This post is two months late. Ask Aunt Susan played in November as a part of the Goodman’s New Stages Amplified series, which is such an interesting idea. Three playwrights were given the opportunity to workshop brand new plays in front of live audiences. Essentially, I would be watching a work in progress, and I would just happen to catch this one on the last day of its run.

With that in mind, I must nevertheless recommend to Seth Bockley that he really has to buckle down and do some additional work on this piece if he wants to make it live.

If I remember correctly, the play was 90 minutes with no intermission, a requirement of the workshop. The play that I saw was not a 90-minute play.

The plot set up is pretty straight forward. A young computer guy gets roped into writing content for an online advice site as “Aunt Susan.” His troubles multiply as this fictional character explodes in popularity.

The play starts off really well with a good establishment of character and the promise of some lively dialogue. Here, we are grounded in a pretty realistic world. As the play progresses though, it morphs more and more into techno-noir.

I have no idea if “techno-noir” is a thing or not but I must confess that I didn’t pick up that this was a noir work until the post-show discussion.

Noir is a lot about atmosphere and feeling, sometimes at the expense of a logical plot. Noir hides characters’ motivations and invites sinister undertones. If the audience (me) is not aware of this noir intention, a disconnect and dislike can really come quickly.

Independent of this, I felt that there were too many other competing trends and themes to go along side. Are we going to talk about identity, alienation, cyber-morality, the validity of relationships online, and capitalistic greed?

The play either needs to be expanded in length to better develop what needs to be developed or have its content edited to be more comfortable in its 90-minute skin. The characters were either too many or not-developed enough. The main character’s breakdown either needs to be more realistic or more crazy. The play felt trapped in between both ends of what it could be. To be entirely honest though, I’m not sure it could be saved into something beyond merely ok.

I had almost forgotten what musical theater used to be like. I’ve gotten so used to the more modern productions fielding massive sets that move and flash and smoke. Everyone’s in complicated costumes and complicated make-up.

This traveling production of Fiddler brought in just a few well-made pieces to establish place, and then it let the actors carry the stage. A very nice change of pace. I was very aware that I was watching a stage performance, if that makes sense at all.

Overall, I think this company does a passable job, but I do have some qualms to share.

My first note has to do with the number of people on stage in relation to the size of the stage. I can’t imagine that the Auditorium’s stage is really that much smaller than other stages around the country, but for whatever reason, the crowd scenes felt overly crowded. This muddles the action and makes things harder to follow.

A jammed stage also hems in Jerome Robbins’s original choreography. I would have loved to see the dancers highlighted in those now iconic set pieces. I imagine that this is a constant challenge for every traveling show, but it seems like they should have a system figured out by now.

I also didn’t think that the featured dancers were all that strong, but this could be due to the constrained square footage with which they had to work.

Unfortunately, I also felt that some of the casting could have been better. The rabbi, for one, did not have a voice that fit the character. The constable, while large, did not project the presence that he should have to make the role work.

If this production is going to rely on the talent, the producers need to find the right people for the parts. As it is, I feel like I saw an enjoyable effort but not a top-notch one.

Personally, I find awkward the musicals that cobble established songs together into a new storylines. In the case of Million Dollar Quartet, where the characters are performing them straight-up as songs rather than as story elements, I found it additionally odd.

This is a show where a couple lines of dialogue, really—of exposition, are jammed in between the songs. The night jumps from hit to hit to hit.

It’s not bad if that is what you want, but it does make reacting to it a bit difficult. Is it a concert? Is it a play? How should I blend the two?

The up-close seating of Chicago’s Apollo Theater heightens the confusion. The actors can see you, and you can see each other. The loud, brash rock ‘n roll, as well as the narration, definitely go through the fourth wall. The talent of the cast is not in question. They bring the charisma and abilities of the original performers through, and the resulting music is pretty stupendous, but it does bring to the fore an interesting social phenomenon.

Even now, this early rock ‘n roll comes across so raw and powerful. The beats, rhythms, and energy power right into you. But what if those teens who propelled this music into the mainstream the first time are now a little too settled to “shake it, baby, shake it?”

Well, what happens is that the music and attitude come blasting from the stage while the audience may clap along a little bit… sometimes… if some people feel like it.

At least that’s what happened on the night that I went.

It was awkward.

But now, they have a gorgeous run going. Five of the remaining eleven performances are sold out. The newly added December 16 show has the widest range of tickets available.

I was lucky enough to see it last Friday. For me, it was a very uneven experience. Overall, you could tell that this isn’t a traditional opera (as in a classic Mozart or Rossini one). It has many of the same elements, but they are just different enough for you to know that this is of a more modern school.

This isn’t to say that a different presentation is bad, but some of the choices did affect my overall enjoyment of it.

In a more traditional opera, a character’s entry song is very important. It’s what you hear when you first encounter the person and that sets the stage for your feelings about him/her. Two of the most famous entry songs are for Figaro in The Barber of Seville and for Musetta in La Boheme.

Rather than introducing characters in this manner, Porgy and Bess starts off with an extended mood and atmosphere setting sequence. We’ll meet all the main characters, but they are mixed in with all the other inhabitants of Catfish Row.

This was not fun for me.

I understand why they created this structure, but it made the beginning twenty to thirty minutes very dull. It is a world of poverty and desperation. The music doesn’t do much changing within this setting. The pacing of every phrase in every song by every character seemed to be the same.

As I sat there in a bit of confusion, I started to dread the next three hours.

Luckily, the opera doesn’t stay in this mode. After this beginning, the characters started getting their dues. All in a row, there came some great character arias that I couldn’t help but wish were mixed in at the beginning. Storywise, the opera began to portray that there is life and joy with this harsh environment.

The songs did start to sound a bit more traditional too. When Bess was singing about her need to sacrifice her personal happiness for the good of everyone, she could have been any number of operatic heroines out there. For me though, after this pick-up, the show started to go down again.

This time, my main issue was with the inconsistency of the musical style. I think this is a taste issue and is probably more about my preferences than anything tangible in the score. I found the jumps between a more traditional operatic sound and a more modern jazz presentation to be jarring and unpalatable.

Still, the overall strength and rarity of the production are plenty to recommend it. The cast is great, especially Jonita Lattimore as Serena. Morenike Fadayomi’s Bess is annoying sometimes with her failing arms and stamping feet, but when she can stand still and sing, it is a lovely moment.

I knew it was going to be dreamlike and surreal and influenced by the subconscious. “Oh boy,” I thought, “pretentious art can go wrong very quickly.”

As it turned out, I loved the play. It definitely helped that I knew not to look too hard for conclusions or tidy endings. The human brain will do that just naturally so I let mine run on neutral and tried to focus the rest of me on each moment. I tried to take in what was on stage in front of me at every moment.

Those moments are great. The cast really impressed me with their abilities. If you see the play, you’ll see how many monologues, often disconnected ones, each actor has to present and make them compelling. There are enough posing and stylistic stances to put a cast of A Chorus Line to shame.

Yet all night long, every cue was hit and all the timings were spotless.

I was surprised that my least favorite aspects of the show were the self-referential winks. In the first half, the play couldn’t help but laugh at itself. There were lines about how tiresome post-modern theater productions were and other lines of that nature. Coming so early, it felt as if Frank Galati had to pre-apologize for what was to come. He was already hedging the experience. (To be fair, I have no idea if any of this is in the original Murakami novel.)

I resented that. I felt that if he was going to create this experience, especially one that I thought came off so successfully, then do it. Don’t apologize for it.

As I said, this reaction of mine surprised me because usually, I’m all about the meta.

I haven’t said anything about the plot because I don’t think the plot is going to be a deciding factor on whether or not you’ll go see a production of this play in the future. It’s an experience of the mind, of moods, and of moments.

After the play was over, Steppenwolf offered a post-show discussion. I didn’t want to discuss it. I was still nicely wrapped up in the world created by the play. I was still fuzzy from the fanciful elements. So we stood in the lobby for a bit and then walked out into the cold.

I don’t think anyone is going to be able to predict whether or not another person is going to enjoy this play. But if you like theater and are not afraid of non-linear art, I would say to go and give it a chance.

I think the key is to just let your expectations and desires go. Focus on what is happening at each moment in front of you on the stage and immerse in it.

I plan to have more on this production later, but there are only seven performances left. If you are on the fence about whether or not to go see it, my suggestion is to take on the challenge. If your experience turns out like mine did, it will totally be worth the ticket.

My tickets were free so I didn’t have to worry about the pinch of $64.00. If I didn’t see the show for free, I’m not sure I would have thought that the show equaled the price of admission.

Granted, I am seeing the production almost two decades too late. (It started in New York in 1991.) Back then, performance art, especially an entire stage show of it, was new and exciting. Last week, the show felt strangely dated. The tech elements felt quaint. And I’ve encountered the social commentary points in other more clever presentations.

My favorite part of the show had to do with an especially adept audience member who got pulled up onstage. She made the segment work. I think I may have enjoyed that part the best because she was an unpredictable element. This was the only part of the show that felt fresh and current.

The whole production works hard to make you feel as if you are a part of an artistic experience. But at the same time, they don’t bother to hide their preshow prep from you. When “random” and “spontaneous” moments happen during the show, it’s hard to go along when you know that the entire thing was engineered and meant to be that way.

It’s kind of like professional wrestling.

The legendary finale of the show never made much sense to me. Now that I finally got to be in the midst of it, it still doesn’t make sense to me.

But then—I’m a square. At least I know that.

Still, it is an entertaining and family-friendly production. If your child is ok with noise and flashing lights, you can bring them to this show. Chicago is a very family-friendly town in the daytime, but it can be hard to find activities that are enjoyable to both parents and kids after dinner is done. At the Briar Street Theatre, there is no swearing, no violence, and no inappropriate sexual content.

What there is are feats of physical prowess, rock music, and funny non-speaking Blue Men. The kids will love it.

As a whole, the Blue Man Group experience is not bad at all. I just don’t think it’s worth $64.00.

As someone who has attended this particular event a couple of times, I’m amazed at how popular it has become. You just don’t think that tens of thousands of people will come out for free opera, but last year, the crowd overfilled the Great Lawn.

Unless you expect to get there very early to grab one of the actual seats, don’t worry too much about your particular spot on the lawn. You won’t be able to see anything anyways. People do talk and smoke on the surrounding sidewalks so if you are sensitive to that, a middle spot may be the best thing. The sound won’t be an issue.

If you really would like a seat to see the entire program, you’ll need to get there hours early. The line on the east side of the pavilion gets let in first—at about an hour and a half before the performance starts. The line starts forming well before that time of course.

Steppenwolf Theatre‘s crew presents its program on Monday night. The Joffrey Ballet dances on Thursday.

One other free concert to track is on September 25. Calexico performs. This group has really built up a strong following in Chicago. That should be a fun night.

Postscript added September 7: Don’t forget that a free concert is still a concert. The idiots right behind us must have thought a spontaneous picnic social somehow broke out because they decided it was alright to talk right over the program. Even when shushed, they still didn’t get it.

Many CSI fans seem to be very interested in this production. So as a subscriber, I’ll add the information I’ve been able to find out to what they have already released.

Run dates: November 13–December 21
Space: Steppenwolf Theatre Upstairs, 299-seats, farthest seats are still only about 30 feet from the stage
General tickets on sale: September 25, 2008
Ticket prices: Wednesday & Thursday evenings ($50), Friday evening & Saturday matinee ($55), Saturday evening ($70), Sunday evening ($50)