Displaying items by tag: David Adjmi

“There’s a fine line between compromise and losing yourself.”

So many of us have that story of a favorite band. A group brought together by a shared passion and realizes they have that special something that can make them huge. So often that passion takes a dramatic turn, and the pressures cloud that rise to fame in a way that no one can quite overcome. Playwright David Adjmi smartly writes that tragedy for the stage. A gut-wrenching story about the many ramifications of talent not quite being enough and realizing only too late that the love for music that made these folks unique got lost along the way.

Masterfully directed by Daniel Aukin, Stereophonic zooms in on a recording studio in 1976. As we witness a band recording their first album, we see the highs and lows of the year-long journey. The early-days excitement, to the exhaustion of the long nights, and finally, to the ending culmination – when it really does come down to making the hard choices in the midst of the many heartbreaks that took place along the way.

A story extending over a year in this way could risk feeling slow, but Aukin’s production is anything but. Aukin theatricalizes Adjmi’s high-stakes drama, creating a tension-filled production that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat – anxiously wondering when that other shoe will drop. You might find that the sprinkling of Will Butler’s original music enhances that pacing and mood. As the emotional turmoil grows, we see that cleverly reflected in the score – all performed live by the deeply talented cast of musicians.

Aukin’s creative team creates the perfect space for this tension to bubble. Scenic Designer David Zinn beautifully transports the audience into a 1970s recording studio. Though seemingly cozy upon first glance, it quickly becomes clear that the long nights turn this studio into a pressure cooker for a band of five with two sound engineers. As the story unfolds, the space continues to feel increasingly smaller – with nowhere to hide from the interpersonal challenges that have no choice but to bubble and grow.

(From L) Claire DeJean as ‘Diana’, Emilie Kouatchou as ‘Holly’, and Denver Milord as ‘Peter’ in the First National Tour of Stereophonic.

Part of the cleverness of Adjmi’s play is the emphasis on the relationships at the core. Aukin’s ensemble exhibits genuine chemistry – inviting audiences to lean in and feel the heartbreak as they see those bonds crack. Aukin sets up a casual, familiar energy between group members early – an energy that slowly shifts as the story goes on.

The band begins unified under the management of Simon (Cornelius McMoyler). We learn early in the story of the romantic entanglements within the group – married couple Holly (Emilie Kouatchou) and Reg (Christopher Mowod), and Diana (Clare Dejean) and Peter (Denver Milord), a couple who has perhaps been together so long that they cannot find their way out of it. Dejean and Milord infuse a heartbreaking authenticity into their relationship – walking the balance of a couple that clearly loves each other despite the heavy pain on both sides.

Grover (Jack Barrett) and Charlie (Steven Lee Johnson) tie everything together as the sound team in the studio. Lee Johnson’s comedy offers a much-needed light-heartedness to some of the darker moments, and you might find that Grover’s story slowly becomes the heart of the play. As the engineer, he begins on the outside looking in. As Grover becomes more invested, we soon start to see that he might need this record even more than the band members. Barrett’s grounded performance immediately invites the audience to align with him as he fights for it, and to feel his heartbreak when he starts to wonder if everything will fall apart.

With heartfelt performances and a tension-packed story, Stereophonic is simply a must-see. It’s rare to find a packed house so lost in the emotion that they do not know how to handle the final blackout of a performance. This production earned that silence, as well as the uproar of applause that followed.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Run Time: 2 hours and 50 minutes, including intermission

Stereophonic runs through February 8 at the CIBC Theatre. For tickets and information, see the Broadway in Chicago website.

Marie Antoinette by David Adjmi opens with a spectacular video presentation of the massive gardens and castle of Versailles along with a full on catwalk style fashion show by the queen, her girlfriends and the rest of the royal cast. I loved the staging of this show by a six person design team including Clint Ramos (scenic design), Dede Ayite (costume design), Dave Bova (hair and wig design), Japhy Weideman (lighting design), Lindsay Jones (sound and composition) and Jeff Sugg (projection design). The mirrored stage, combined with giant Vegas style flowers above it and the ever changing video projections worked together wonderfully to give us a glimpse of the largesse and majesty of that time period. Truly, the fashion of the time was something that separated the rich from the poor but also enslaved those able to afford it because it was impossible to dress and style yourself without a huge staff.

Alana Arenas is stunning as Marie Antoinette and does a great job portraying the doomed queen with both biting sarcasm and the occasional childlike grasp of the violent events unfolding all around her and because of her but not within her control at all. She, like the rest of royalty, is completely out of touch with the real world. We really see this as they try to pass as farmers during their escape after revolutionaries have taken over yet they are completely incapable of holding a normal conversation with approaching peasants (worse yet, they actually try to flee in the royal carriage thinking no one will notice them!). It is also very interesting to see the many parallels from Marie Antoinette that exist today, such as the inappropriate distribution of wealth, power in the hands of people that should not have it and the lack of power in those that should.

I like that Adjmi mentions twice in the play that Marie was only 14 years old when she was married to the imbecile King Louis the Louis XVI (Tim Hopper) – because most people assume she was an adult when she entered the realm of marriage and politics which was not true. You can really see in his text how similar the situation is for celebrities and their children today that their every move is first exalted and then diminished and eventually degraded as the social and political climes about them change. It is also pointed out how gross the invasion of privacy is when a human being feels they cannot even leave the confines of their home or do anything normal in public at all without it being analyzed and ridiculed by thousands of strangers whose opinions should not matter at all.

In a way we all have a little Marie Antoinette in us, that confused and excited teenager who is thrust into adult circumstances and is forced to “conform and perform” or sink under the weight of disappointment of family and society around us if we do not produce the hoped for successes in finances and family life, i.e. having children.

I highly recommend this elegant, eye popping and thoroughly modern interpretation of the life of a woman who was born and bred not to have her own life but the life prescribed for her by her parents and their political advisors.

Tickets and information:

When: Now through May 10, 2015

Where: Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.

Contact: www.steppenwolf.org