'Ain't Misbehavin' Is A Rollicking Goodman Time

That roar you heard in Chicago's Loop Monday evening, June 30th, was the enthusiastic opening night audience at the Goodman Theatre, where the volcanic excitement generated by a summertime, homegrown production of the "Fats" Waller musical "Ain't Misbehavin'" will very nearly blow the roof off the place for the next month or so. After one week of previews, the show has already been extended an additional week (through August 3rd in the main stage Albert Theatre), and I predict hearty box office from locals and tourists alike. This production is that good, and deserves to be seen wherever lovers of pop, jazz, rhythm and blues and musical theater reside. Oh, wait, is that everywhere?

Thirty years after its original production won the Best Musical Tony Award and made stars out of Nell Carter,Ken Page and Andre De Shields (and to some degree Armelia McQueen and Charlaine Woodard as well), this five-person songbook revue (more on that later) is now solidly in the hands of five of Chicago's top musical theater performers. Note that I did not say, "top African-American musical theater performers." No one would limit their accolades to the superlative cast that after seeing E. Faye Butler, John Steven Crowley, Parrish Collier, Lina Kernan and Alexis Rogers step into the shoes of that legendary first cast and make these songs their own by virtue of their incandescent personalities, voices and comic talents. The show's first creators, Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, and even composer, pianist and singer Thomas "Fats" Waller himself, would feel that their material has been given fresh and first-class life, even while the Goodman's director Chuck Smith and choreographer Lisa Willingham-Johnson thoroughly honor the style, wit and pizazz of the 1970s take on the 1920s-40s material with their own 21st-century showmanship.

Songs like "Handful of Keys," "The Ladies Who Sing with the Band," "This Joint Is Jumpin'" and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" are delivered with first class panache by the cast and the eight-piece onstage orchestra led by musical director Malcolm Ruhl. The sound design by Ray Nardelli and Joshua Horvath is well nigh unto perfection. The scene design, an eye-popping between-the-wars proscenium stage with a supperclub inside it by Linda Buchanan, is simply a wow. Birgit Rattenborg Wise's costumes are beautiful, transporting and witty. And the lights by Robert Christen are by turns subtle, sumptuous and spectacular.

Foremost among a cast of almost equals is E. Faye Butler, a bona fide Chicago theater star with five Jeff Awards to her name. In the track first inhabited by Nell Carter, Butler is sassy and wise, tired yet unbeaten, in charge of her domain and herself and her world like every woman of a certain age should be.  If she is at her peak in the devastating "Mean to Me," she is never off her peak ("Cash for Your Trash," anyone?) This is a career highlight in one that has seen many. Do not miss it. Do NOT miss it.

Alexis Rogers brings the wit and spunk of Charlaine Woodard and the stature and sweetness of the young Stephanie Mills to her soubrette material. She excels in "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now," though I minorly quibble with the choice to leave her so far upstage right for the number's climax. Lina Kernan brought more vocal variety to her numbers Monday night than Armelia McQueen once did, though she may have been in need of a little vocal rest in the early going. She shone in both "Squeeze Me" and "That Ain't Right."

As for the men, I was concerned in the first act that Parrish Collier was not vocally on par with the rest of the cast, though he is clearly a better dancer. By the second act, none of that mattered. Not only was his "The Viper's Drag" a remarkable moment of stagecraft, falling somewhere between Andre De Shields and Ben Vereen, his duet with John Steven Crowley on "Fat and Greasy" saw two veteran song and dance men work the song, the dance and the audience into near pandemonium. Crowley was delightful throughout, bringing an easy period style and an elegant, Ken Page lightness that could turn raucous or melancholy on a dime. His "Your Feet's Too Big" could not have been better.

There are so many highlights to mention here. "Honeysuckle Rose" and "When the Nylons Bloom Again" were memorable from the first act, and the beautiful and sad "Black and Blue" socked the audience in the gut, just as designed. Coming as it does after solos for each cast member and two A-list duets, and just before the medley finale, "Black and Blue" is probably the quietest 11-o'clock number in musical theater history.

As perhaps the best and certainly the model songbook musical, "Ain't Misbehavin'" should be seen and enjoyed on many levels, but one of these is its transitional place in between the stool-bound revues like "Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" and "Side by Side by Sondheim," and the later songbook-with-plot musicals like "Buddy," "Jersey Boys" and "Mamma Mia."  In putting its singers on their feet, in an identifiable room and with relationships that grow out of the pre-existing songs and out of the way they are arranged, the show is a fascinating creature that works on many levels.

The Goodman's "Ain't Misbehavin,'" with its big stage, big sound and big talents, can quite often feel like a Broadway revival with big box office and celebrity sightings galore. This is a hit, and it will give its neighbors in the theater district some stiff competition for summer tourist dollars. If you have never seen this show, by all means see it now.  And if you have seen it, you will feel right at home. Go, I'm telling you. The joint really IS jumpin,' and the tickets to witness it are scarce, indeed. Get them while you can.

Photos by Liz Lauren. POSTER: John Steven Crowley, Alexis Rogers and E. Faye Butler. TOP: E. Faye Butler. MIDDLE: E. Faye Butler, Parrish Collier, Alexis Rogers, John Steven Crowley and Lina Kernan. BOTTOM: Lina Kernan, E. Faye Butler and Alexis Rogers.

Tickets to "Ain't Misbehavin'" are $23 to $78 and may be purchased online at www.goodmantheatre.org, at the box office at 170 North Dearborn Street, or by phoning 312-443-3800.

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