GOPRIDE.COM

Fiorello!

Tue. May 16, 2006

By John Olson

On either count, it's a worthwhile experience. TimeLine takes its history quite seriously, with posters and study guides in the lobby that provide a literal timeline of the historical events behind the play. A regular practice for this company, it's especially useful for this show, helping contemporary audiences some 70 years removed from the end of LaGuardia's political career to understand the back story behind Jerome Weidman's highly telescoped book. They take the further step of offering a projected montage of LaGuardia's mayoral and other career accomplishments under the overture (the story of the musical itself ends shortly before he's elected Mayor of New York).

At the center of this crew is of course Fiorello himself, played with a bit too much visible effort by TimeLine's Artistic Director PJ Powers. He's got the look down (with help from costume designer Lindsay Pate), as well as the energy, but he relies a little too heavily on a few mannerisms and ends up not quite as convincing as his castmates. That's not as devastating as it might seem, since oddly, Fiorello! is not all that concerned with Fiorello. The 1960 Tony Award committee apparently thought as much, recognizing original Fiorello Tom Bosley only as Best Supporting/Featured Actor.

While Fiorello! is a well-meaning and not unsuccessful musical, it's a bit of an odd one. Its attentions are too diffused between its many characters to get us very engaged with any of them, and reading TimeLine's history of LaGuardia and his era, it seems he was much more colorful in real life than Weidman was able to capture. Bock and Harnick's songs are perfectly decent representatives of Broadway's Golden Age that flow easily from the dialogue, but they aren't exactly essential to the drama, either. Still, as an attempt to be both an entertainment and a musical of ideas, its ambitions are to be admired and TimeLine's multi-media educational approach to production may be just the perfect way to experience this show.

Fiorello! runs through June 18, 2006 at 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago. Performances are Thursdays and Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 4 PM and 8 PM, and Sundays at 2 PM. For tickets, call 773.282.TIME (8463) or visit www.timelinetheatre.com.

Photo: PJ Powers, Michael Kingston and Rebecca Finnegan

Photo by: Lara Goetsch

For the complete article (non-reader view with multimedia and original links), Tap here.



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