Review: ‘Always Something There …' at Marriott Theatre is a fun and escapist cavalcade of '80s hits

Chicago Tribune

4 days ago

What human fantasy is more powerful than the do-over, the chance to relive your life and fix your lousy youthful decisions?
Most of us are stuck with our mistakes, but Samantha Craig, the heroine of the exuberant world-premiere jukebox musical at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, falls asleep one night on a business trip in a dull hotel bedroom and wakes up to find herself roaming the halls of her old high school. She's 18 again. Rick Astley's 'Together Forever' is the soundtrack of the moment and Samantha has the foreknowledge of a woman in her 40s and the ability to remake her sad lot. Out with that lousy boyfriend who became an even worse husband! Out with that job at the toilet manufacturer! Out with that soul-sucking material world, and in with the sensitive hunk, and with Samantha following her destiny of musical stardom. The search is over! (You were with me all the while.)
'Always Something There …' is not exactly original. At various moments, its plot recalls 'Freaky Friday, 'Back to the Future' and 'Peggy Sue Got Married,' not to mention the final acts of 'Our Town' and 'Carousel.' But Billy Bigelow, the humbled fool from that last musical, did not get to warble in the vogue of Johnny Hates Jazz or Boy George, nor did he get to declare 'I Want to Dance with Somebody' or that 'Love is a Battlefield,' unlike the characters in writer Sandy Rustin's show, a veritable plethora of 1980s music. A mostly youthful cast performs (among many others) songs made famous by Madonna, H.E.R., Thompson Twins, Cyndi Lauper, Pat Benatar and The Go-Gos. The playlist (or mixtape, if you will) contains 23 hits of the 1980s, by my account, mostly pop by one-hit wonders but with a few gentle nods toward New Wave. Most haven't shown up in jukebox shows before.
This is my era of music, of stalking the dancefloor at Mean Mr. Mustard's, my club of youthful choice. And at several times during this show, I came to the realization that I was sitting here watching a bunch of mostly early career performers, reviewing a song filled with the songs that will be playing in the nursing home I hope to avoid. Can't say I look forward to a robot giving me a sponge bath with 'Even the Nights are Better' rolling out from the bathroom speaker, but better than existential silence. (I guess. We'll have to see.)
The fabulous Heidi Kettenring, who plays adult Samantha, performs these 1980s dance-and-angst hits as if she were doing a Chekhov play with a score by Sondheim — so that ennobles the proceedings, you might say. And as her younger doppelganger, the wide-eyed and talented Christina Priestner certainly does all she can to match Kettenring's vocal chops, although just a hair more irony would not go unappreciated. Beyond those two leads, we get fun performances from Samantha's best pals (Emma Ogea, who I believe was in as an understudy at my performance, is an especially stellar singer), boyfriends bad and good (Ty Shay and Ian Coursey), Leah Morrow essaying a variety of 1980s adults, loosely speaking, and the various other detritus of the 1980s high school genre. As writ jukebox.
You should know 'Always Something There …' (really not the best title in my view, especially with an ellipsis) is a modestly scaled show, production-wise, and it comes in at just one hour and 50 minutes, even with an intermission. Most of that is taken up by the songs. Not that the show needs to be much longer. The location mostly is non-specific (although apparently Chicagoland), conflicts are mild, situations familiar by design. Tyler Hanes' amusing choreography is carefully tailored to young singers rather than dancers. But the performers are enthusiastic in that theater summer camp way, it's all fun and, this being a theater in the round, I stared all night at row after row of grinning, nodding faces.
Director James Vásquez's laudably zippy (thank god) production holds together, staging-wise, just fine until the last few minutes, where the production peters out a little and lacks a conclusionary button, the necessary cherry on the 1980s Cool Whip. Those final sequences need more work, and I think the script needs both more era-specific edge (Duckie Dale would be better than a nerd transplanted from the 1950s) and beefed-up, self-referential gags, but I'm tellin' ya, that do-over theme sparks emotions even if you are listening to a song first recorded by Debbie (now Deborah) Gibson, who I once sat next to at a show, and not only in my dreams, either. But I digress.
'Always Something There …' is the first new musical at Marriott in something like a decade, even though this theater used to develop many of them, including one based on 'Peggy Sue Got Married.' So that's a real positive this summer. This particular premiere doesn't feel Broadway-aimed (although you never know), so much as an affordable, good-time musical with aspirations to be performed at colleges and summer-stock operations at theaters like the Goodspeed Playhouse, or on some Royal Caribbean megaship off the coast of Curaçao, which I don't mean as condescending. I imagine future cruisers will be as delighted as many in the Marriott audience seemed to be, as we all sat together, nodding our heads to familiar beats and cycling back over our lives and pondering those shattered dreams, shattered dreams.
Hey, there's still time. Or so musicals like to lead us to believe.
Review: 'Always Something There' (3 stars)
When: Through Aug. 10
Where: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $73-$89 at 847-634-0200 and www.marriotttheater.com