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'American Dream' shines during Bernstein revival
REVIEW | New songs in musical's second half are mixed bag
February 20, 2008

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BY HEDY WEISS
Chicago Sun-Times Theater Critic

Jason Loewith might just be "the new Music Man. "

Consider this: Monday night at Next Theatre, his home base, Loewith oversaw the opening of "The American Dream Songbook," an inventive two-part offering whose first half is devoted to a sparkling production of "Trouble in Tahiti ," Leonard Bernstein's rarely revived 1952 one-act that might best be described as a suburban-modern operetta. The show's second half is a showcase of five fully staged theater songs by contemporary writers, all commissioned to muse on the current state of "the American Dream."

No sooner was "Songbook" safely premiered than Loewith headed to New York for next Monday's Off-Broadway opening of "The Adding Machine," the hit musical he wrote with composer Joshua Schmidt (based on the classic Elmer Rice play of the 1920s) and produced at Next last season.

Loewith's decision to revive Bernstein's " Tahiti " was inspired, and he has staged it with enormous style, zest and heart. From the first jazzy, rhythmically irresistible riff of the music, to the playfully sardonic lyrics evoking such fabled suburbs as Scarsdale, N.Y. and Highland Park, Ill., to the Edward Hopper-like scenes of a married couple tormented by loneliness, "Tahiti" is a seamless blend of pop culture and high art, caustic comedy and deep domestic sadness. And Loewith's production, full of panache, captures both extremes. It also is just the latest reminder of Bernstein's multifaceted genius and theatrical flair.

A tale of broken dreams, a soured marriage and life's winners and losers, " Tahiti " gives us the self-involved businessman Sam (James Rank) and his pre-feminist wife, Dinah (Karen Doerr), who have all the postwar perks -- nice house, good income, healthy kid -- but are miserable and alienated. Only when the two stand at the abyss does reconciliation begin to seem like an option.

Rank and Doerr are splendid actor-singers, shifting moods on a dime as a spicy trio (Bernadette M. Garza, Jason Bayle and Brandon Dahlquist) offers worldly commentary. Bernstein's score is absolutely glorious (and hugely difficult), and music director Jeremy Ramey, his band and the performers handle it artfully.

The newly penned "American Dream" songs are a mixed bag, with Michael Mahler's "The Rise and Fall of Britney Spears" (full of sharp lyrics charting the celebrity curse) the best. Kevin O'Donnell's duet about failure and lost love bears echoes of " Tahiti 's" bitterness. "Betty, the Clam Girl" is a goofy "be careful what you wish for" tale by Michael John LaChiusa. Michael Friedman's "Things We Wanted: Two Murder Ballads" is a country music riff on cursed dreams. And Josh Schmidt's finale supplies a jagged rainbow.

hweiss@suntimes.com

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