Summer superficiality: “42 Balloons”; “Diana”; and “Titanique”
Charlie McCullagh and The Company. Photo by Kyle Flubacker.
Musical theater writers don’t have to tell their audiences everything—they don’t need to hand-hold and underline every beat in bold—but they should certainly have an idea of what they are doing. “42 Balloons,” making its way from the British fringe over to the States via Chicago Shakespeare Theater. is a case of a musical with question marks aplenty.
It even starts with a question: “What makes a man try to fly in a lawn chair,” the ensemble asks in a recurring refrain. This refers to Larry Walters, a man who wanted more than anything to fly but, being grounded by bad vision, took matters into his own hands. At the risk of spoiling a forty-year-old human-interest story, Walters, planning to float only a couple dozen feet off the ground in a Sears lawn chair attached to a whole lotta army surplus weather balloons, overdid it just a little. His derring-do earned him a slot on talk shows and lecture circuits, as well as a Darwin Award nomination.
Debuting composer-librettist Jack Godfrey, abetted by director-dramaturg Ellie Coote, seems to be working purely off gut instinct—fitting, perhaps, for the subject matter—but his instincts are based on a shallow well of influences. The greatest of these, by far, is the shiny-synth-y pop and music videos of the Eighties. It’s not that there isn’t a bop to be found in any of the score, nor that there isn’t something in the notion of using the operatic tropes of music videos to ennoble and elevate these otherwise ordinary lives.
But it’s all surface—all the music-video posturing just becomes signifiers for the emotional beats that the score itself isn’t providing. Larry and company constantly sing of themselves in the third person, which could be an interesting almost-reportorial device—especially as regards a story that made such an excited blip in the news—but, really, it just sounds like Godfrey is more comfortable standing outside his characters rather than inhabiting them.
Digging into a character would seem to be a prerequisite for a musical about an unapologetic dreamer like Larry Walters, but how he came to believe in his dream so strongly that he clung to it for twenty-odd years is also unexplored. He had some relatives in the Air Force; he saw balloons at a formative age; and that’s it. Again, this could be something—does a dream need to justify itself? And when Larry, deep in debt following his very expensive expedition, is forced to monetize the fruits of his dream through talk show appearances that expose his earnestness to snark and sneers, this could be a harrowing cultural indictment. As is, though, Godfrey is just skimming through Larry’s biography.
(And, to be fair, in pre-opening press, Godfrey calls his musical a love letter to America and its culture as written from a foreigner’s perspective. That said, he may not be interested in painting in darker colors, but they’ll be there.)
That his otherwise sincere tale makes room for snark of its own—all of the “would you believe they could make a musical out of this?!” variety—well, it gets the easy laugh. Once.
To his credit, there was something in Godfrey’s work that attracted the attention of the producers of “Six,” which Chicago Shakes’s marketing materials make clear. Given the lucrative treks of both “Six” and “Operation Mincemeat”—both British musicals with fringe roots based on incredible slices of history—it seems like they’re willing to try for a third success story. They believe in it enough to port over the entire physical production from London, and, given the material, it’s ideally scaled—it’s as big as it needs to be. Make that, it’s as big as it can be, as is. If they want “42 Balloons” to expand and soar, they’ll have to coax Godfrey and Coote back down to the ground and tackle some big questions.
42 Balloons plays through Jun. 29 at 800 E Grand Ave. For tickets or more information, please visit chicagoshakes.com.
Jack Saunders, Kate McQuillan, and The Company. Photo by Time Stops Photography.
As any theater maven who was trapped in the COVID lockdowns can attest, “Diana”, based on the private-made-public life of the Princess of Wales—can have its giddy pleasures.
Its Broadway production was first shuttered by the pandemic, then blessed by Netflix money to make a proshot, which itself was “blessed” (read: torn apart) by millions in real time. (To say nothing of its Razzie nods.) Once the stage musical finally opened, the overall reaction seemed to let up some, if only to suggest that “Diana” is best enjoyed with a glass of champers or three.
Such continues to be the case as evidenced by the production at Theo, the company that has made its name by curating seasons of musicals that were overlooked, underrated, or otherwise worthy of another showing. All things considered, Fred Anzevino, Theo’s late master curator, seemed to have a soft spot for “Diana,” despite its apparent defiance to reinvention and reinterpretation, it being so exactly-what-it-is.
What it is: a gallop through Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles as written by Americans (Joe DiPietro on book and lyrics; David Bryan on music and lyrics) whose understanding of British culture seems limited to that they say “bloody” a lot.
What it is: a romance-novel love triangle in with two sturdy points: Diana (Kate McQuillan—and there’s no point doing a Diana musical if she’s not going to be as strong as McQuillan)—and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Colette Todd, once again best in show for playing a very patient woman). For his part, Jack Saunders almost seems to lean into what could only be called Charles’s damp-dishrag nature, and this is meant as a compliment.
What it is: in fleeting moments, a portrait of a woman who in her way grappled with hard and pressing issues whereas her husband and handlers may well have wished she—to borrow a phrase—just looked pretty and did as little as possible. I’m not sure if it was Anzevino’s or co-director Brenda Didier’s notion to give the last word to Matheus Barbee, who among other roles played an AIDS ward patient Diana visited, or whether this was a change made for the Broadway show after the Netflix proshot aired, but it’s a worthy touch-up.
What it is: if you can take it for the tabloid-gloss faux-”Evita” that it is—and if you can belly up to Theo’s bar—”Diana” could make a fun night out.
Worst-case scenario, the proshot is still on Netflix. If you love “The Crown”…
Diana runs through Jul. 20 at 721 Howard St., Evanston. For tickets or more information, please visit theo-u.com.
Clare Kennedy McLaughlin and the Company. Photo by Michael Brosilow.
Finally, at the end, we have “Titanique”, proof-positive that sometimes all you need is to have the One Big Idea and then cling to it.
For Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue, the Big Idea was to mash together James Cameron’s epochal 1997 big-boat blockbuster and a raft of songs made famous by Céline Dion. Oh, and inject Dion into the story as narrator hovering over the Jack-Rose-Cal love triangle.
“Titanique”, like some Quebecois Pac-Man, is omnivorous: there is no double entendre, no high belt, no microscopically niche gay cultural reference point that it will not chomp at. Also like a Quebecois Pac-Man, it sinks so low it somehow comes out on top.
It’s positively stupid, and I loved every second of it.
…What? Sometimes, “stupid” and “superficial” comes together into a ripping night out. You just gotta be smart about it.
If the sheer notion of Céline romping through 1912 doesn’t dissuade you, I’ll only offer this: Clare Kennedy McLaughlin, if she doesn’t glue you to the back of your seat with vocal power, may perpetually alter how you hear “Peabo Bryson” forevermore. Oh, and Rob Lindley as nasty mama Ruth is doing a mean Richard Roxburgh impression.
“Titanique”: fortune’s winds sing “Godspeed” to thee.
Titanique runs through Jul. 13 at 175 E Chestnut St. For tickets or more information, please visit either broadwayinchicago.com or porchlightmusictheatre.org.
For more reviews on this or other shows, please visit theatreinchicago.com.