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THEATER REVIEW

“The American Dream Songbook”
By Lawrence Bommer
CFP theater editor


Fresh from the success of its 2007 musical triumph “The Adding Machine” (which premieres this month at Broadway’s Minetta Theatre), Next Theatre hits another homer with “The American Dream Songbook,” an ambitious music-theater offering that probes the American Dream, past and present, good and bad. It’s examined, extensively but not dispassionately, in one established musical one-act and in five new song-scenes commissioned for the program.

Impeccable musicianship and laser-focused drama infuse Leonard Bernstein’s 1952 mini-opera “Trouble in Tahiti ,” its five strong singers stirringly directed by Jason Loewith. No question, this gentle satire of suburban angst amid consumer overkill is familiar territory, one more anti-sitcom. But forlorn and haunting ballads, like the lonely wife’s “A Quiet Place,” or tour-de-forces, like the husband’s macho-riddled “There’s a Law,” still carry weight.

The bloom is off the rose of marriage for Sam and Dinah (a splendid James Rank and Karen Doerr). He’s preoccupied with serial infidelity when not conquering his corporation through handball victories. She spills her secrets to a shrink. Sadly, their one common ground is the Hollywood escapism provided by the work’s title B-movie. A complex mix of sad jazz and swing syncopation, “Trouble in Tahiti ” is Bernstein saluting the Age of Anxiety, complete with a sardonic Greek chorus (Brandon Dahlquist, Bernadette M. Garza and Jason Bayle) who spill over with irony.

The second act’s “American Dream Revue” showcases a quintet of new works by young composers who update Bernstein’s dream gone wrong with equally sardonic results. “Fear of Failure,” by the House Theatre’s resident composer Kevin O’Donnell, presents another couple at an impasse, paralyzed by all the stuff that can go wrong in a relationship. Michael John LaChiusa’s mordant “Betty, the Clam Girl” offers a wicked and cautionary lesson about a factory worker trying to change her fate by altering her looks.

Michael Friedman’s rapid-fire “Things We Wanted: A Murder Ballad” suggests that children should hide their dreams from a world that wants to destroy them. Michael Mahler’s “The Rise and Fall of Britney Spears” charts just that and blames her for wanting everything she’s gotten. Finally, Joshua Schmidt’s celebratory “This Little American Dream” delivers a Dixieland salute to following your dream no matter the consequences.

“Songbook” presents a thoughtful, if not particularly moving, evening, its philosophical goal greater than its musical parts. As if we needed more proof, it also showcases the invigorating talent of Chicago actor-singers and musicians. We really are this good.

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