Sept. 30--I first saw Willy Russell's "Blood Brothers" in London's West End in 1983. I was already a rabid young fan of Russell's work. Plays such as "Educating Rita," "Our Day Out" and "Stags and Hens" not only celebrated working-class creativity and the class-jumping power of education, but they were populist, accessible entertainment that offered a good night out to ordinary people who wouldn't usually be caught dead in the theater. They spoke to me. So did Russell. I went to see him as a student. He was kind and generous with his time.
I was raised not far from Liverpool, where Russell was (and is) a hometown hero. His most successful characters, such as the title character in "Shirley Valentine" and Mrs. Johnstone, the impoverished, stressed-out mum who gives up one of her newborn twins in "Blood Brothers," are the best kind of Liverpudlians -- funny, friendly, resourceful, open-hearted. You can, of course, find those qualities in Chicagoans, with whom I've happily surrounded myself for the past 25 years. Chicagoans, I've generally found, like to laugh and to feel, and they like a good night out too. Over the past quarter-century, the theater in this town has more them met them halfway.
So I went back a lot to see "Blood Brothers." There was a lot of opportunity; it ran, cumulatively, in London for nearly 30 years. And while this very British show was never a comparable hit this side of the pond, it had a decent Broadway run. The national tour played Chicago and there were local productions. Many musical-theater women love the sentimental ballads: "Easy Terms," "Light Romance," "Marilyn Monroe." But before Tuesday night, it had been a while for me. A decade or more.
"Blood Brothers," also long associated with the singer Barbara Dickson, has remained a touring staple in the U.K., but watching the show again in Rogers Park, I was struck that it would look very dated on the Broadway of "Spring Awakening" and "Hamilton." Russell was a popular songwriter, not a highly educated or sophisticated composer, and the show has some corny rhymes, over-ripe narration, stock characters. I can't believe I'm now writing that about a show I once loved so much. Heck, I still love it so much, mostly for personal reasons. But the form has moved onward. "Blood Brothers" was a show that was first written for schoolchildren (just like "Joseph"). It is not exactly "Pacific Overtures."
Theo Ubique is known for the quality of its singers, and this fall production, directed by Fred Anzevino, is fully up to snuff vocally. The one really important voice, of course, is that of the authorial alter-ego and heart-tugger Mrs. Johnstone, who needs to have a sound that's part musical theater and part pop ballad but just as much folk. Russell wrote for the voices he could hear in the Liverpool pubs and, luckily, Kyrie Anderson has such a voice, along with an ability to embody that crucial Northern resistance to fakery and flash. She is just terrific on those aforementioned ballads; reason enough, perhaps, to take your seat.
In some ways, the usual trump card at Theo Ubique, a microtheater where intimacy is measured in inches, not the number of seats, doesn't play as well on "Blood Brothers." When you see that bathetic sentiment really close-up, you recoil a little. "Blood Brothers" is the story of two twins who are separated: Mrs. J. decides she can't afford to raise one more kid in her brood, so she hands Eddie (played by Cody Jolly) over to Mrs. Lyons (Victoria Oliver), the upper-middle-class dragon whose house she cleans. Mickey (Charlie Mann) is raised working-class and trapped in the same recession that destroyed the mines in "Billy Elliot." Eddie goes off to university and finds the world filled with opportunity.
Russell's show uses adults playing kids (the show covers many years). That felt novel in 1983, but nobody would do that now. They'd use real kids, thank heavens, as adults tend to make kids more like kids than kids really turn out to be. I found it hard to believe some of those scenes in this staging -- partly because everything here is a tad overplayed, and also because the material is tricky now. The production certainly has its heart in the right place -- Mann is very moving and credible -- but it somehow does not catch the full triangular relationship between twins who have no idea their best pal is their brother, and Linda (Dana Anderson), the girl they both love. The show needs more emotional intensity -- the sentiment of the piece needs a counterpoint in the performances. It's tough to flesh out the characters Russell did not like, but it needs more of a pull in the opposite direction than you find here.
Still, you get to hear Kyrie Anderson sing that heart-on-its sleeve finale, an indictment of the class system -- one that still operates just fine on both sides of the Atlantic -- and a number that once slayed 'em by the millions in a theater of, by and for the people: "Tell me it's not true. Say I only dreamed it. And morning will come soon."
Sigh.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
REVIEW: 'Blood Brothers' by Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre
2.5 STARS
When: Through Nov. 15
Where: Theo Ubique at the No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $34-$39 ($25 additional for dinner) at www.theo-u.com
