Playwright: Cy Coleman, Ira Gasman and David Newman
At: Bohemian Theatre Ensemble, Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont
Phone: 773-327-5252; $27
Runs through: July 15
By Jonathan Abarbanel
The jazziest composer on Broadway was the late Cy Coleman. Among his dozen Broadway scores are music for Wildcat, Little Me, Sweet Charity, On the 20th Century, City of Angels and—late in his career—The Life. This tale of hookers and pimps along Manhattan's 42nd Street, before it was sanitized and Disney-fied, has a few standard song-and-dance numbers, but its heart and soul are Coleman's numbers, inspired by R&B, jazz and soul. Singing and soaring in the original Broadway cast were Lillias White and Sam Harris.
Boho's production of The Life sings and soars, too, with a company that does full justice to the music and piquant lyrics. Driving the ensemble are Anthony Fett as the charming but devious narrator, JoJo ( the Sam Harris role ) , and Bethany Thomas as Sonja ( the Lillias White role ) . Taking full advantage of their substantial musical opportunities with plenty of note-bending brass, Fett belts out every high note with assurance while Thomas nails her female basso role. If the others don't impress as much as Fett and Thomas, they are deftly guided by always-solid musical director Jon Steinhagen, who also shapes the ensemble into a powerful instrument in full company numbers as Check It Out and the show's cynical signature tune, Use What You Got.
As triumphant as the show is musically, it's a substantial failure visually. Director Stephen M. Genovese, costume designer Theresa Ham and set designer John Zuiker have badly misstepped. Not even for a New York second does the set look anything like New York, let alone 42nd Street circa 1980. Every window frame and every doorway is wrong in Zuiker's conception of a vaguely urban combat zone.
As for the costumes, well, one pair of platform shoes and one pair of bell-bottom pants go a long way. It's too much, and untrue to the time period, to put everyone in platform shoes, bell bottoms and/or ho skirts. Except for the ho skirts—they are eternal—that's not what folks were wearing by 1978-1985, the show's time slot. The costumes make the performers look awkward and, frankly, unattractive. There's a difference between tawdry ( cheaply gaudy ) and tacky ( without taste or style ) . Costumes for The Life are tacky. A Broadway musical needs to have some glitz and glamour about it, even if the subject matter is low-life and gamy, as it is in The Life.
Choreographer Brenda Didier—Queen of Belmont Avenue dance—helps redeem things visually by making the company look professional through mostly simple but effective combinations, with a touch of tap thrown in.
The Life ignores the substantial gay element of 42nd Street, but that's not Boho's doing. Get past the platform shoes, and The Life is a fine rendering of a lesser-known Coleman show.