How is the comfort factor playing out in each arts discipline? Here’s what our critics and reporters found out.
Art
On Sept. 12, the Baltimore Museum of Art opened at its regular hour.
But it wasn’t a regular day. Visitors were shocked to see a large, untitled painting by American artist Christopher Wool featuring the word “TERRORIST” in big letters.
“A few visitors were really shaken,” a museum spokeswoman said. They complained that they had come to a museum for “peace and beauty,” the spokeswoman added, and didn’t appreciate Wool’s work.
The painting had actually been up since 1990. But in the grief-suffused aftermath of Sept. 11, it was suddenly jarring to some. The museum took down the painting for two days, then rehung it — and provided paper and pencils for visitors to write their impressions, which are posted near the painting.
The Baltimore incident brings into sharp relief an intensely topical issue in the visual arts: Do people want art that will soothe and calm or art that will stimulate, rouse and rile? The two sides of art’s bright coin — art as consolation or art as provocation — seem especially at odds now, as the nation girds itself for a long and difficult struggle against terrorism. Should art deliver a kiss or a kick in the pants?
Estera Milman, director of the Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Arts program at the University of Iowa, is in the boot-in-the-keister camp. “Comfort art turns the arts into sugar pills, instead of allowing them to represent the diversity of culture,” she said. “You don’t transform people through comfort.”
Milman is curator of NO!art and the Aesthetics of Doom, an historical exhibition that opens Thursday and runs through Jan. 13 at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. NO!art was a New York artists’ cooperative in the 1950s and ’60s whose members used painting, sculpture, photography and collage to critique sexual taboos, consumer culture, the Holocaust and the proliferation of atomic weapons. It is, in other words, the diametrical opposite of comfort art.
“After Sept. 11, my first response was that this might not be the best time for this show,” Milman acknowledged. “But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that it might be the best time, actually, to present other responses to international terror and horror.”
Francesco Bonami, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s massive, challenging and well-attended exhibition “A Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994,” said that people who come to museums aren’t seeking easy answers or cheaply sentimental consolation.
“People want to be engaged,” he said. “They don’t just want an image to consume. People want to be challenged. Museums are not movie theaters. People know when they make a choice to come to a museum, it’s not mere entertainment.”
Yet Eileen Harakal, executive director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is in the midst of its Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibition, offered what might be called the old-school view: Art is the calming force, the pat on the head that says, “There, there.”
“People like the sense of escape from everyday concerns and cares. Museums offer them a peace and tranquility they can’t get in their lives.”
The Van Gogh exhibit, which runs through Jan. 13, is averaging about 40,000 visitors a week. But it is not sold out, she said.
— Julia Keller
Architecture
Comfort architecture? It’s there all right, although nobody seems to have gone back to the Cold War days of building fallout shelters and stocking them with cans of food.
Chicago architect Kathryn Quinn sees it in the new reluctance of her clients to have a TV blasting in almost every room of the house. They want oases of quiet, she says, instead of a high-anxiety environment in which they can’t escape the latest news bulletin on CNN.
Clearly, though, there was “comfort architecture” well before Sept. 11. In times of stress, we yearn for the familiar. And life before 9/11 was plenty stressful, courtesy of the global economy, the “24/7” ethic of all-business-all-the-time and a communications revolution that has made people available by fax, cell phone and e-mail no matter where they are.
“We need moments to get unplugged,” Quinn says. “We’re so wired.”
Last year, Mark Hopkins, a partner in the Arlington Heights-based architecture firm of HKM, talked of such a concept when he led a visitor around the Village Green, an Arlington Heights condo high-rise whose tower, dormers and gables project a go-down-easy familiarity.
“It’s comfort architecture,” Hopkins said.
People have always sought comfort in buildings–especially their homes, which provide shelter from the elements and a sense of refuge from a seemingly dangerous world. Sometimes this desire leads to extreme measures, like the so-called “safe room” designed to prevent kidnapping.
“Entirely lined with steel, with a steel door, a separate air supply, a separate telephone line, and a stock of food, this room would, if reached in time, provide a haven of security until the police arrived,” author Clive Aslet wrote in a 1991 book about the houses of New York architect Robert A.M. Stern.
Social critics like author Tom Wolfe have long remarked upon the paradox of executives who build coolly modern steel-and-glass high rises, then furnish their offices with warmly traditional Chippendale furniture and Oriental rugs.
“There needs to be a balance between things that are familiar and things that are completely new,” said Evanston architect Stuart Cohen, who designs homes on Chicago’s North Shore. “A certain portion of our environment needs to be stable. Otherwise, we’re on overload.”
–Blair Kamin
Classical
Classical music composers and musicians have been at the forefront of the comfort business since at least the 9th Century, when Gregorian chant resounded throughout medieval Europe. A typical line of Latin text: Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bone voluntatis (Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will).
Still, in anxious times such as these, when words are inadequate to express profound grief, music can strike a universal chord of consolation. That is what Daniel Barenboim told an audience in Lucerne, Switzerland, that had assembled on Sept. 11 to hear a long-scheduled concert by his Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
“As musicians, we feel that music is the best way to express our complex and deep feelings,” Barenboim told the Swiss audience. Deeply moved, the crowd gave him and the CSO a long and thunderous ovation.
To judge from the empty seats at the CSO and other local classical concerts, nervous patrons steered clear of concert halls in the weeks immediately following the tragedy, especially if there was no brand-name soloist or conductor. On the other hand, some embraced the shared experience of music as a necessary means of release.
David Schrader, harpsichordist with Chicago’s Rembrandt Chamber Players, prefaced the opening program of the group’s season last month by citing a quote from Leonard Bernstein — “In terrible times, musicians can answer violence by playing even more beautifully than they would ordinarily.”
“People told us afterward they felt the music really provided solace for them,” said Sandra Morgan, the Rembrandt’s administrative director and flutist. “They responded particularly to familiar composers such as Brahms, and they really loved the Strauss waltz we played as an encore, because it sent them home feeling happy. They needed to feel happy then.”
In the days following the attacks, orchestras and instrumentalists and singers and chamber groups across the land scrambled to answer our individual search for solace as well as our collective need to express national pride and solidarity.
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Suddenly “The Star-Spangled Banner” was no longer a knee-jerk season-opening curtain raiser, but a stirring anthem each and every audience member sang con brio, head held high. Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” became a second national anthem in ballparks, after Broadway shows, in the houses of Congress and in many lesser places. Samuel Barber’s elegiac “Adagio for Strings” took the place of happier fare on countless symphony orchestra programs, including the CSO’s.
As for those classical fans who do not necessarily think of music as a communal experience, they have been busy raiding the record store bins of New Age-y discs bearing such soothing titles as “Classical Dreams” and “Music of Hope” — popular CDs well before Sept. 11 but even more popular since then, report local retailers.
In fact, patriotism has jumped to the top of Billboard’s classical crossover charts. Such unabashedly patriotic albums as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” (Sony Classical), Erich Kunzel’s “American Jubilee” (Telarc) and the St. Louis Symphony’s “The American Album” (RCA) have moved briskly in recent weeks, according to Marty Graff, classical and world music buyer for the Virgin Megastore, Michigan Avenue.
“My favorite customers are the stressed-out senior citizens who come in to buy `The Star-Spangled Banner’ just to blast it on their stereo,” he said. “One guy came into the store desperate to locate a recording of it. After I found one for him, he shook my hand so hard, it hurt.”
— John von Rhein
Dance
Dance, by definition, is always a comfort art form. As we all know from that song in “A Chorus Line,” everything is beautiful at the ballet. And even serious, provocative modern dance is other worldly, an escape of sorts into abstraction.
Maybe for that reason, recent dance events in Chicago seem to be doing quite well. “We earned about $100,000 more than our engagement last fall,” says Randy Voit, director of marketing and public relations for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, which played two weekends in late October at the Auditorium Theatre. “Many factors have changed that could account for that. Subscriptions are up, and there’s evidence that support for the company keeps growing.”
But he adds that the troupe may have benefited from what pop sociologist Faith Popcorn calls the little luxuries. “If you’re hesitant to buy a car or take a trip to Jamaica right now, you might instead turn to a more affordable pleasure, like the ballet,” Voit says. The company even pushed the concept in its telemarketing campaign.
Of the two programs, audiences seemed more drawn to the darker, all-Nijinsky lineup than the lighter, livelier second weekend. But he doubts that signaled a choice of sobriety over comfort. “Nijinsky is so famous, and our ad campaign focused more on that programming,” he says.
Dance Chicago, a month-long potpourri of programming at the Athenaeum
Theatre, opened Saturday after a promising increase in advance sales over last year.
“We set new records in each of the past two years, but the pace suggests we’ll do it again,” says Fred Solari, co-director of the project.
“I think there is a comfort level with Dance Chicago. People know what they’re going to see, and we try not to surprise them too much. We want it to be accessible, and while there is some modern dance, the programming is mostly upbeat,” citing jazz, children’s dance and the highly entertaining style of the River North Dance Company.
“Dance is the ultimate comfort food because in the end, it’s always bodies moving through space,” Solari adds. “It’s not threatening and won’t make you uncomfortable, like some serious theater pieces.”
But neither dance administrator could definitely attribute the rosy sales to a specific urge by audiences to escape — too many other factors may be involved. Both suggested, however, that the Sept. 11 events at the very least didn’t have a negative impact on ticket sales.
— Sid Smith
Dining
Arguably, restaurant dining is all about comfort — of relaxing with friends or family while others attend to the very basic chore of preparing and serving sustenance. What could be more comforting than to be fed well?
But when you speak of comfort in the food universe, people generally take you to mean comfort food. “It’s homey, mom-style cooking that hasn’t changed much over the years; in fact, you don’t want it to change,” says veteran restaurateur Roger Greenfield. “It’s food that you don’t have to think about, don’t have to analyze. It reminds you of your childhood, when you were safe and comfortable.”
Thus, comfort food varies with the history of the individual. Comfort food is a grilled cheese sandwich; it’s noodle kugel. It’s mashed potatoes, miso soup, collard greens, tamales and myriad other dishes.
Unquestionably, comfort food is popular right now. Whether that popularity can be linked to the national mood as it formed after Sept. 11 — the “this stuff” that Greenfield referred to –is not at all clear.
For one thing, comfort food was a restaurant-industry buzzword long before recent events sent us scurrying for figurative safe harbors. Entire forests have been demolished to glorify diner food and capture foodie reminiscences of homespun meals gone by. All sorts of restaurants term their offerings comfort food — unless the chef wants to be taken more seriously, in which case the preferred term is “sophisticated comfort food.” Restaurants in the latter category may dish up macaroni and cheese — but made with fresh pasta and a cream sauce laced with Nauvoo bleu cheese.
And fall is the season when people start eating heartier anyway. Meat and mashed potatoes, pot pies and hot soups, root vegetables and slow-cooked stews sell better in colder months.
At one sixtyblue, a restaurant known for its refined food, chef Martial Noguier confirms an increase in heartier eating. “Veal shank, venison, risotto with oxtail are all selling well,” he says. “And we’re selling a lot of beef.”
If there’s any one factor driving more people toward comfort food right now, it’s likely to be price. Restaurants that provide excellent value have never been out of favor with the dining public, but when the economy falters, diners may find them particularly appealing.
“People are being more conservative with their money,” Greenfield says. “In times like these, people like to have a place to gather, bond and enjoy good food and drink without breaking the bank. Neighborhood places are inviting because they are located close to home and offer great food at a good value.”
On the North Shore, the moderately priced Italian restaurant La Bella Winnetka reports no falloff in business, not even in its private parties.
“The weekend after the attack, we had two wedding rehearsals on Friday and two weddings on Saturday,” says owner Giorgio Gigiolio. “We told them we wouldn’t penalize them for canceling. Nobody canceled. I was shocked. One party had guests from New York City, and they rented a bus to get here.”
The assumption is that the high-priced restaurants are most affected, and undoubtedly customer counts are down. But reservations are still tough to come by at Chicago’s top-rated restaurants. And even among the second-tier restaurants, where one expects to see the most damage (on the theory that the very top places will always have their customers), it’s not all bad news.
“Do you know what we’ve been seeing? Larger parties,” says Noguier. “We’re getting fewer couples, but more groups of four or more. I think, after September, people realized they have to enjoy life and enjoy their friends. They want to go out together. And they’re spending money.”
— Phil Vettel
Jazz
Anyone who has been glancing at the Billboard jazz charts for the past year or so knows that comfortable, easy listening sounds were the order of the day long before Sept. 11. That trend simply is getting stronger in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, according to those who monitor the pulse of audiences across the country.
For roughly a year, the bland singer-pianist Diana Krall has held the No. 1 spot on the charts, with the innocuous vocalist Jane Monheit not far behind. Add to that a variety of tepid “greatest hits” compilations bearing nondescript titles such as “Pure Jazz,” and it’s clear that the general public likes its jazz light.
“The sound of smooth jazz really has started to take over a lot of the straight-ahead charts,” says Chris Morgan, the jazz, blues and gospel music buyer for the Virgin Megastore on North Michigan Avenue.
“Ever since Sept. 11, I haven’t exactly been playing a lot of high-volume avant-garde music in the store, the kind of stuff that Peter Brotzmann puts out,” adds Morgan, referring to the experimental German reedist who unleashes torrents of sound from his tenor saxophone. “I think if I played that in the store, it would freak people out right now.”
If there’s one record that has been moving quickly and steadily, says Morgan, it’s the Dave Holland Quintet’s “Not for Nothin’,” and it’s not difficult to understand why. Leading a pianoless quintet, Holland has crafted a more sensual and disarming ensemble sound than perhaps any other like-sized ensemble in jazz.
But nothing is selling better than the music of the past — catalog items by thoroughly familiar, reliable names.
“Our biggest hits — the real greats — are mostly by dead people,” says Bob Koester, who owns the Jazz Record Mart, on North Wabash Avenue, as well as the Chicago-based Delmark Records jazz label. “Miles Davis’ `Kind of Blue,’ we never stop selling that one.”
A classic Davis recording, “Kind of Blue” seduces large audiences through good times and bad not only because of its craft but also, perhaps, because of its hushed lyric voice and its soft, calming tone. And though hard-core jazz aficionados always will be searching for adventurous new sounds, the general public finds its sonic pleasures in less turbulent music-making.
“The thing that has surprised me most is how many people are buying `trad’ jazz albums,” says Koester, referring to swing and pre-swing music of the 1920s and ’30s. “They want to hear people like [octogenarian] Franz Jackson and [retro] groups like the Salty Dogs.”
The great gospel singers have been doing better than ever.
“Gospel is way, way up,” says Morgan. “Mahalia Jackson, Edwin Hawkins singing `Oh, Happy Day.’
“People want to hear a message, and singers like Mahalia know how to deliver it.”
— Howard Reich
Movies
In times of national strife, movies have always been a source of escape, fantasy and comfort. During World War II, the box office boomed as audiences sought refuge in theaters, where the popcorn was fresh and Errol Flynn would always save the day.
Since the Twin Towers fell, however, the public’s appetite for movies — even violent films — hasn’t changed much at all.
“Initially, after the terrorist attacks occurred, a lot of pundits were saying `This is the end of the intense movie,'” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, a box office tracking firm. “As we’ve seen in the last four weeks, the No. 1 film in the U.S. has been an R-rated film. That pretty much dashes any notion that people are not ready to see intense, R-rated films.”
Last week, audiences flocked to Kevin Spacey’s “K-PAX,” whereas Michael Douglas’ “Don’t Say a Word,” the dirty-cop drama “Training Day,” and the gory Jack the Ripper conspiracy film “From Hell” took the top slots in previous weeks. Film revenues are up 10.5 percent from this time period (January to October) last year, but Dergarabedian said the bump is reflective of nothing but the natural ebb and flow.
“You have to give credit to the audience. They know fantasy from reality, they can differentiate that. I think that moviegoers are showing that they find their escapism in all genres, in all types of films,” Dergarabedian said. “It has nothing to do with the events, it has to do with the movies.”
Revenues are up from 2000, but not to the level of 1999, he said. Even before Sept. 11, the country’s recent economic downturn had little influence on the movie business.
The video rental market reports much the same story. During week following the attacks, Blockbuster saw an increase in customer traffic, but things have since returned to normal.
“In terms of what people are renting . . . the patterns have remained the same. They’re renting the same things they’d rent under normal circumstances,” said Blockbuster spokeswoman Liz Greene. Joyce Quirico, manager of Video Shmideo at 907 N. State Street, agrees. “Maybe a few more people are asking for comedy . . . but I find that people are still watching the news.”
Why, then, when other arts are reaping the financial rewards of providing comfort, has the movie business remained the same?
“I don’t know,” said Dergarabedian. “More than any other entertainment, movies are an illusion. With sporting events or plays, there are people in front of you. Movies are just known as this escape.”
And maybe that’s comfort enough.
— Robert K. Elder
Museums
Not long after Sept. 11, the most popular single event of the year for the Chicago Historical Society Museum occurred. TV newscaster Carol Marin, who had a narrow escape from the World Trade Center, participated in a panel discussion about the terrorist assault. It was standing-room only in an auditorium that seats nearly 500.
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At the Field Museum of Natural History, a series of town hall meetings drew large crowds as experts on terrorism, social workers, Middle East anthropologists, and gospel singers were featured.
Now that the initial impact has worn off, many museum officials hope Chicagoans continue to look to their institutions as familiar, close-to-home comfort zones.
The fact is, Chicago’s museums–with only a few exceptions–weren’t doing well before the terrorist attacks. The recession, plus dropping attendance, already was forcing staff layoffs and severe budget cuts for some after an excellent 2000.
“Museums are businesses and they reflect the same challenges of businesses in general,” explained Jacqueline Atkins, executive director for Museums in The Park, an umbrella organization for the nine major museums on Chicago Park District property. “With the holidays coming, and big shows like Cleopatra [at the Field] and Van Gogh and Gauguin [at the Art Institute] already doing well, I think we’ll see surges. These are places that make you feel good.”
Attendance suffered at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the first few weeks after Sept. 11, but its “First Friday” party in October — monthly events heavily populated by the younger wine and cheese crowd — drew the biggest turnout of the year with more than 800 visitors. “We’re steadily getting back to normal,” said the MCA’s Karla Loring.
Tamara Biggs, exhibit director for the CHS, said it isn’t likely the events of Sept. 11 will be reflected in any Chicago museum displays during the holidays. “There are certain things you can’t ignore, but I’m not sure that’s what visitors are looking for right now,” she said. “Maybe our new exhibit is more appropriate.” In two weeks, the CHS debuts “Fashion, Flappers `n All That Jazz,” a look at the 1920s, a period when Americans tried mightily to distance themselves from the horrors of World War I.
The Adler Planetarium may be the ultimate escape. “I’ve picked up from a number of visitors that they see looking up at the stars and planets as a great way to put more earthly matters behind them,” said Roy Kaelin, an Adler astronomer.
— Mike Conklin
Rock
After initial turmoil and uneasiness, the concert business has recovered, promoters say. While a few hundred ticketholders elected not to attend sold-out concerts by Laurie Anderson, David Byrne and P.J. Harvey immediately following the events of Sept. 11, most fans elected to come out and hear music.
“I was stunned when 85 percent of the people showed up for Laurie Anderson [at the Park West] on the night of the attacks,” said Nick Miller, who oversees club bookings for longtime Chicago promoters Jam Productions. “But I think a lot of people seek solace in art, and Laurie Anderson’s songs aren’t about going out to have a good time.
“They have deeper meaning and speak to a lot of the issues people were thinking about on that day.”
Miller said the downturn in the economy, which cut into the concert business last summer, is having a bigger effect on attendance than the terrorist attacks. That said, a number of shows are selling out. “Not to pass judgment on other art forms, but I can see why Broadway isn’t doing as well in these times,” he said. “It’s a different kind of thing in rock. Young fans have one chance to see their favorite band, and they’re not going to pass it up. The shows that we expected to do well before Sept. 11 are still doing well, and the ones we expected to struggle are struggling. People are not electing to stay home if there is an act out there that they really want to see.”
Michael Yerke, talent buyer at House of Blues, said the chain of clubs around the country has noticed a slight dropoff in older listeners, but that younger fans are still coming out in force to see their favorites. The club’s first show after the terrorist strike was by the band Five for Fighting, whose song “Superman” has become something of an anthem. “The people went nuts when `Superman’ was played,” he said. “It was more like a candlelight vigil for the fans, a way to honor what was going on in New York. A couple of nights later, Ted Nugent and his fans had a different kind of catharsis, it was all about anger and kicking ass. In any case, people are still coming to the shows because they want to get away from some of the stuff they’re seeing on TV all day. They want to have a positive experience before they have to get up and go to work the next day.”
Colleen Miller, talent buyer at the Old Town School of Folk Music, said a sing-along fundraiser for the terrorist victims was an “eye-opener” because so many people want to come out “and sing in a community-type setting. There is a need out there for a lot of offbeat F-U-N, and there seems to be a feeling of refuge in this building that is drawing people to us.”
Miller noted that six Old Town concerts were canceled, however, mostly by overseas acts whose travel plans were upended by the terrorist strike. Several rock acts canceled previously scheduled European tours, including heavy metal band Pantera, folk-pop singer Aimee Mann and the Dave Matthews Band.
But many acts have forged ahead. “The first week of being on the road after Sept. 11, there was a strange feeling in the air,” said Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, a blues-rock band that decided to go ahead with a tour of England soon after the attack. “But I thought of it as my duty to go. People need this. My dad [producer Jim Dickinson] told me, `Don’t feel bad about going out and working and doing shows. Now is when you’re really doing your job.'”
— Greg Kot
Television
Television is our most sensitive cultural barometer. Its audience is measured minute-by-minute, in minute detail, giving easy access to analytic tools other art forms lack. Its programming is often produced live or just weeks before it airs. Scheduling changes can be made on the fly, in reaction to events.
And television is telling us that many people really are looking for comfort in their entertainment these days. It’s not all they’re looking for, of course, but it’s the big part of it.
In the chaotic weeks since Sept. 11, we’ve seen TV attempting to match the mood of the nation, moving from all news all the time to a gradual return to regular network fare, late-night talk shows, etc.
And in the early ratings for a TV season finally settling into something like a routine, we see strong evidence that the familiar is packing couches nationwide, elbowing aside once-ascendant reality and game show genres.This is most clear in the head-to-head battle between “Friends,” NBC’s long popular but 8th-season sitcom, and the latest edition of “Survivor,” CBS’s 1 1/2-year-old blockbuster reality series.
” `Friends’ is like the sorbet that cleared the cultural palate of all that awful imagery,” says Robert J. Thompson, popular culture professor and director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television. “With `Survivor,’ we don’t need manufactured danger now, because we’ve got the real stuff.”
Begun in October, “Survivor: Africa” is by no measure a disaster. It’s still the No. 7 show in the nation, averaging some 21 million viewers. But that’s way down from its performance last season, when it went head to head with “Friends” and ended as the year’s most popular entertainment show.
This year, the well-made but traditional “Friends,” the clever comedy about young Manhattanites not clever enough to have noticed their fellow New Yorkers seem kind of glum these days, is tops in the ratings. With a purely escapist agenda, it’s averaging more than 28 million viewers, some 7 million ahead of “Survivor.”
Granted, the series has been buoyed by a cliffhanger storyline featuring a character carrying a baby of unknown paternity. But that question has been answered — Ross impregnated his ex-fiance Rachel, for those keeping score at home — and the viewers remain for these familiar characters in a standard sitcom setting.
Moreover, at a time when TV had seemed to be remaking itself, adding the edgy human conflict of reality TV and finally veering away from the laugh-track-and-theater-stage-style comedy pioneered by Lucille Ball, many other long-running quality shows in a traditional style are winning their highest audiences.
The CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond” debuted Sept. 24 to its highest ratings in six seasons on the air, for instance. The ritualistic, police and prosecutors drama “Law & Order,” in its 11th season, is drawing its best ratings, too, running fourth overall.
And for the first time in years, the top five does not include a reality or game show, new genres people once thought would overrun prime time. Indeed, one-time sensations “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “The Weakest Link” are ranked in the 40s this season.
The great success of “The West Wing” — the drama about an idealized White House has also penetrated the Top Five — and television news strongly suggests, however, that people are looking for engagement along with their comfort.
— Steve Johnson
Theater
In the period following Sept. 11, Northlight Theatre in Skokie has done some of the best box-office business in its history by offering two well-reviewed shows of warmth and laughter. A week-long engagement of folk musician Jim Post’s “Mark Twain’s Adventures Out West,” which opened Sept. 19, quickly sold out, and the endearing family comedy/drama “Over the Tavern,” which opened Oct. 10, is doing so well that it has been extended through Nov. 18, with the possibility of a commercial transfer to Chicago.
Not so fortunate were two “serious” shows: Sam Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind” at American Theater Company (ATC), and Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land,” by Remy Bumppo Theatre at Victory Gardens. They were well-reviewed but sparsely attended, perhaps in part because of their turnoff titles.
The Second City, which opened its 87th revue Sept. 20, is offering its audiences a good cast and big laughs, which is helping the cabaret theater “do better this year than we did last year at this time,” according to producer Kelly Leonard.
Not so easy to explain is the success of Friedrich Schiller’s “Mary Stuart,” staged by JoAnne Akalaitis at Court Theatre, which went almost 50 percent over its budgeted ticket sales and “did as well as any show we’ve ever produced,” according to artistic director Charles Newell.
In general, attendance in theaters, in Loop and off Loop, appears to be coming back slowly, but with much more day-of and last-minute business accounting for sales. Marj Halperin, executive director of the League of Chicago Theaters, observes that a sharp increase in the League’s day-of discounted Hottix booth sales may be “an indication of short-term planning by customers who are waiting to see if they want to see a show that night.”
Theaters operating on a small margin, without large subscription rolls and cash reserves, are finding this a particularly hazardous time. However, when ATC sent out a plea for financial help, Brian Russell, the company’s producing director, was amazed to find a speedy response of $22,000 (and still counting) in donations ranging from $5 to $5,000 “and always enclosed with a note saying how important the theater is to them.”
Steve Traxler, president of Jam Theatricals, says about the future, “We’re in a risk business that’s now even riskier; and that could be as much due to the economy as to Sept. 11. We may be moving toward presenting more of the well-known and/or humorous works. Big shows like `The Producers’ will always do well, but smaller shows, ones that people might see on a whim, will find it hard going.”
— Richard Christiansen