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THEATER REVIEW

'Songbook' has a singing, sardonic take on marriage
By Chris Jones
Chicago Tribune critic
February 21, 2008

There's trouble in Leonard Bernstein's rarely revived operetta from 1953, "Trouble In Tahiti," currently up at the Next Theatre in Evanston , but it's of the suburban rather than the Polynesian kind.

Even as developers in Scarsdale or Park Forest were selling veterans and weary urbanites on the pleasures of the commuting lifestyle, Bernstein was inconveniently pointing out the rickety, oft-overlooked pivot on which such all-American dreams danced, even in the sun of the 1950s.

The marriage.

If that tricky union becomes hollow and empty — as befalls the characters in this dark but beguiling composition — the rest of it turns into hell. The train ride. Junior's school play. The departures and greetings. All torture. There was contemporary speculation as to whether this great American composer was probing his own marriage or that of his parents, but "Trouble in Tahiti " surely nailed timeless marital misery. It still does.

Remarkably, Bernstein achieved this with layers of deeply ironic brightness. A rare treat for Chicago's legions of Bernstein fans, this five-actor, 45-minute song suite draws exclusively from the American idiom — it looks sardonically, chirpily, backward at the harmonies of the 1940s and also forward to Bernstein's own restlessly melodic compositions for "West Side Story." Romance may be comatose here, but there remains a tiny possibility of resurrection of the human spirit.

Next has shrewdly set itself up as a home for dark operetta — David Cromer 's 2007 production of Joshua Schmidt's new musical version of "The Adding Machine" opens off-Broadway on Monday, and "Trouble in Tahiti" has much in common with last season's piece. Even Jason Loewith's simple but effective production — wherein the actors float in a sea of dark curtains and mirrors — recalls the gestalt.

Most of the cast is strong. James Rank, taking a clearly cathartic break from the sunny musical heroes with whom he usually gets stuck around town, goes deeply into the shallowness of husband Sam. And in the role of poor Dinah, the round-faced and cleverly cast Karen Doerr deftly captures the perky 1950s housewife, worn down by misery. Better yet, both are up to the score. So, mostly, is the ensemble, made up of Brandon Dahlquist, Jason Bayle and the less-secure Bernadette Garza.

Next follows "Trouble" (which is too short to make up a whole evening) with a series of newly commissioned songs on the theme of "the American Dream." This surely felt like a good idea — Bernstein actually wrote a sequel to "Trouble," titled " A Quiet Place ," but it is widely regarded as a failure. It made sense, then, to do the stronger, earlier piece and follow it with something new.

The new songs by Michael John La Chiusa, Michael Friedman, Kevin O'Donnell, Michael Mahler and Joshua Schmidt all have their pleasures. But the pieces feel too disparate in theme and style to be fully satisfying. And neither cast nor director quite seem to know how far to go with their staging.

La Chiusa has penned a very witty ditty called "Betty, the Clam Girl" (which best captures the night's ironic tone) but Mahler's more obvious piece on Britney Spears was, I fear, overtaken by calamitous human events.

Bernstein's "Trouble," though, is as much about an imperfect marriage as a dream, American or otherwise, so it might have been better to ponder relationships. Still, the marquee event is executed extremely well and, as a bonus, the night ends strongly with Schmidt's song "The Little American Dream." Penned in something close to a Bernstein style, this aptly sardonic piece reminds us further of Schmidt's prodigious talent and the possibilities of his burgeoning urban career.

cjones5@tribune.com

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