Carol Burnett at the Chicago Theater

It’s true. I paid more on Tuesday night to watch an 83 year-old woman stand on a stage for 80 minutes than I did to watch Paul McCartney transfix an audience for 170 minutes back in 2013. A silly decision, right? Perhaps not if you consider that standing on stage was the iconic Carol Burnett, whose 70s variety show captivated my childhood’s Saturday nights, and who is as sprightly, funny and personable in her later years as she was back in her hey-day. 

Performed at the Chicago Theater, the evening was an extension of the Q&A sessions that often began The Carol Burnett Show, interspersed with video clips of some of the show's more memorable moments. Ushers with microphones and flashlights spread out over the theater, and audience members – after the initial gushing that was as inevitable as it was graciously received by Burnett – asked questions, ranging from what inspired the performer to succeed, to “Would you sing me happy birthday?”

I’d heard Burnett on NPR’s Fresh Air a year or two ago, and she told some of the same stories on Tuesday night, but with a methodical pacing that sounded fresh, as if she were sharing the tale for the first time: how she tried to pay by check absent an ID at a posh Manhattan department store, how she and Julie Andrews played a prank in a D.C. hotel that led to meeting Lady Bird Johnson, and how she first met her future co-star Vicki Lawrence when the latter was just seventeen. 

Audience members asked questions that naturally led to predetermined video montages that Burnett deftly segued to when the time was appropriate, and they often generated the hardiest laughs, as no doubt many in the audience were reliving their childhoods or their young adult years, when for a time Saturday nights included All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. I’m not sure you could come up with a better three hours of television. But as funny as many of the clips were, for me there was also a slight pang of loss, as face after face of entertainers no longer with us graced the screen.

I miss them, and hell, I even miss the dead variety show format, though I understand why it no longer exists, and I understand that we remember the best bits and forget the cheesy and underwhelming song and dance numbers. But on Tuesday night, though far too short – another fifteen or twenty minutes would have been appropriate – it was the best bits.

Father John Misty at the Riv

A year ago I didn’t even know that Father John Misty existed, but last night I found myself at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre (which, despite being a shithole, has its charms) to see the singer-songwriter perform before a packed house. Backed by a terrific five-piece band (and sometimes extra backup singer) the artist plowed through a powerful set that faithfully reproduced the lavish production of his most recent album, I Love You, Honeybear, and enhanced the sound of 2012’s Fear Fun.

A commanding presence on stage – tall, bold and limber – Father John Misty uttered virtually not a word between songs, but what he lacked in banter he made up for with his intensity, taking over center stage with passionate dips, angry kicks and desperate gesticulations. He knows how to get an audience excited. Midway through “Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Cow” I witnessed what had to be the longest and highest launch of an acoustic guitar I’ve ever seen (the stagehand caught it – but just barely), and it was met with enthusiastic approval. 

Like the production of his most recent album, the extensive layering and reverb of the live performance sometimes masked what is one of the singer’s greatest strengths – his witty, sardonic, and occasionally moving lyrics. Listening from the balcony, had I not already known songs like “I Love You, Honeybear” and “The Perfect Husband,” I wouldn’t have understood more than a few words of these performances. Perhaps it sounded clearer on the first level, though I distinctly remember Joe Jackson complaining about the acoustics of the Riv back in 2001. Judging from the peeling paint on the ceiling, I suspect the theater owners haven’t done much to improve the sound or anything else in the intervening decade and a half.

Most effective to me were the times that the band broke down and allowed Father John Misty to shine in a more intimate setting. “Bored In The USA” – a song that would have felt right at home on Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection – was the highlight for me, with the fans interjecting faithfully the canned laughter of the recording. First encore “I Went to the Store One Day” – the sparsest performance of the evening – was also terrific, along with “Holy Shit,” whose mellow first half was interrupted by such a frenzied finish that the downbeat jolted a listener to my left practically out of his seat.

These moments of potency were supported by the most impressive lighting I’ve ever seen at a small venue, especially the effective use of moody backlighting that bathed the stage with eerie reds that silhouetted the band, and the strobes used prominently in the frantic finale of “Perfect Husband.” 

Aside from a cover of Nine Inch Nail's “Closer,” the 110 minute performance consisted entirely of tracks from Father John Misty’s two albums, ignoring the repertoire of the singer’s previous monikers. Surprisingly absent to me was the song that first introduced me to the artist: “The Night Josh Tillman Came to our Apt.,” and I wonder if he’s already grown tired of its overly mocking, cynical lyrics. 

At thirty-five, the former drummer of Fleet Foxes has been recording and performing for a hell of a long time, reaching his recent success a little late in life. It was worth the wait. Here’s hoping he hangs in there for a while and releases a few more gems along the way.

Play Review: The Flick at the Steppenwolf

For a while now I’ve contended that real life is far more interesting than any genre that requires a significant suspension of disbelief. It’s why I prefer Tobey Maguire in Wonderboys to Spiderman or Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to Dumb and Dumber. It’s what makes the Seven Up documentaries so fascinating and why Richard Linklater’s Boyhood received such critical acclaim. It’s why I would love just once to see Tom Cruise play a boring suburban man struggling with parenting or household projects, because with his acting chops it wouldn’t be boring at all. It might even be thrilling. Even in my own rather mundane life I find myself jotting down notes on an almost daily basis about potential writing topics. Life is infinitely interesting.

In Annie Baker’s The Flick, real life takes to the stage with near perfection in Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Three hours long, deliberately paced, and with hardly a plot point to hang its subjects on, it isn’t for all tastes. Approximately fifteen percent of theater patrons left at intermission, and according to comments in the question and answer session that followed the play, this isn’t uncommon, but it is a shame, because the second half offers the payoff that even the more antsy theater goers would have appreciated.

The Flick tells the story of three employees working at a rundown, one-screen theater, The Flick. We watch as newly-hired Avery joins veteran Sam clean up after each film, and at first they spend a lot of time, well, sweeping and mopping the floor. Details emerge slowly, little by little, week after week, and we gradually learn more about the characters, including mundane details that appear not to have any significance, such as Avery’s ability to link any two actors in six degrees of separation or less and his vomit reflex when seeing other people’s feces. We learn that Sam is still living at home, seemingly content to watch life pass him by as he silently pines for Rose, a lesbian who runs the film projector, and who – along with Sam – has developed a scheme to take a little extra meal money from the till. 

For all the play reveals, it leaves many questions unanswered. We watch the orbits of these three lonely people intersect but their worlds never collide, and we don’t leave the theater knowing all the details of each character’s lives, which might beg the question from someone who hasn’t seen the play: “Then what the hell did they talk about for three hours?!” Well, for one thing, they didn’t talk a lot, at least not in the first half. The pauses aren’t just pregnant, they’re two weeks overdue and expecting octuplets. My friend Terry thought the first half of the play could have used a good editing job, but I was enthralled from the first sweep of the broom. Hell, it won the Pulitzer Prize, and maybe even a good edit wouldn’t have served the play well.

In the question and answer session that followed the play, I was thrilled to hear other patrons offer insights that I overlooked, interpretations I hadn’t considered, but perhaps my friend Terry offered the most valuable insight of all: that the play sheds light on a world so often neglected. Not the world of theater ushers specifically, but of the people who do the work that allows the rest of us to enjoy a night out. The Flick could just have easily been The Café, The Playhouse or The Nightclub. As George Bailey says in It’s a Wonderful Life, “They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community,” and their lives are as fascinating to me as a mobster's or a media mogul's.

The Flick continues its run at the Steppenwolf through May 8. I can’t recommend it more highly.

Leon Bridges in Milwaukee: Why Now?

It’s a question that must drive record executives crazy: why do some performers destined for greatness garner little more than a shrug of the shoulders while other performers who on paper should land with a thud receive accolades and notoriety? The question could easily be applied to the modern soul performer Leon Bridges. Why does a singer/songwriter whose repertoire would have felt right at home in 1965 reap the enthusiasm of music listeners in 2016? It’s a mystery to me, but a pleasant one at that, as I had the chance to see Bridges and his terrific band perform at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee last Saturday night to a full house.

Bridges, riding high since the release of his debut album, Coming Home, has had a hell of a year, receiving radio play, appearing on Saturday Night Live and participating in a Ray Charles tribute at the White House. Sporting a gray suit, red tie and black shoes, Bridges oozed class at the Riverside, from his silky voice to the smooth dance moves he employed throughout the show. Opening with his best-known number (to me, at least), “Smooth Sailing,” he kicked off a string of short, uninterrupted songs reminiscent of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding before briefly addressing the audience. In addition to playing all ten tracks from his only album, he scattered a few new compositions along the way, plus a few standards, including a short version of Neil Young’s “Helpless,” a song that was surely unfamiliar to much of the largely 20-something audience, though there were several folks in the 40-70 age range. What was disappointingly absent from the audience was diversity in race. I thought the makeup would be a similar to the one who attended Stevie Wonder’s show last fall in Chicago, but at least for this particular show in Milwaukee, Bridges attracted a decidedly white crowd.

Bridges’s backing band was stellar, with all six musicians tasteful and selective in their approach. There were times when a song begged for a fuller horn section or larger group of backup singers, but in a way the sparser band has helped to define Bridges’s sound.  Brittni Jessie’s backup singing is extremely exposed, with no one to lean on but herself, but there she was, weaving seamlessly in and out of the lead vocal lines. Sure, she leaned a little flat at times, but I love that her performance and the entire band’s performance was live – no backing tracks, no auto-tune – so a few missed pitches was cool with me. And when was the last time you heard a modern band employ a solo saxophone? For me it might have been Supertramp in 1985. It was nice to hear again.

Upon receiving his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, Billy Joel said, “And I know I’ve been referred to as derivative. Well, I’m damn guilty. I’m derivative as hell!” So is Leon Bridges. But as with Billy Joel, I argue, “Who gives a shit, as long as it’s good?” What’s surprising to me is how young people have latched on to a modern singer that harkens back so strongly to an earlier time. I imagine a few record executives are scratching their heads, wondering if 60s soul is a trend or a fleeting blip on the charts. Time will tell, but I sure hope Bridges sticks around for a while.

Amy: A Slow-Motion Suicide

In an effort to familiarize myself with next week’s Oscars ceremonies, I recently watched one of the five films nominated for Best Documentary Feature: Amy, about the British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse whose death in 2011 shocked no one. (To learn where to watch this year’s documentary nominees, start here.) Pieced together from amateur videos, photographs, interviews and performances, Amy is a difficult film to watch, not only because of the subject matter – in effect, a chronicle of a slow-motion suicide – but because of the lack of narration, at-times scattered direction, and heavy British accents that can take a few listens to understand correctly. Luckily the film includes subtitles of Winehouse’s lyrics and does a terrific job of identifying who’s talking, making even an unfamiliar viewer able to follow along.  As the film transpires, it becomes clear that while no one is entirely to blame for Winehouse’s death, no one is entirely off the hook. It took a village to kill Amy Winehouse, and a multitude of lessons could be learned from what transpires achingly on film, though I doubt they ever will be: the dangers of drugs and alcohol, the beauty of music, the trappings of fame, the fragility of life, the need for strong parenting, how the absence of religion might facilitate an aimless and narcissistic life, how society rejoices in the failings of others, how business and the almighty dollar trumps people’s well-being, how who you fall in love with is not always who you should spend your life with, how one’s insecurities are never far away, and how death cares not one iota how remarkably talented you are.

It’s a tough watch. But a worthy one.