Kinky Boots at Baldwin Wallace

THEATER REVIEW: “Kinky Boots” @ Baldwin Wallace by Laura Kennelly

[Photo of Nick Drake as Lola by Roger Mastroianni] 

Through Sun 11/24

A perfect fit? Yes, indeed, Kinky Boots at Baldwin Wallace University shows how much joy (and maybe enlightenment) a musical can bring.

This youthful and vigorous (and sold out) collegiate premiere, directed by Victoria Bussert, with Gregory Daniels as choreographer and Matthew Webb as music director, is true to the original Broadway hit, written by Harvey Fierstein with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. It’s a pop musical with a real heart.

Set in Great Britain, Kinky Boots is partly about saving a family factory in an increasingly competitive market. It’s not that the shoes are poorly made, it’s that they are too well-made and competition from overseas factories (not in the USA) has driven down the price and cheapened the product.

And it’s also about (and the main idea driving the action) learning to accept people for who they are. (Don’t try to “fix” people.)

The four leading roles were double-cast. I saw the opening night for both. The youthful leads brought a fresh energy to the show that the two national tour versions at Playhouse Square lacked. Cast members for both shows made each incarnation of their characters unique, even though they used the same words and sang the same original songs from the Broadway version. (I know, that’s called acting, but the vibe was refreshing.)

Both Charlie H. Ray and Andrew Faria as the hapless Charlie Price were likeable and earnest. When Charlie suddenly inherits the factory he must either dispose of or save, he learns how to run the family business (a chore he’d been avoiding). He also meets factory worker Lauren (played by Kailey Boyle and Sydney Howard).  Both Laurens were quietly desperate, perky, and funny in their attempts not to fall for Charlie. They do perfect justice to one of the best numbers in the show, Lauren’s comic anthem, “The History of Wrong Guys.”

As Nicola, Charlie’s bossy fiancée who pushes him to sell the building for a condominium development, Nadina Hassan and Caroline Didelot reveal both Nicola’s glamour and her icy, self-interested heart.

Things look bad for the Price Shoe Factory until Charlie accidentally runs into Lola, a person he thinks needs rescuing. But what he has really come across is his own rescue. When drag queen Lola’s heel breaks, an inspired Charlie realizes that cross-dressing men who dance in high heels need strongly built shoes in big sizes. Boom! A niche market!

Nick Drake’s Lola rocked the Lauper pop tunes and then stunned us with a velvety, luxurious, “Hold Me in Your Heart.” Also comfortable with the outgoing personality of Diva Lola, Gordia Hayes showed great comic timing, especially  in the big fight scene (“In This Corner”) with Ethan Rogers’ “tough” factory worker Don. Both nights Lola’s team of six dancing “Angels” (Lee Price, Mateus Cardoso, Nick Cortazzo, Kyle Elliott, Nic Hermick and Charles Miller) showed plenty of flair as they moved gracefully in fancy gowns and high heels.

One highlight (among many) in the show came when Roger’s Don (brawny and a bit dense), Pat (an appealing Eden Mau), Lola and others in the ensemble have fine fun with Don’s idea of “What a Woman Wants.”

Education of another kind came when cute Little Charlie Price (Colin Willett) and precious Young Lola (Isaiah Young) were shown getting very different “lessons” from their fathers. Charlie’s dad (Ben Senneff) and Lola’s dad (Anthony Harris, Jr.) loved their boys, but couldn’t understand their life choices (as is often the case with parents and children).

Overall, wow! Choreographer Daniels and the cast presented stunningly executed dance numbers, some featuring over two dozen performers, others with smaller ensembles. The set designed by Jordan Janota and the costumes by Charlotte Yetman brought real Broadway flair to the show.

Bottom Line: An outstanding delight that matches Broadway productions. Latest word is that Kinky Boots tickets are sold out, but it would be worth checking.

[Written by Laura Kennelly]

Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury

Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury by Marci Rich

Book Review by Laura Kennelly

The book’s twelve essays, all with fine photos from “back in the day,” describe everyday life in Lorain County—more specifically, in Elyria, Ohio—from her childhood in the 1950s through the 1960s. As Rich writes, “One benefit of nostalgia, or of remembering, is that there is something to be gained by looking back, and perhaps that something is finding a new way forward.” These essays were inspired by a request from the Chronicle-Telegram to celebrate the city’s bicentennial.

Quirky facts abound, such as how Heman (yes, that’s how he spelled it) Ely decided to name the new town in 1817 by combining his name with that of the Illyrian provinces in Europe. Rich likes to think he also summoned up Shakespeare’s Illyria, the magic kingdom in Twelfth Night.

We think the world of iPhones (thanks, Facebook and Twitter, etc.) is complicated, but even in the telephone switchboard days, as Rich’s book reveals, phone life was complex. She recounts an interview with the niece of a local telephone operator. (Oh, wait, that’s probably news to us now too—phone calls had to be personally placed by operators sitting at the telephone company that you had to talk to.) The niece shared typed protocol instructions issued to switchboard employees during World War II. Fun fact: Priority calls—from the President on down—could break into any other calls.

By Rich’s time, party lines were taken for granted. Several families might share a line, and rules about not listening in to others’ conversations were printed. (Of course, not everyone followed those rules and one could hear many interesting things that were “none of your business.” Rich probably didn’t do that. I did.) If you ever need a way not to pay at a pay phone (sadly phone booths are largely extinct today), Rich shares a method her young girlfriend used. (See page 93—I’ll never tell.)

Overall, this collection of stories is like something one might hear at a family reunion—especially ones describing the stores in town, their owners, shopping in them. Others reflect on history and are touching in their brutal truth, such as the loss of  twenty-year-old “Bubby” (Norman Jones, Jr.) who had just applied for a job at the Ford plant, but got drafted instead. He served in Vietnam only four months before he was killed. What, Rich asks, might have happened if he’d not been drafted, been alive, when the news came (which it did) that he’d gotten the job? We all lost, she argues convincingly.

Rich remembers seeing presidential nominee John F. Kennedy in “When JFK Came through Town.” Her father put her on his shoulders so she could see him on that September 1960 day. Later, she recalls, she remembers her mother crying at the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Others in Elyria, whose names she chronicles, had closer association with the President and were also devastated by his death.

Bottom Line: This is a well-written memory-rich book, not only for Elyria and Lorain County residents, but also for anyone who grew up in middle America (hand raised here, though far from Ohio). It celebrates a commonality of experience to be treasured and remembered.

The Band's Visit: National Tour at Cleveland's Playhouse Square

THEATER REVIEW: “The Band’s Visit” @ Playhouse Square by Laura Kennelly

Through Sun 11/24

Once upon a time in Israel, the Egyptian Ceremonial Police Orchestra musicians took the wrong bus. Is this true? Who cares? An intriguing “What happened next” forms the heart of The Band’s Visit now at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace. This Broadway Series show directed by David Cromer, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, won the Tony Awards’ Best Musical (not to mention nine other awards in other categories).

 It deserves it.

Eight band members, led by Tewfiq (Sasson Gabay), have a gig in urban Petah Tikvah, but language difficulties cause them to go to the wrong city and so they are stranded overnight in Bet Hatikvah, a sleepy desert village. In the opening song, everyone in Bet Hatikvah sings, “Waiting,” which is what they are doing: Waiting for something, anything to happen. (If you’ve ever driven through small towns in West Texas, New Mexico or Arizona, you know what they mean.)

When local café owner Dina (Chilina Kennedy) sees that the band needs help, she finds them places to spend the night — some with her, some with friends. Like Come From Away, the story shows strangers finding welcome.

The cast makes everything believable. Gabay’s Tewfik vacillates appealingly between confidence and awkwardness as he and Dina become friends.

Kennedy’s charming, mesmerizing stage presence is such that when she looks out into the audience to talk or sing, it’s easy to feel she sees you, cares about you and wants to charm you. She does, especially with “It Is What It Is” and (in delightful tribute to romance) “Omar Sharif.”

We see two workers in Dina’s café — the awkward Papi (Adam Gabay) and Itzik (Pomme Koch) — discover that the strangers give their lives new (and welcome) perspective. Gabay’s young character learns to court a girl and Koch’s learns to negotiate his marriage and extended family.

For the show’s first 60 minutes, recent Baldwin Wallace graduate Mike Cefalo seems to be merely furniture. He’s the poor “Telephone Guy” who stands throughout the show next to the town’s only telephone. His girlfriend in the United States promised to call. He waits and waits. Then, in one of the show’s joyous closing moments, he sings the moving “Answer Me,” and it becomes an anthem for everyone.

There’s more, of course, lots more. Some includes going out at night to party (and roller skate), some involves drinking and looking at the stars, and some brings heart-to-heart sharing and honestly. The result? People discover commonality and the bus comes in the next morning. Nothing changes and everything changes.

Other ensemble cast members include Jennifer Apple as Anna, Marc Ginsburg as Sammy, Kendal Hartse as Iris, Joe Joseph as Haled, Sara Kapner as Julia, Ronnie Malley as Camal, James Rana as Simon, Or Schraiber as Zelger, and David Studwell as Avrum.

The production’s choreography by Patrick McCollum and set design by Scott Pask create an outstanding use of the rotating center stage. It’s a house, a café, a bar, a skating rink, a bus stop. Whatever is needed suddenly appears.

And how about the music? Some members of the Egyptian Police Band seem to play their instruments, others convincingly fake it. The appealing original Tony-winning score sounds authentically Middle Eastern.  Conductor/keyboard player Rick Bertone leads the “real band” (Tony Bird, George Crotty, Evan Francis, Roger Kashou and Ronnie Malley) from a veiled, raised platform above the stage.

BOTTOM LINE: Tonic for the mind and soul. Watching it is like watching a tale from the Thousand and One Nights come to life. Moonlight, romance, music, and longing combine to weave a subtle musical magic in only 90 minutes.

[Written by Laura Kennelly]