'Old Wicked Songs' Sings!

There is something wonderful and eminently watchable going on in the basement theater space at the Chopin Theatre-the Signal Ensemble Theatre production of playwright Jon Marans's Old Wicked Songs.At the very accessible intersection of Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenues in Chicago, the production is on view until the end of December, extended for two weeks beyond its original closing date according to Signal's General Artistic Director, Ronan Marra. 

Go and see it!There are so many reasons that this play, and this production of it, will speak to so many theatergoers.The play, in the tradition of "Sleuth," "The Gin Game" and even "I Do!, I Do!" calls for only two actors, but Vincent J. Lonergan and Shawn Pfautsch are giving totally committed, highly technically crafted performances, of the type that acting aficionados naturally gravitate toward seeing, and without any scenery-chewing antics or overwrought histrionics.The fact that these two attractive character actors, of different generations and acting traditions but of singular vision toward building a scene and an evening, are both called upon to sing in two languages and play the piano (a very real baby grand that leaves one wondering how they got it into the basement theater) makes their triumph of character and of thought that much more impressive. 

The script by Marans is outwardly concerned with the trip of young American concert piano prodigy Stephen Hoffman (Pfautsch) to Vienna in 1986 to study piano accompaniment with a renowned teacher, one Professor Schiller.Instead, he winds up as the sole student of another teacher, Professor Josef Mashkan (Lonergan), who teaches not accompaniment, but singing-not piano, but voice.This initial conflict, of a student forced to study something he does not want to learn from a teacher he did not choose, is perhaps a hair contrived, but the payoffs of such a conceit are rich.Yes, the teacher learns from the student as the student does from the teacher, and both are left, one hopes, better for the experience.But the depths of despair, memory and reconciliation, loves lost and arts created seem to explode from the crucible of the older man's vintage Vienna music studio, in a serviceable but overly bare set designed by R. Brad Criswell.(The costumes are by Laura M. Dana, the evocative lighting is by Sue Ragusa and the lovely sound design is by Anthony Ingram.) 

The structure of the play, and many of its literary themes, comes from the song cycle, "Dichterliebe," composed by the 19th century pianist/composer Robert Schumann from a text by poet Heinrich Heine.Here the vocal coach, Professor Mashkan, sets out to teach the young American pianist, Hoffman, how to sing the song cycle, so that when the young man will later progress to studying accompanying he will know better the job the of the singer and the way the pianist relates to the singer's performance.Much of the play, amazingly, consists of the two men, and the two actors portraying them, singing Heine's text in either German or English, playing the piano part, arguing about the meaning of both and about the relevance of the songs to their current, past and future lives.Yet the play is so very much more.The fact that the play encompasses references to Kurt Waldheim, sex, Austrian anti-semitism, attempted suicide, attempted genocide, architecture, I Pagliacci, soprano Leonie Rysanek, pianist Alfred Brendel, Leonard Bernstein's podium behavior and the legendary recorded humming of reclusive pianist Glenn Gould surely makes it one of the more intelligent (and one of the most Euro-American-centric) scripts of recent memory.(It was a 1996 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won the Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award and had a visible run in London's West End starring Bob Hoskins, among other honors.)But this play is about overcoming mental and physical blocks, facing down demons, overcoming stubbornness, becoming who you are and getting a grip on the here and now, topics well worth exploring in such capable and revealing hands as these. 

One of the joys of this particular production, directed with faithful attention to the emotional realities of the character's evolving relationship by Christopher Prentice, is its utter dedication to the words and music Marans has given as a guide.Another is watching the actors Lonergan and Pfautsch engage in a two-hour tennis match of life-altering proportion within mere feet of the entire audience.Just watch as the two actors devour pastries without missing a syllable of text, sing exactly as their characters would, and even synchronize their piano playing to coincide with periodic fade-ins of a lovely recording of pianist Hubert Giesen and legendary tenor Fritz Wunderlich performing portions of the "Dichterliebe" during scene changes.(Indeed, this production probably features the most enjoyable scene changes of any in Chicago right now!). 

There are a few quibbles with the show:it doesn't end so much as it's just suddenly over, as the song cycle seems to conclude more satisfactorily than the script does.And both actors play the piano slightly less well than their characters should, though this would never be noticed by anyone who was not a trained musician.(These viewers should be more than thrilled by the facets of classical music that are done correctly here, including numerous references to the ViennaStaatsoper, than to be worried about a few missed eighth notes on the black keys.)Also, Lonergan's Austrian accent may not be quite authentic (who could tell but a real Austrian?), but he keeps it up unremittingly and is therefore to be commended for the attempt. 

If you are not a classical music fan, do not worry at all.Instead, watch in amazement at how discussions about music, indeed about all art, veer into discussions of love, hate, war, fear, politics, weather, old regrets and newly missed opportunities without missing the proverbial, and the real, beat.This show is about music, except that it isn't at all.It isn't about Nazism either, though the first scene certainly makes you wonder.You must see it, and you will joy in the way in which it is so many things at the same time.Another play you may have heard of which is also set in Austria and which mentions both singing and the anschulss, "The Sound of Music," was never like this. 

The show's only other problems are two which actually make the production a fairly quintessential Chicago theatergoing experience.One can hear the CTA Blue Line rumbling beneath the theatre during quiet moments in the show, and there are some columns holding up the ceiling which (ever so slightly) mar some sightlines.But the production does its best to circumvent these obstacles, and with such quirky characters and such watchable, committed actors keeping an audience's attention for over two hours, the Signal Ensemble Theatre has a prize on its hand.(The show has been Jeff-recommended, by the way, and with good reason.) 

If you care about great acting, great music, European mid-century history, the art of teaching, or about the ways that people can connect in unexpected ways in spite of their defenses, their faults, their tics and the twists and turns of fate, then you owe yourself a fascinating night of theater at Old Wicked Songs.Go see it.That other show in town with the word "wicked" in the title will wait a day or two. 

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