Wed. October 15, 2008
By John Olson
Interest in the fate of the pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, must be one of those things that skips a generation. I've always been familiar with the name, but never known much about her—as if by the time I came of age, her legend was already so well known to the previous generation there was no need to explain her any further. The artists of the fledgling New Colony Theatre, including writer James Asmus, have been fascinated enough to write a fantasy about what really might have happened to Ms. Earhart, believed to have crashed onto a South Pacific island.
The New Colony ensemble includes writer Asmus and Amelia director Andrew Hobgood, who last year together wrote book and lyrics for Love is Dead: A Necromantic Musical. That show ran weekends for nearly a year at the Annoyance Theatre before moving on to the New York International Fringe Festival where it won the award for best music and lyrics. It was an improv-inspired show that reached a little higher and succeeded in becoming an Off-Broadway style musical. Like Love is Dead, Amelia Earhart, aspires to be more than we'd expect. It begins as a clever parody of 1930s styled adventure films, a la King Kong or Tarzan, but soon enough reveals itself as a more serious-minded piece of social criticism with an ambitious narrative structure.
The action opens in the headquarters of the Altamont Corporation, some sort of evil mega-company that favors American participation in World War II because they'll be able to bring women into the work force for lower pay than the men who went off to fight were earning, and thus increase corporate profits. They also, as a publicity stunt, send off teams of explorers to scour the South Pacific to find the missing Ms. Earhart. Scenes alternate between the Altamont headquarters in the big city and an unexplored jungle island in the Pacific, where a trio of hapless explorers is about to stumble on the missing Ms. Earhart.
At that point, it's a funny send-up of the adventure-film genre. Daniel Jessup is perfect as the brainy and nerdy Professor Pin, researching the island's botany while pilot/guide Gerald Gallagher )played with much swagger and bravado by Josh Odor) and the naïve and wholesome Iowa farm boy Calvin Schultz (given an endearing aw-shucks charm by Kevin Stangler) search for Ms. Earhart. As the titular character, Nicole Pellegrino has less stage time than we might like, and creates a sort of reverse and opposite gender Tarzan. Formerly a member of civilized society, she's become a semi-wild thing and has lost much of her ability to speak English.
Amelia Earhart: Jungle Princess will run through November 2, 2008. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7:00 p.m. at the National Pastime Theater, 4139 N. Broadway, Chicago. "Show passes," which allow the buyer to attend as many performances as they like during the run for one price, are on sale at www.thenewcolony.org or by calling 1-800-838-3006.
Photo: Evan Linder, Nicole Pellegrino
and Benjamin Oyama
Photo by: Alain Minotti
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