THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Chicago has seen two shows since August about Terezin, the Nazi concentration camp which was located near Prague ( Czech Republic ). Terezin wasn't a death camp, but conditions were so appalling that one in four inmates died before being shipped ( as eventually they were ) to killing camps such as Auschwitz. The Nazis declared Terezin a model city for Jews, and an artists' colony where creative expression was tolerated up to a point. The two Terezin shows derive from that artistic legacy.

The Last Cyclist ( see Aug. 28 review ) actually was written and rehearsed by Terezin inmates in 1943, although it wasn't performed due to its political content. Years later it was reconstructed from memory by the sole surviving cast member, with new material written to fill in memory gaps. Signs of Life is a contemporary American musical revolving around Terezin artist-inmates in 1944.

While I have reservations about The Last Cyclist, it's a vehicle which celebrates its theatricality and serves as witness to the vitality and even joy of those who lived and created art in the shadow of death. By contrast, Signs of Life is solemn, plodding and predictable. Both shows over-explain everything, The Last Cyclist through the new material supplementing the original, and Signs of Life by wearing its heart far too obviously on its sleeve.

Here's the real difference, though: The Last Cyclist is of and by Terezin inmates but isn't about Terezin so its story indulges in flights of theatrical fancy, while Signs of Life is about Terezin and is earthbound, literal and earnest from its stereotypical Nazi villains, to the young lovers, to the woman who protests she's not a Jew. Signs of Life wants to convey something important: how artist-inmates risked their lives to sketch, paint and document the realities of Terezin under Nazi noses, and reconfirm their humanity in the process. But take away the art part, and these characters could fit neatly into dozens of Holocaust dramas.

Program materials suggest that the chief producer commissioned a play based on a story she wanted to tell, and later hired a composer and lyricist to add songs. That's not how effective musicals are created. Indeed, Signs of Life really is a play with songs which only once or twice uses musical theater techniques to advance the story in imaginative ways ( for example, the Act I finale, "A City for the Jews" ).

Joel Derfner's lovely music is richly contrapuntal with fugue figures and close harmonies and Len Schiff's lyrics are intelligent if sometimes too literal. The mostly Chicago cast sings admirably and acts strongly within the two-dimensional characters given them. But music, lyrics and singing cannot make Signs of Life something it is not: a well-conceived and exciting musical-theater piece.