Review: ‘Promises, Promises’ by Blank Theatre is a fun, retro night out with Burt Bacharach
What do you get when you fall in love? If you’re thinking pins, troubles and burst bubbles, then you likely have affection for the late Burt Bacharach, maestro of the high-glass melody, the chromatic harmony, the brushed snare drum and a groovy Hammond organ sound bespeaking of highballs, Cinzano and key parties.
In 1968, Bacharach composed his one and only Broadway show, “Promises, Promises,” a clash of the creative titans given that the lyrics were by Hal David, choreography was by Michael Bennett, Jerry Orbach and Jill O’Hara were in the lead roles and the book was by Neil Simon. The show was based on the Billy Wilder movie “The Apartment” and focused on a young corporate striver whose urbane romantic exploits involved lending his Manhattan residence to philandering older colleagues. To say that the show is dated, thematically, hardly does justice to how much contemporary musicals have changed in 55 years, although few have been funnier than this one. “Promises, Promises” was revived on Broadway in 2010 with Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth and I doubt that will happen again, unless a director like Daniel Fish does a dark deconstruction for the current moment, which actually might not be a bad idea.
Bacharach, though, stocked his score with fabulous numbers that became standards, no easy feat as late as 1968. Apart from the signature ditty to which I allude above, the show has “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Knowing When to Leave” (my personal favorite) and “A House is Not a Home.” In the intimate new Blank Theatre production, all of those songs are sung with honesty and panache, reason enough for me to recommend Bacharach fans spend an evening in the tiny studio at the Greenhouse Theater Center, where the performances take place just a few feet from the audience.
Blank did not invent the very Chicago idea of postage stamp productions of full musicals, but they do it in a cool way and I admire the way director Danny Kapinos’ production just throws this 1960s material out there at face value, trusting the audience to see it in the context of its moment, and thus allowing us to see the pain behind what superficially is a caper-driven romp. That’s a great credit to Brandy Miller, who throws heart and soul into Fran Kubelik, the decent young woman trying to navigate the treachery of corporate men and their assorted enablers.
The lead of the night is Rory Schrobilgen, who plays Chuck Baxter, a character very similar to J. Pierrepont Finch in a show that nods all night long to “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” a hit from early in the same decade. Chirpy and sufficiently guileless here to be likable, Schrobilgen clearly is a young Chicago talent to watch. Also very striking here are Stephanie Stockstill, who movingly plays the woman in the office who knows the score, and the drop-dead hilarious Kingsley Day, playing an older doctor perplexed by all of the romantic goings on in his building and blessed with a veritable plethora of Simon’s signature one-liners.
Blank’s little band hits all the right stylistic notes and Bacharach fans will get a kick out of the backing vocals here, all executed with doo-doo-doo aplomb.
There are two main flaws. One is the not-uncommon storefront tendency to overplay. That’s far from chronic here, but dialing the scale back in so small a house would be a fine idea. The other issue is that the show is far better in Act 1, bursting with fun and creativity, than the uneven and slow Act 2, when it feels like the show ran out of pace and rehearsal time.
Of course, as the performances unspool, that will likely improve, and I can already guarantee laughs and retro tunes and seasonal bubbles aplenty.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Promises, Promises” (3 stars)
When: Through Dec. 30
Where: Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $41 at 773-404-7336 and blanktheatrecompany.org