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

We can only rejoice at the talent, care and passion TimeLine has poured into this rare staging of Juno, Marc Blitzstein's 1959 Broadway musicalization ( with Joseph Stein ) of Sean O'Casey's 1924 Irish drama, Juno and the Paycock ( Irish patois for peacock ). One could not ask for better at any level of professional theater, but this fine production nonetheless makes clear why the original production was not a success.

Theater critic Brooks Atkinson aptly described O'Casey's play as equal parts comedy of Irish character and tragedy of Irish politics. In it, the Irish stereotype—hard-drinking, sly, gift of gab—slams again the savage Irish Civil War of the early 1920s, during which the play is set. The focus is the Boyle family of Dublin slum-dwellers among whom only the mother, Juno, is employed. Her husband, styling himself "Captain" Jack Boyle, is a shiftless braggart while adult son Johnny lost an arm during the Irish War of Independence and daughter Mary is on strike. Things end disastrously for the Boyles, but the play offers large quantities of high comedy generated through the ne'er-do-well charm of Capt. Jack and his cadger crony, Joxer Daly. The comedy balances the ineffably sorrowful ending and, in a fashion, paves the way for it.

In creating a two-act musical from the three-act play, Blitzstein and Stein necessarily boiled Juno and the Paycock down to make room for music. They distilled the tragic elements to a high proof, but cut almost all the extended comedy scenes thereby destroying the balance. Without opportunities to display his roguish charm, Captain Jack is an unsympathetic blowhard. As in so much Irish drama, the tragedy belongs to the women and the musical preserves, word for word, O'Casey's famous lament spoken by grieving mothers to an unhearing Lord: "Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Take away our murderous hate and give us Thy eternal love."

That being said, every note of Blitzstein's music is raised high under musical directors Doug Peck and Elizabeth Doran and sung by an exceptional cast of singing actors headed by Marya Grandy ( Juno ), Ron Rains ( Capt. Jack ) and Emily Glick ( Mary ). Songs such as "We're Alive" and "On a Day Like This" soar on a fine, big-voiced ensemble while tender numbers haunt the listener, among them "One Kind Word," a pleading for love sung in a clear Irish tenor by Jordan Brown. A five-piece orchestra—dressed in colorful working-class Dublin garb ( Alex Wren Meadows, costume design )—is delicate and shimmering.

Director Nick Bowling opens the TimeLine space as far as possible and uses the entire room as his environment, covering the walls in back of the audience with the dingy floral wallpaper marking the Boyles' flat ( John Culbert scenic design, Keith Parham lighting design ). Katie Spellman's lively choreography is apt for a Dublin street or the front parlor.

It's a flawed vehicle but a fabulous production.