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Walnut Street Theatre's 'Windy City'
Dan Rottenberg
A generic Front Page
DAN ROTTENBERG
Walter Burns, the fictitious managing editor of the Chicago Herald-Examiner, was modeled after several real newsroom despots who flourished in the madhouse world of Chicago journalism in the 1920s. I am old enough to remember one such lovable tyrant from my own days as a Chicago reporter in the late 1960s. Harry Romanoff of the American (successor to, yes, the Herald-Examiner) was famous for sending reporters out to chase stories that he’d already composed in his head; if they couldn’t find the jilted lover’s diary and quote juicy passages from it, they knew better than to tell him so. “Remember,” Romy would caution them, “any story can blow up in your face if you ask too many questions.”
Romanoff was known as “The Heifetz of the Telephone” for his ability to charm or bully information out of anyone by impersonating figures of greater importance than himself. On one occasion, following an explosion, he phoned the scene of the tragedy for the details, explaining that he was the coroner.
“That’s strange,” said the voice on the other end. “So is this.”
Tabloid feudal lords like Romy presided over a cartoon world in which journalism was more entertainment than information, and most journalists never made it out of high school. These inkstained wretches put up with poor pay and tyrannical bosses because (as their bosses well knew) their carer options were limited and they were addicted to the thrill of scoops and daily deadlines. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Chicago journalists themselves, captured the whole sleazy scenario— as well as the equally motley crew of public officials and gangsters the reporters confronted daily— with charm and wit in their 1928 play, The Front Page. It was adapted for the screen in 1940 (with Cary Grant as editor Burns and Rosalind Russell as his star reporter Hildy Johnson) and again in 1974 (with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon). But each successive revival was less successful, for good reason: As the world of The Front Page died, the audacious Hecht/MacArthur satire lost its bite. Where’s the fun in lampooning the dead?
Rizzo's gone too
A Front Page updated to Philadelphia in the contentious Rizzo '70s might have recharged some people's batteries. But why revive the 1928 Front Page story as a musical in 2006, when most journalists hold college degrees, raise middle-class families in suburbs, enjoy celebrity status as bloggers and cable TV commentators, and rarely drink anything stronger than Pinot Grigio? A good question, but that is precisely what the Walnut Street Theatre has attempted in Windy City.
The result is a formulaic show that offers the trappings of a blockbuster Broadway musical— high spirits, a large and competent cast, brassy songs, colorful costumes and elaborate sets (including an image of a moving el train in the background)— without the necessary central core of a dramatic story or involving characters portrayed by charismatic stars. The bland music and lyrics exude a generic quality, devoid of genuine style or wit (sample lyric: “She put the whore in horizontal”). Instead of moving the story forward, the musical numbers tend to slow things down: How many songs do you need about how great it will be to escape the newspaper game? Marc Robin’s choreography is the sort that thinks dancing on a table is a big deal (the pressroom table gets danced upon not once, not twice, but six different times).
Waiting for the story
Most of the action, such as it is, takes place in the pressroom of the Criminal Courts Building, where the reporters spend much of the first act waiting around for a hanging, and the audience waits for a story to develop. The reporters themselves, who shoulder much of the burden of carrying the story forward, simply lack the inner nobility of such other outwardly wretched theater characters as the Jets and the Sharks of West Side Story, the Anatevka Jews of Fiddler On the Roof, or those loveable Damon Runyon mobsters in Guys and Dolls.
The original Front Page was driven by Hecht and MacArthur’s astute perception of the seductive power of the news racket, which editor Burns exploits to ludicrous extremes to retain his star reporter, Hildy Johnson. Johnson is torn between the work he loves and a potentially respectable but dull career and marriage. The audience, equally seduced, never quite knew which outcome to root for. But as blandly portrayed in Windy City by David Elder, Hildy doesn’t seem like such a hotshot to begin with, and neither does his fiancée, Natalie (Cristin Boyle). So the great dramatic question of the evening becomes not “What should Hildy do?” but “Who cares?” Had the late lamented Harry Romanoff of the Chicago Herald-Examiner seen this show, I suspect, he would have told its creators what he often told his reporters: “You’ve done a lot of work here, kid. But what’s your lead?”
DAN ROTTENBERG
Walter Burns, the fictitious managing editor of the Chicago Herald-Examiner, was modeled after several real newsroom despots who flourished in the madhouse world of Chicago journalism in the 1920s. I am old enough to remember one such lovable tyrant from my own days as a Chicago reporter in the late 1960s. Harry Romanoff of the American (successor to, yes, the Herald-Examiner) was famous for sending reporters out to chase stories that he’d already composed in his head; if they couldn’t find the jilted lover’s diary and quote juicy passages from it, they knew better than to tell him so. “Remember,” Romy would caution them, “any story can blow up in your face if you ask too many questions.”
Romanoff was known as “The Heifetz of the Telephone” for his ability to charm or bully information out of anyone by impersonating figures of greater importance than himself. On one occasion, following an explosion, he phoned the scene of the tragedy for the details, explaining that he was the coroner.
“That’s strange,” said the voice on the other end. “So is this.”
Tabloid feudal lords like Romy presided over a cartoon world in which journalism was more entertainment than information, and most journalists never made it out of high school. These inkstained wretches put up with poor pay and tyrannical bosses because (as their bosses well knew) their carer options were limited and they were addicted to the thrill of scoops and daily deadlines. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Chicago journalists themselves, captured the whole sleazy scenario— as well as the equally motley crew of public officials and gangsters the reporters confronted daily— with charm and wit in their 1928 play, The Front Page. It was adapted for the screen in 1940 (with Cary Grant as editor Burns and Rosalind Russell as his star reporter Hildy Johnson) and again in 1974 (with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon). But each successive revival was less successful, for good reason: As the world of The Front Page died, the audacious Hecht/MacArthur satire lost its bite. Where’s the fun in lampooning the dead?
Rizzo's gone too
A Front Page updated to Philadelphia in the contentious Rizzo '70s might have recharged some people's batteries. But why revive the 1928 Front Page story as a musical in 2006, when most journalists hold college degrees, raise middle-class families in suburbs, enjoy celebrity status as bloggers and cable TV commentators, and rarely drink anything stronger than Pinot Grigio? A good question, but that is precisely what the Walnut Street Theatre has attempted in Windy City.
The result is a formulaic show that offers the trappings of a blockbuster Broadway musical— high spirits, a large and competent cast, brassy songs, colorful costumes and elaborate sets (including an image of a moving el train in the background)— without the necessary central core of a dramatic story or involving characters portrayed by charismatic stars. The bland music and lyrics exude a generic quality, devoid of genuine style or wit (sample lyric: “She put the whore in horizontal”). Instead of moving the story forward, the musical numbers tend to slow things down: How many songs do you need about how great it will be to escape the newspaper game? Marc Robin’s choreography is the sort that thinks dancing on a table is a big deal (the pressroom table gets danced upon not once, not twice, but six different times).
Waiting for the story
Most of the action, such as it is, takes place in the pressroom of the Criminal Courts Building, where the reporters spend much of the first act waiting around for a hanging, and the audience waits for a story to develop. The reporters themselves, who shoulder much of the burden of carrying the story forward, simply lack the inner nobility of such other outwardly wretched theater characters as the Jets and the Sharks of West Side Story, the Anatevka Jews of Fiddler On the Roof, or those loveable Damon Runyon mobsters in Guys and Dolls.
The original Front Page was driven by Hecht and MacArthur’s astute perception of the seductive power of the news racket, which editor Burns exploits to ludicrous extremes to retain his star reporter, Hildy Johnson. Johnson is torn between the work he loves and a potentially respectable but dull career and marriage. The audience, equally seduced, never quite knew which outcome to root for. But as blandly portrayed in Windy City by David Elder, Hildy doesn’t seem like such a hotshot to begin with, and neither does his fiancée, Natalie (Cristin Boyle). So the great dramatic question of the evening becomes not “What should Hildy do?” but “Who cares?” Had the late lamented Harry Romanoff of the Chicago Herald-Examiner seen this show, I suspect, he would have told its creators what he often told his reporters: “You’ve done a lot of work here, kid. But what’s your lead?”
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