By: Michael Feingold's English adaptation of Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht and Dorothy Lane's musical
At: Brown Couch Theatre Company at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark
Phone: 312-409-2010; $18-$20
Runs through: Dec. 30
Happy End is one of those musicals more famous for its parts than its whole. Watching Brown Couch Theatre Company's game attempt to put Happy End all together again shows just why that is.
Happy End's plot sounds a lot like a Guys and Dolls rip-off: A Salvation Army lass gets mixed up with a bunch of singing Chicago gangsters. But Happy End's 1929 Berlin premiere predates Guys and Dolls' 1950 Broadway bow by 21 years.
Happy End was intended to be the triumphant follow-up to composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht's 1928 smash hit The Threepenny Opera. But the show was a huge flop.
Some blame the weak script by Dorothy Lane ( a pseudonym for Brecht's suicidal-with-unrequited-love secretary Elisabeth Hauptmann ) . Others say it was the Communist rant thrown in by Brecht's wife, Helene Weigel. Playing 'The Lady in Gray,' Weigel angered opening night audiences and critics with her tirade on how robbing a bank was a lesser crime than owning one.
Happy End's songs are what largely survived. The tunes Surabaya Johnny and Bilbao Song have become cabaret specialties. Happy End ( in Michael Feingold's 1977 English adaptation ) is also famous for being the final Broadway show Meryl Streep starred in before conquering Hollywood.
What makes Happy End such a tough cookie is its shifting tones. One minute it's mocking melodramatic conventions while celebrating Chicago gangster flicks stereotypes. Next it's got honest-to-God emotion or bitter-pill cynicism.
Director Micky York doesn't navigate these shifts too well or create a cohesive performing style to blend them all together. Some of York's musical staging choices also undercut the characters or pull focus from the text.
As the religious firebrand Hallelujah Lillian, Andrea Prestinario sings gorgeously and forcefully. Too bad her truncated establishing song, Little Lieutenants of the Lord, is staged so far upstage that she has difficulty commanding the audience. She might also be a bit young to believably live through the relationship horrors of Surabaya Johnny, even if she sings it beautifully.
Another problematic performance is Carmen Aiello as Dr. Nakamura. One never knows if he's meant to embody or mock the stereotype of a sinister Japanese criminal with bad pidgin English. Other minor roles in Happy End cry out for perfect comic timing—something Brown Couch can't always deliver with consistency.
The plusses of Happy End include Damian Vanore's tough guy performance as the main gangster Bill Cracker. You truly believe his character's Chicago dialect and hard-shell exterior.
Then there's the rare opportunity to hear Weill's sweetly-sour and jazzy score. So what if these songs aren't seamlessly integrated into the script like Rodgers and Hammerstein? With Andra Velis Simon's great piano accompaniment and some great harmonizing by the supporting cast, this Weill is never vile.
Brown Couch's staging of Happy End isn't perfect, just as its depiction of a gang-riddled Chicago isn't very realistic. ( Its European authors had never visited Chicago before they wrote it. ) What makes Happy End worth an outing is its unconventional holiday tale, complete with a great score that won't be piped into shopping malls anytime soon.
