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Richard Rodgers’ daughter Mary, a composer herself, always considered “The King and I” to be the best collaboration between her father and Oscar Hammerstein II and indeed, when all of the elements are so rightfully in place as they are in the current Drury Lane Oakbrook version, it would be hard to argue the point. Originally a star vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, Lawrence died early in the run and the focus shifted to the young unknown Yul Brynner, who created the role of the king on stage, magnificently transferring that performance to an Oscar-winning film performance, countless stage revivals and even a short-lived television series. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s as much distance between now and when this show was created more than two decades ago as there is between its creation and the time in which it takes place, which is the mid-1960s, all of which is a sobering thought. Add to that the fact that this show played for years at the Royal George and has had countless productions and incarnations, and you can see that this is one of those shows that audiences of a certain disposition have a real nostalgia for and can never see too often. Loosely using the premise of a post-death concert of a four-member vocal group as its set up, “Forever Plaid” is essentially a revue show of 1950s and sixties cover tunes that represent the mainstream, middle-class, middle-of-the road taste of that era that is the opposite of the more marginal Motown and British Invasion material now so indelibly associated with those times. For those who lived through this era and found style in gaudy tuxedos, tantalizing cuisine in TV dinners, entertainment in television ventriloquists and twirling plates, artistic merit in accordions playing “Lady of Spain” and bland, expressionless four-part harmonizations of pop ditties that wore their heart on their sleeve, this show really is like a time capsule that is frightening in how much it brings to mind that vast wasteland that passed as culture in a former era. Read the rest of this entry »

It is difficult to understand how a director who got so much comedy out of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” over the winter could so miss the comedy in Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance,” but Drury Lane Oakbrook associate artistic director William Osetek has somehow managed to do exactly that with this hollow production of the famous operetta. Even with the comedy gone, things might still have been rescued from the voices of the cast, but alas, mostly mediocre show voices utterly incapable of the technique and power necessary for this kind of show are employed in the leads. What you have left is something that makes the Linda Ronstadt Broadway and film versions look like high art. If this is the kind of musical that Drury Lane will be producing after the loss of artistic director Ray Frewen, best to stay away from the form. (Dennis Polkow).

Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace; (630)530-8300. Through May 7.

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With the sudden departure of longtime artistic director Ray Frewen at the end of the year from Drury Lane Oakbrook, there was reason for concern about what to expect from “the show must go on” opening of the last show of the 2005-6 season, “Barefoot in the Park.” A gallery of new directors were reportedly being brought in for the 2006-7 season in any case—which opens in March with Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance”—and Frewen’s predecessor Gary Griffin, who still advises Drury Lane Oakbrook and is currently having unparalleled success on Broadway directing Oprah Winfrey’s “The Color Purple,” has stepped in to produce while associate artistic director William Osetek is directing. The result is a lavishly staged and comically well-timed fresh look at the 1963 Neil Simon play that trumps this spring’s first-ever Broadway revival. Drury Lane newcomer Elizabeth Ledo is a delight as Corie Bratter as she embodies all of the naiveté and hormones of a newlywed wife while veteran Rod Thomas is also convincing as her more conservative lawyer husband. The older couple, too—Corie’s mother and the upstairs neighbor played by veterans Dev Kennedy and Frank Del Giudice—are played with wit and charm and the antics of the foursome are helped enormously by a truly spectacular and clever set by Brian Sidney Bembridge that is a vital component to much of the show’s seemingly timeless comedy. (Dennis Polkow)

Through Feb. 26, Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane Road, Oakbrook Terrace; (630) 530-0111.

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With the shutting down of Drury Lane Evergreen Park and last week’s announcement that Drury Lane Water Tower Place will no longer be producing its own shows but will instead rent the space to incoming productions, Drury Lane Oak Brook remains the last Tony De Santis Drury Lane space producing its own shows in the area. Artistic director Ray Frewen is in his seventh year in that position and his creative take on musical classics raises them beyond the usual dinner-theater fare. True, the onetime racy 1959 “Once Upon a Mattress” is tame by today’s standards, but the contemporary take on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Princess and the Pea” still has to power to entertain in spades, as Frewen’s colorful production reminds us. Paula Scrofano is magnificent as the Queen who never shuts up and Kristen Freilich makes an entrance as the princess that is beyond hysterical. The attention to musical and choreographic detail makes this perfect family fun with laughs enough for every generation. (Dennis Polkow).

 Through Dec. 18, Drury Lane Oak Brook, 100 Drury Lane Road, Oakbrook Terrace; (630)530-8300. 

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On the surface at least, “Tintypes” seems like a nostalgia piece that conveniently forgets that even in the “good ol’ days,” people yearned for the good ol’ days. Its five cast members romp and dance through the songs made popular throughout the nation between 1890 and World War I. Taken on that level alone, it is an engaging musical revue full of tuneful melodies that we all know from the likes of John Philip Sousa, Victor Herbert, Scott Joplin and George M. Cohan, among others. Less obvious through the exuberance, period costumes, unabashed patriotism, vaudeville routines and live Dixieland band is the hopes and dreams of immigrants arriving in America during that time that is reflected in these songs. Each of the five characters imagines him or herself transcending endless factory work by using the music to escape a reality that is too much to be taken on its own. Whether the darker message gets through or whether audiences want to simply take a vacation in the past is part of the powerful ambiguity of director Ray Frewen’s approach. (Dennis Polkow)

“Tintypes” plays through July 27 at Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace; (630)530-4269.