Theater review by Alex Huntsberger
It’s not so strange that a musical based on the work of oral historian Studs Terkel would find it’s ideal match in a Chicago storefront—even if said theater is technically on the Evanston side of Howard Street. Director Christopher Chase Carter’s superb revival of the 1977 musical Working demonstrates that Terkel’s man-of-the-people style is ideally suited for small houses. Like much of Terkel’s work, Working is a celebration of ordinary people who often go overlooked. Theo Ubique’s cozy cabaret space allows the talented actors (including Stephen Blu Allen, Cynthia F. Carter, Kiersten Frumkin, Jared David Michael Grant, Michael Kingston and Loretta Rezos) to perform with chatty barroom intimacy even as they cycle through character after character. No need to play to the back of the house when it’s a mere 20 feet away. All they have to do is talk—and sing.
The show is adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso from Terkel’s 1974 nonfiction book, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, a compilation of interviews with people from a wide array of backgrounds and positions. Although it’s often billed as a Schwartz show, Working’s original incarnation also featured music by Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers and James Taylor and additional lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. Subsequent revisions by Schwartz and Gordon Greenberg have added new monologues and two songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
If Working is a hodgepodge, that is true to its mission. The show covers workers in a broad array of professions—stone masons, schoolteachers, stay-at-home moms, nurse aides, steelworkers, stock-market trader—whose feelings about their jobs run the gamut from pride to exhaustion to exhilaration and quite a lot of boredom. The melancholy songs have aged better than the upbeat ones; Taylor’s sorrowful “Millworker” could have been penned last week, for example, but his boisterous “Brother Trucker” seems very much an artifact of the 1970s . But while the specifics of their work have changed (complaints about cubicles seem quaint in the age of open office plans), the workers themselves don’t seem very different from us at all. They’re looking for a good wage, a solid future and a little credit for what they do—something Working happily provides.
Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre. Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, Susan Birkenhead, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mary Rodgers and James Taylor. Book by Stephen Schwartz, Nina Faso and Gordon Greenberg. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 50mins. One intermission.