The answer to whether last summer's Skylight Opera Theatre fracas was worth all the fuss is currently onstage at the Broadway Theatre Center. The second half of the Skylight's production of "A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine" is buoyant comic bliss. And the first half is pretty darn enjoyable, too.
It's unlikely I would be writing that if the intense company squabble last year had been resolved differently. The issue, you may recall, came down to creative control and the Skylight's long history of being a family of collaborative artists.
Some folks didn't understand the value of that. This production vividly illustrates the worth of veteran artists, with decades of common history, working together. Put longtime Skylight director and choreographer Pam Kriger in charge, and you have the complete company package.
"A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine" is an odd piece of musical theater. Two single-act musicals are linked by a common theme -- the movies. Consider the show, which debuted on Broadway 30 years ago, a double feature.
"Ukraine" takes Anton Chekhov's plot for his one-act play "The Bear" and spins it into a movie musical with a crucial conceit. It is a faux Marx Brothers flick. Lyricist and librettist Dick Vosburgh was so dead on with his imitation of a typical Marx script, the late brothers' estate sued for "unauthorized appropriation" of the characters.
Don't tell the estate about Skylight singer-actors Norman Moses, Ray Jivoff and Benjamin Howes. Their impersonations of Groucho, Harpo and Chico are so dead on in "A Night in the Ukraine," they may end up in court, too. And throw in Carol Greif Schuele, whose portrayal of comic foil Mrs. Pavlenko is so true to the Marx Brothers' straight woman Margaret Dumont, she may need a lawyer.
The plot -- Moses plays a scheming attorney and Greif Schuele is a grieving wealthy widow -- is simply a framework for an hour of rapid fire Marx Brothers shenanigans. Like a championship football team operating at maximum efficiency, timing and execution are everything here, and this cast is Super Bowl caliber.
Moses and Jivoff own the Groucho and Harpo franchises in Milwaukee, having played them so often for the Skylight and Next Act Theatre. I daresay no one anywhere does the two brothers better.
Howes is not a Skylight regular, but his cheerfully clueless Chico is comic meringue. The supporting cast rises to the high standards set by Moses, Jivoff and Howes.
The first half of this double feature is an affectionate tribute to the movies of the 1930s. All nine cast members are costumed in red usher uniforms, befitting their status of star-struck employees at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
The origin of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and other trivia are wrapped in a lot of singing, tapping and some soft shoe. Choreographer Kriger riffs on the clever original choreography of Tommy Tune in several numbers, including the chanting of the old restrictive Hollywood "production code" by a squadron of tappers. Jivoff and Greif Schuele are quite wonderful impersonating Bob Hope and Shirley Ross singing "Thanks for the Memory."
Most of the score for both acts was written by Frank Lazarus. "A Day in Hollywood" also includes tunes written by Harold Arlen, Richard Whiting, Johnny Mercer and others. The double bill continues through April 4 in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center.
New Season Announced
The Skylight's 2010-11 season will be bookended by shows that represent opposite ends of the musical theater genre. "Dames at Sea," the 1960s off-Broadway hit that propelled Bernadette Peters to stardom, opens the season Sept. 17 to Oct. 3. It's a parody of Busby Berkeley movie musicals, complete with a chorus girl who saves the day.
Mequon native Josh Schmidt's "Adding Machine -- A Musical" will close the season May 20 to June 12, 2011. A rapidly rising star in American musical theater, Schmidt was working at the Skylight even before he received his music degree from UWM in 1999. He has designed sound for nearly every major professional theater company in Wisconsin.
"Adding Machine -- A Musical" is based on Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionistic drama "The Adding Machine." The piece was a huge hit in its original production in Chicago before it moved to New York, where it won the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding off-Broadway musical. That came on the heels of winning the best new musical award in the Windy City.
Schmidt, who composed the eclectic score and co-wrote the libretto, says he had the Skylight in mind when he created the 90-minute show.
Also on the Skylight's schedule for next season are "H.M.S. Pinafore," Nov. 19 to Dec. 19, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," Jan. 28 to Feb. 20, 2011, and "Cosi Fan Tutte," March 18 to April 3, 2011.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
