECEMBER 2021 Newcity And since the beginning—well, in a way, we’re I feel like Bengalis, they hold on so much to and living that dream. And then the reality all immigrants, as we all say. And it’s actually their culture, and then, you know, my father was different. I think my father also felt the built on the backs of immigrants. The irony is was a Sufi Muslim, he believed in like Tagore same way. “Well, when I come to America, that it’s always been the same story. And all and they get emotional when they hear the street’s paved with gold, and there’s of us feel like, in the end, most immigrant Bengali poetry. And father would give me opportunity.” And my father was watching parents who come to this country, didn’t come these lectures like, “You know, there was a Marlon Brando and Kirk Douglas. “That’s the to this country for themselves, they come here war so that in our country you could speak America that I want to be a part of.” But when for the children, so that you’ll get a better life. Bangla, and you don’t want to speak Bangla.” he came here, it was a different reality. I think And the irony, of course is, we see the parents I’m like, “Yeah, Pop, can I go play a game of it’s almost about, what is the reality of America, as obstacles to us being an American. basketball now?” I was so Americanized. versus this sort of myth of America. Alaudin: My mom always wanted me to So, you have all of these things that my Chay: And what’s really interesting, too, is if have the name Alaudin, but you know, father went through on the ship; how he you study it a little bit more, the dream doesn’t Hollywood kind of changed it to Aladdin. But was—the weather, the working conditions apply to immigrants coming to America. It’s the correct pronunciation is AL-OW-DEEN, on those boats was slavery. And the fact now global. You go to any corner of Asia, which means servant of Allah, nobility of faith. that they came to America and left that Europe or Africa, the icon of the American oppression, like, they never talked about that. Dream is synonymous with their own kind of And I’m like really? Okay. The thing is, there Never. I didn’t know that my father worked on dream. That you actually can have all these are some immigrants, you know, we joked a boat, shoveling coal and all this stuff. I had things. So, it’s been imported. The idea of about this—they’ll be like Chinese, and then no clue. And then when I went to Bangladesh, the American Dream is imported around the we’ll be like Johnny Cho. My parents are like, they told me the chores that my father had to world. I think it’s through storytelling, and sometimes, the more truthful it is, it is more interesting than the Marlon Brandos, because in the end, the reason that Marlon Brando gets the girls is because he’s Marlon Brando. He’s not me. He’s not his father. At Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe; (847)242-6000, writerstheatre.org. December 9 to January 16, 2022. 61
Reviews Sidney DuPont as Washington Henry, Nathaniel Stampley as Rev. Samuel Jacob Lewis. Photo: Kevin Berne Newcity DECEMBER 2021 62
And yet, Levy’s steel-tubed instruments Reviews never tread beyond mere suggestion. Somewhere between a body and a base, her sculptures posture as pure supports. Akin to anatomical scaffolds, they pose and primp, ready to hold someone, or something in their spinous clutches. Outwardly seductive, these apparatuses lure you, tease you and dare you take the bait. However, Levy’s sculptures are fundamentally indifferent to the viewer. Reserved, self-absorbed and reflected in the high-gloss gallery floor, they prey inwardly, preoccupied with the engrossing drama of form kissing form. Lurching toward the anthropomorphic, Levy’s work mimics the surface of reptilian epidermises, adopts the shape of bird and bat bones, and expresses the curve of a hip or the arch of a foot through negative space. Despite these organic characteristics—corre- sponding with the scintillating impulses of Surrealism and the willowy ornament of Jugendstil—Levy’s sculpture tends more toward critic Lucy Lippard’s 1966 concept of “Eccentric Abstraction,” in which form is embodied through its sensuous objectivity. A form is a form and nothing more. Inherently, accessories are objects of excess—their form often following their lack of function. Levy subverts the language of adornment, presenting only what is left over. Like ornamental remainders stripped from the context of bodies or interiors, her sculptures do more with less. (Alexandra Drexelius ) Installation view, “Hannah Levy: “Hannah Levy: Surplus Tension” is Surplus Tension” at the Arts Club on view at the Arts Club of Chicago, of Chicago/Photo: Michael Tropea 201 East Ontario, through January 29. Art “Less is More,” Levy’s work coyly Thinking About Abstraction DECEMBER 2021 Newcity prods at the equivalency of excess A Review of Surface is Only Just for a Frill embodied through restraint. a Material Vehicle for Spirit A Review of Hannah Levy at Kavi Gupta at the Arts Club of Chicago Levy models restriction through tempered promiscuity. Borrowing from It’s not that readable texts or Artist Hannah Levy’s latest suite of the language of boudoir fashion, her representational images necessarily nickel-plated steel and silicone- glossy tubing—smoothly bent into diminish an artwork, but some of the swathed skin-and-bone sculptures the shape of accent pieces, fixtures best artists, both young and old, benefit from their present location at and accessories—is scantily clad in continue to work without them. the Arts Club of Chicago. The contem- beige and blush skins resembling Several live or show in Chicago, so porary galleries, designed by John Vinci negligee and shapewear. Composed the manifesto-like title of this exhibition in the late nineties, are emblematic of skeletal armatures not unlike got me eager to see that kind of of the enduring legacy of Bauhaus underwire, arched rods of steels and work. It needs aesthetic intensity sensibilities in Chicago and pay tribute bulbous joints skim, squeeze and since it has no mimetic, political or to the former club interiors designed by stretch at silicone shells. In a ceil- theoretical concerns to validate it. German American architect Ludwig ing-suspended work resembling a Mies van der Rohe in 1951. Precisely chandelier, a fleshy bodice cinches But if “Surface is Only a Material positioned in relation to the grid and around five curved steel rods—their Vehicle for Spirit,” then why are so grout of the Arts Club’s black terrazzo talon-like tips tug at the corset’s many surfaces in this exhibition also tile floor, Levy’s sculptures prick the periphery like garter straps. Across vehicles for text or representations? parameters of modernist aesthetics the gallery, three pairs of heeled stilts This show relates less to “the field of in which material constraints and take after strappy sandal and stiletto contemporary abstraction” than to utilitarian desires breed measured designs with puce translucent bands curator Kennedy Yanko’s own artwork, elegance. Ensnaring the Miesian adage, wrapped around slick metal soles. as was shown in this same gallery two years ago. Most of Yanko’s pieces in 63
Review Set in Britain during World War II, it evokes uncertainty, anxiety and fear on every page. Strangers thrown together because of the bombing in London, children evacuated for their safety, mystery writer turned pharma- cist, nurses suspected as spies, caretakers become Home Guard, boy turned soldier, seamen and pilots, nothing is as it seems. Newcity DECEMBER 2021 that show contrasted the ruggedness colors and textures. Rezman paints In the custody of a married couple, of banged-up oil cans with the smooth- geoforms on canvas, but rather than who have rented part of Agatha ness of gallon-sized paint skins. being stretched, the fabric has been Christie’s house on the coast, and two Sometimes it appeared that the cut, torn and shaped—and maybe young nurses, ten children travel to bladder-like paint skins were being even repurposed from something in Greenway, a white manor house on defecated, but overall the pieces the alley. The results feel fresh and a distant hill. It should be a refuge of proclaimed: “From this rusty old unconventional. Council makes safety far from the dangers of London, junkyard into which we were born… monochrome silicone panels. Though but instead, it seems to be a landmark a fresh, free, unpredictable spirit has better known for her “Afro-Americana for the Luftwaffe. Is the nouveau riche emerged.” It’s something like the camp aesthetic,” these pieces could couple doing charity work, is Agatha foundational myth of America itself, serve as decorative accents in five- Christie among them or not, why aren’t except that this free spirit is feminine, star hotels anywhere in the world. the nurses busy in the hospitals? This not patriarchal. It flows like a river, it puzzle box of a novel has everything, does not smash, build or possess like The strongest spirit among all this, death at a distance on the battlefields a John Wayne rancher. however, is delivered by the text, as and in hospitals, murder up close well as the form in the paintings of happening around Greenway House, Several of these artists also relate to Charles Mason III. Other artists may a group of people that do not belong in junkyards. Chiffon Thomas and Alexan- deliver attitude or wit with force and the country, a crowd of those who will dre Diop appear to have found their skill, as did artist-curator Kennedy never leave the area. battered, neglected, grungy materials Yanko in her 2019 show. But Mason’s there. Charles Mason III brings a paintings demand a deeper under- Readers will enjoy this novel down to the dumpster aesthetic into his paintings, standing, even if it proves elusive. last page because when you find a well- or, treating them like refuse, he throws They essentialize that one great drama layered entertaining enigma like “Death several into a heap on the floor. each person knows best: their own at Greenway,” it’s time to brew a cuppa lives. And so they feel less clever, and settle in for a treat. (L.D. Barnes) Others relate to Yanko’s feminist sense but also more real. Grimly, they point of humor. Jessica Stoller builds female backward to personal struggles rather “Death at Greenway” by Lori Rader-Day body parts into her kitschy ceramics than forward into a brighter future. William Morrow Paperbacks, 448 pages while Gracelee Lawrence includes But so did many of the early heroes them in her more elegant 3-D prints. of American Abstract Expression. Music Katie Bell’s installation of geoform (Chris Miller) objects is more like a spoof of early Taking the Plunge male modernists than a contribution “Surface is Only a Material Vehicle A Review of Circuit des Yeux’s “-io” to the tradition. It’s tightly organized for Spirit,” Kavi Gupta, 219 North from only one point-of-view, yet even Elizabeth, through December 23. Haley Fohr’s latest album—her sixth that cannot compare with the formal as Circuit des Yeux—begins with an energy of graphics by El Lissitzky. Lit exhalation, followed by a chanted “om” and then, a long orchestral inhalation. Only the pieces by Monica Rezman Settle In In the pause that follows, you find and Pamela Council appear to be A Review of Lori Rader-Day’s yourself holding your breath along with primarily about the effect of shapes, Death at Greenway the record—then plunging into the stabbing strings of the first cut. It’s an audacious way to begin a record; a high-diver steeling herself before propelling herself off the board. Yet it becomes increasingly apparent why Fohr shared this moment of steeling herself; it’s because the waters into which she descends are deep and perilous. The artist has spent the past two years enduring personal losses, set against the larger deprivation of the global pandemic. above: Katie Bell, “Line of Play,” 2021, Lori Rader-Day is Chicago’s multi- Yet the moment has a spiritual laminate, acrylic, wood, aluminum, rubber, award winning murder-mystery writer element as well; Fohr has given it drywall, solid surface, plexiglass, and cue whose sixth novel, “Death at Greenway,” the title “Tonglen | In Vain”—tonglen balls, 111 x 200 x 112 inches has more threads unraveling than a being the Buddhist practice of breath- basket of embroidery floss skeins. ing in pain and breathing out healing. 64
It’s an audacious task for the artist to Then there’s a gentle, Latin-tinged It’s the story of Paradise Square, an Reviews set for herself; in attempting to tran- coda: “Fatigue and slow trains / The anything-goes saloon in Five Points, scend the sheer weight of all this grief dust is dancing for you / And the New York—”America’s first slum”— DECEMBER 2021 Newcity through music, she might very well sound is trigonometry proof.” set near the middle of the Civil War, have found herself punching above at a time when free Blacks and Irish her weight class. Fohr strides heroically through so immigrants lived together in harmoni- many variations on distress, that ous squalor. In fact, the owner of the As it turns out, she’s more than a “Neutron Star” comes as a bit of bar, Nelly O’Brien (Tony Award nominee match for the task. As an artist, Fohr surprise; it initially comes off as an Joaquina Kalukango), is a Black woman is situated at that perfect juncture at ecstatic ode to becoming; but its married to an Irishman whose sister, which seasoned experience is still gorgeously evocative lyrics become Annie Lewis (Chilina Kennedy), is informed by youthful vigor. “-io” is an progressively more ominous. “The married to a Black minister, Reverend exhilarating and frequently beautiful destiny of your life outnumbered all Samuel Jacob Lewis (Nathaniel album, and most listeners will experi- the rest / Each warranted mistake Stampley). It’s a sort of interracial ence some kind of vicarious affinity was protruding from your chest / utopia from the future, until the war for it. It’s a dazzling, often revelatory Until all the gloom left no more room / and the conscription that follows create piece of orchestral art-pop. And gravity got dressed.” But the end heartache and conflict, eventually of the piece is tinged by regret; a leading to the Draft Riots that, accord- In “Vanishing,” Fohr leads with an neutron star is created by collapse— ing to Wikipedia, “remain the largest invocation of loss (“Fading, falling, its weight pulls it into itself. A neutron civil and most racially charged urban melting, sinking, disappear / Zero star not only disappears, it sucks disturbance in American history.” axiom is our hero”). Tacking boldly everything in its vicinity into it. As a between time signatures, she marshals metaphor for suicide, it’s both bold When the draft comes, the Irish (not only in this tune, but throughout) and transcendent. (and other) immigrants who can’t a twenty-three-piece orchestra with afford to hire a substitute or pay grace and daring. There are repeated, The album closes with its most straight- $300—a full year’s wages—won’t be almost incantatory sequences overlaid forward cut. “Oracle Song” plays like able to avoid the battlefield to fight a with riotous gesture and display, a lullaby, with Fohr gently singing a war for a country they barely know. and the tune brims with stunning lament for a younger woman—seem- But Blacks, who are not considered poetic passages (“Goodbye to the ingly one who, like Fohr, is striving to citizens, are prohibited from service, puddle in the ground / We didn’t make her voice heard in a harsh and as much as they might actually want to know each other well / But you were opportunistic world. “I saw figures fight. This sets neighbors against each my mirrored sky”). forming around you / And I’m worried other, in a microcosm of the conflict that they’ll kill / Your glowing skin, of the Civil War itself. Never mind that “The Chase” is another standout, unknowing eyes, what hasn’t happened the real villains were the rich who were one of several cuts that are more to you yet / You’re surrounded by the able to buy their way out of service suites than songs. It uncannily conjures same men / That ended me when under the law. the physical sensation of being on I was 17.” The song—and thus the the run, both physically and metaphori- album—ends on a hopeful but tellingly If you’re a fan of the kind of big, dumb cally, starting with a breathless whisper unresolved chord. musicals that too often make bank on over a discordant jangle (“Falling down Broadway, this is not your show. It’s the graveled road / The wind is at “-io” is dense with ideas, but musical smart, nuanced and jammed with your back but it feels like vertigo”), and conceptual, and it’s not shy about ideas about race, gender, class, then breaking into a heart-thumping dressing them up for maximum effect. immigration, the neglect of veterans, instrumental sprint beneath Fohr’s And Fohr’s voice—a commanding, and just about everything else that ails almost languid coda, “I could not cathedral baritone that can suddenly America. “Pretty Woman” this is not. stop until the moment passed from jump octaves to achieve a kind of my own heart.” primeval keening—benefits from the What it is is a percussive dance richness of sound world she’s created. wonderland, filled with extraordinary Where “The Chase” charts the arc But this much sonic opulence might Irish jig, Juba and tap dancers—tap of a pursuit, from the point of view be a lot to take in in a single sitting; was created in Five Points. There i of the pursued, “Argument” ranges in fact, Fohr’s own advice—included s a kind of playful competition and over the emotional and symbolic in a listening guide that accompanies collaboration throughout that calls to landscape of the feud of the title. the album—advises that you “take a mind the high-school dance in “West Some lovely, swirling strings draw us break after track 5 or 6. -io is a novel Side Story,” if only the Jets and the in and the movement is echoed by not a movie.” Point taken. But it is, Sharks were friend rather than foe. the lyrics: “The dust is dancing up resoundingly, a novel worth hearing. Bill T. Jones’ choreography throughout from the floor / Only in the sunlight can (Robert Rodi) is exceptional—his depiction of slaves I see / How far they’ve been traveling / being beaten on a plantation in Constantly spinning / I pretend to Stage one scene creates a tableau that is focus on the dance / It’s not that I somehow terrifying and beautiful at don’t care / It’s just that I don’t want The Harmony of Discord the same time. He can start making to see anger in the air.” It’s only with A Review of Paradise Square at room on his mantel for his third Tony this last phrase that we realize what’s the James M. Nederlander Theatre Award right now. going on; Fohr is expertly expressing the heightened sense of physical It’s far too early to know if this is one The songs in the first act are far less awareness we have when we’re for the ages, but no doubt this is the memorable, except the Stephen experiencing high emotion. The piece most important musical of our times, A. Foster mashups, modernizations swells and intensifies, climaxing in drawing from American history to of such songs as “Oh! Susanna” and Fohr’s voice twinned with a cello, depict the kind of racial harmony we “Camptown Races” that fuel masterful singing, “Is this the end? Is this how still call aspirational, as well as the dances. But the performances from it feels? While the ground shakes.” path to its destruction. Kalukango, Kennedy and Stampley 65
Review Newcity DECEMBER 2021 and their powerful voices turn so-so The final third of the show, which book—Christina Anderson, Marcus songs into soaring triumphs anyway. depicts the riots and their carnage, Gardley, Craig Lucas and Larry And the two lead dancers—Irish is its most expository and episodic Kirwan, the lead singer of Black 47 immigrant Owen Duignan (A.J. Shively) and my least favorite, for the dancing who planted the seed of this project and escaped slave Washington Henry recedes and so, generally, do the nearly a decade ago with the predeces- (Sidney DuPont), could put on their main characters. Overall, the show, sor musical, “Hard Times.” But thanks own show, and do. while very strong already, can still use to its all-star cast and creative team, a few nips and tucks of songs and led by three-time Tony Award-winning Foster’s music—and character— scenes to tighten the pacing and producer Garth H. Drabinsky, two- plays a big part in the show, anchoring amplify the drama. time Tony Award-nominated director songs like the poetic “Why Should Moisés Kaufman and two-time Tony I Die in Springtime” but also creating Still, small touches are nice, such as Award-winning choreographer Bill T. a framework for addressing the history tableaus where the inactive ensemble Jones, it’s off to Broadway this time, of commercial appropriation of Black members in a scene freeze in pose, as after its short Chicago run. music for white financial gain and if prepping for a Mathew Brady photo- even minstrelsy. Foster moved to graph. And speaking of the ensemble, That long road has also, sadly, brought Five Points toward the end of his life I can’t remember a musical where the the cultural relevance of the show to and was inspired by it. Little wonder, collective voices constructed such a the forefront. When one disgruntled since most great American music beautiful wall of sound; it brought to character, a wounded Civil War veteran, innovations originate in the most mind the Lyric Opera Chorus. sings about being “true to a country hardscrabble places, like jazz, blues that wasn’t true to you,” it’s as if the and hip-hop. The music in the second act is much seeds of the disaffection that plagues stronger, with “Someone to Love ” some of the white working class today But the show’s not of one mind when and “Breathe Easy” making their are being planted. And when Gabrielle it comes to appropriation in artistic case for singing-in-the-shower worthy. Clinton, playing Washington’s love creation. In one key dance scene, Two showstopping scenes are the and fellow escaped slave Angelina Washington Henry wows everyone feis dance competition, where the Baker, sings the gospel-infused when he incorporates Irish jig into his stake is, not coincidentally, $300, “Breathe Easy,” a song about slavery own footwork. It’s a theatricalization of and “Let It Burn,” where Kalukango’s promising “You will reach freedom the creation of tap. That the show has voice and all-consuming presence someday,” you can’t help but think more questions on this topic than is stunning, of which the audience about the deaths of George Floyd and answers is appropriate, since the agreed such that it erupted in a Eric Garner, two Black men literally culture at large is still very much standing ovation that literally suffocated by white oppression. The grappling with it as well. stopped the show. Start engraving song will leave you breathless, as will her Tony, too. the sadness. (Brian Hieggelke) above: At center, Kevin Dennis (with cap), This show has been on a long road At the James M. Nederlander Matt Bogart, Joaquina Kalukango, of development, as evidenced by the Theatre, 24 West Randolph Chilina Kennedy, Nathaniel Stampley number of writers credited for the through December 5. and Ensemble/Photo: Kevin Berne 66
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NOW OPEN: ON STAGE: ENTANGLEMENT MCA STORE: ANDREA BOWERS PERFORMANCES FROM WISH LIST WONDERS THROUGH MAR 27, 2022 MARCH TO MAY, 2022 Experience the artist's first Explore interconnection and Find unique, art-inspired midcareer retrospective, shared risk through three gifts at the MCA Store. Shop spanning more than twenty performance sets from in-store or online: years of practice. Reserve Mammalian Diving Reflex, mcachicagostore.org. tickets in advance. Autumn Knight, and Alice Sheppard/Kinetic Light. PHOTO: Andrea Bowers, It Gives Me Life, 2017. Installation On sale now: mcachicago.org. view, Hammer Projects: Andrea Bowers, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. March 11–July 16, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forrest. MUSEUM OF For more information, CONTEMPORARY ART scan the QR code or visit CHICAGO mcachicago.org/look.
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