Review: Come TOMORROW MORNING, Kokandy Modestly Approaches Love and Marriage

Compared to Kokandy Productions' previous offerings - shows that included shlubby strippers, presidential and teen killers, and trailer park mayhem - their latest production, Laurence Mark Wythe's chamber musical TOMORROW MORNING, stands out in its modesty. It's a four-person musical about love and marriage and all their complications, big and small, joyous and sober. Who could ask for anything more?

That may depend on a few things, actually.

If you seek a vehicle for four talents well worth following, you won't want. If you seek top-notch musicianship, design, and direction, you won't want. If you're a champion of little-heard musical theater writers of any stripe, bursting with promise, you won't want.

If you seek something ambitious, or revelatory, or even just a little bit "new," you might be left wanting. Or, to spin that the other way, if you want a decent, freeing-by-way-of-unchallenging evening, you won't want.

TOMORROW MORNING, Wythe's first musical, was first produced in London in 2006, and it has enjoyed a healthy international life since (including a Jeff Award-winning production in Chicago in 2009). So, clearly, the musical possesses a universal appeal; it's about love and marriage, after all. But between the universality and Wythe's novice nature, the proceedings - concerning two couples, separated by time, on the verge of marriage and divorce - make for something less than investing, albeit cozily charming.

Wythe only flirts with specificity, and even his specificities feel like stock romance tropes: John the groom (Neil Stratman) is a cheery screenwriter waiting for his break; Kat the bride (Tina Naponelli) is a high-strung artist-turned-hopeful senior magazine editor. (Because of course they're artists.) Catherine the divorcée (Teressa LaGamba) tries to go on the warpath, but still harbors fond feelings for her soon-to-be-ex. Jack the divorcé (Carl Herzog) is a layabout eking his way towards maturity. (There's also a twist at play here, or simply a slowly dawning discovery, depending on how closely you listen.)

There's no specific physical or emotional milieu either, as much as Ashley Ann Woods' set neatly captures the essences of both upscale suburbia and man-caves. To use two other musicals about marriage as an example, it has neither the neurotically vibrant location of COMPANY or the deeply insular headspaces that make up THE LAST FIVE YEARS. It's Anyplace, Anywhere, a place where nothing quite sticks around.

Nor does Wythe display the drive, the pure muscle, found in those two scores; it feels more like a song cycle than a full musical. His piano harmonies, though, are lovingly intricate (and ably played by nimble-fingered Kory Danielson), and his lyrics, if mostly surface-level, are heartfelt and playful enough. If there's a highlight (and it's hard to go back and discern one, as there's no printed song list), it has to be the men's duet, "Look What We Made," a simple, quiet ode to parenthood, the one thing even a divorce can't erase.

In short, TOMORROW MORNING simply plays like a good number of first-time musicals, namely for its hopeful worldview communicated in simple platitudes with a gosh-darn-it cheer, like we're hearing them for the first time. Though maybe they're worth re-hearing. Who knows? (It would certainly be nice to hear another later Wythe musical and see if he's matured.)

And if you're going to re-hear them again, these are actors to hear them from. Other than Stratman and Herzog's duet, LaGamba brings both heart and power that can knock the socks off of anyone in the intimate space, and Naponelli is sweetly frantic but not cloying. And director John Glover's four-way-mirror direction brings them all together in interesting and attractive ways.

So TOMORROW MORNING comes and goes like the sunrise and sunset, but no one can say those don't have their pleasures. And if it's more fluffy than Kokandy's daring spirit would suggest, it's some of the best-executed fluff in town, technically on par with anything else they've done, and worth seeking if that's what you want.

At the very least, it's a ninety-minute show. You ain't married to it.

TOMORROW MORNING plays through August 28th at Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont St in Chicago. Curtain times are at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; and at 3 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets ($38) are currently available at kokandyproductions.com, by calling (773) 975-8150, or in person at the Theater Wit box office.

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

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