What is “Message in a Bottle,” aside from being a 1979 single released by the British rock band known as The Police? Given the sparse attendance Thursday night at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, it would appear many people did not know.
It’s the title of an unusual touring show, with origins at London’s Sadler’s Wells, wherein the British choreographer Kate Prince and a company of astonishingly athletic dancers create a dance narrative from songs made famous by Sting and his illustrious band. That’s hardly a shabby oeuvre: The Police, one of the most successful bands of all time, had five U.K. No. 1 hits back in the day, including “Message in a Bottle,” “Walking On the Moon,” “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and “Every Breath You Take,” before they effectively disbanded in 1986 to pursue solo careers.
The music you hear in the show is not akin to putting on an old Police album. Alex Lacamoire, the genius (and I don’t use that term lightly) who arranged the music for “Hamilton” and others, was brought on to create a new soundtrack from these old songs, mostly sung by the Stingster himself, but also including vocalists like British soul singer and frequent Prince collaborator Beverley Knight, Shaneeka Simon and Lynval Golding of The Specials. The playwright Lolita Chakrabarti came on as dramaturg, essentially doing something similar with the loose narrative to what Jackie Sibblies Drury did for “Illinoise” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which this project resembles.
To be clear, Sting is not in the building (his voice does tell you to turn off your phone) and the music is pre-recorded rather than live. But as someone with more than a passing interest in The Police, I’d say longtime fans of the band would enjoy very much listening to what Lacamoire has created here. No other arranger/orchestrator of my acquaintance comes close when it comes to combining theatricality and integrity, recognizability and innovation.
The narrative here is one of displaced persons coming from afar: giving the costuming and the (simple) scenic iconography, Syrian refugees were perhaps in the artists’ minds although care is taken to keep things sufficiently broad for the show to address the international refugee crisis more generally. The characters start out in a stressed environment and make an arduous journey. A couple finds themselves separated. Some measure of resolution is achieved.
It’s fair to say that Prince’s work, which I found as conceptually compelling as it is thrillingly executed, lands somewhere around the intersection of modern dance, movement-based storytelling and the kind of very showy physicality familiar from TV dance competitions. There’s no questioning the dancers’ physical and emotional intensity and it was the latter that impressed me the most on Thursday night — to say they all have hearts and souls in the game is to understate.
Does all of this match the music? That came and went for me, which surely is inevitable when you are dealing with a pre-existing catalog but, here again, Lacamoire has made it feel like even the love songs have an urgent, transgressive and determined quality, which this truly extraordinary international company only amplifies with every collective breath it takes.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Message in a Bottle ” (3.5 stars)
When: Through Sunday
Where: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes
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Tickets: $33.50-$156.50 at www.broadwayinchicago.com