The Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, in its 21st season, presented Just A Little Song & Dance, their annual spring concert April 11 and 12 at the Athenaeum Theater. With a swanky nightclub as its setting and a fiercely political story line as the thread that wove the songs together, the production was nearly as entertaining as it was controversial.
Probably the biggest controversy concerned the number of solos in this particular concert. Of the 11 songs in the first act and the nine songs in the second, nearly every number featured one member or a small group of the chorus performing a solo with no choral participation from the other chorines, which left them sitting on stage for long stretches of time with nothing to do but watch and react.
The concert opened with singing waiters performing ‘Willkommen,’ as the chorus members, portraying nightclub patrons, dressed either in tuxedoes or in drag, took their seats at the little tables on stage. The first solo of the concert, ‘Welcome To My Party,’ was performed by club host Jim Birren. Chorus members were given the opportunity to participate in the ‘Cocktails For Two’ (‘in some secluded rendezvous’) number, when soloist David Schuringa’s serious interpretation of the song turned humorous, broken up by hilarious interjections from the group.
Toting a Kmart bag and dressed in Martha Stewart’s trademark khakis and blue Oxford shirt, with a sweater tied over his shoulders and a blonde wig on his head, Jerry Glover sang ‘I’m Throwing A Ball Tonight,’ with uncredited, revised lyrics, that allowed him to name-drop Martha-style. The prison numbers stenciled onto the back of the shirt, revealed when the sweater came off, earned a laugh. The best number of the first act was performed by soloist Curtis Gilbert. Singing ‘Sooner Or Later’ to a framed photo of Saddam Hussein, Gilbert’s embodiment of a love-struck George W. Bush, posing seductively on top of a desk (with an emblem on it that read ‘Seal of The Guy With The Best Lawyers’) gave new meaning to Sondheim’s ‘I always get my man’ line.Other first act moments of note were the black fabric twirlers in ‘Le Jazz Hot,’ Anne Santiago’s solo and the male kick line in ‘Bring On The Men,’ and the solo by Carl Bridges (dressed in a vivid red zoot suit) and the tap dancing in ‘Let Yourself Go.’ The abrupt and mysterious ending of the first act, which featured the dancers being blindfolded and led off stage, following the gospel-inflected ‘Clap Your Hands’ (which I interpreted as having something to do with being blinded by religious zealotry) appeared to leave many concert attendees puzzled.
The second act got off to a rocky start with well-intentioned but lifeless renditions of ‘Raise The Roof’ and ‘I’m Your Man’ (performed by a trio of drag queens). A short-lived revival occurred during ‘Vodka,’ which included both the chorus and a bottle dance, but a low-energy rendering of ‘Big Spender,’ featuring a gay Uncle Sam, as the object of affection, changed the mood again. However, Ryan Mastro’s unforgettable reading of ‘Everybody Knows’ (thank you Patrick Sinozich, for including two Leonard Cohen songs in the concert) made the whole evening worthwhile.
The second act’s other standout number was the Sondheim tune ‘More,’ performed by Jake Stigers as a military officer, who sang as the stage filled with recruits, bombs exploded in the background, and N-17 missiles were rolled out from the wings.