Review: ‘Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon’ at Lookingglass Theatre has country music and a promising story about Asian American outlaws
Matthew C. Yee, the driving force behind the fun new Lookingglass Theatre Company musical “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” is one of the Chicago theater’s most impressive talents: He’s a forceful actor, an accomplished guitarist and he comes with good looks and a latent star quality, not unlike a rising Nashville musician.
Yee wrote both words and music to this new, country-style musical and he also plays one of the two lead roles in what felt Saturday night like a very promising work in progress. “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon” is a Bonnie and Clyde, or maybe Thelma and Louise, caper story with the added theme that both protagonists are Asian American and thus their every outlawish transgression is freighted with their desire not to fall into the “model minority” stereotype.
The pair of maverick newlyweds (Aurora Adachi-Winter plays Lucy) don’t want to be doctors or some other fate pushed by their elders, represented here by Grandma (Wai Ching Ho): They want to (gently) rob fast food joints, party on and roar across America like Route 66 honky-tonk fans, figuring out what it means to be an American.
But these are moralistic times in nonprofit theater and Yee’s heroes aren’t just pleasure-loving deviants who can sing: they run right into a scheme wherein a maid company is trafficking Chinese immigrants, including Bao (Harmony Zhang), and we wonder if Lucy and Charlie can save the day from Gabriel (Matt Bittner) and Martin (Doug Pawlik). Meanwhile, two security officers, Feinberg (Mary Williamson) and Peter (the excellent Rammel Chan) are on their trail and Peter happens to be Charlie’s own brother.
This is often funny material and many in the opening-night audience had a blast, clearly happy with being given permission to enjoy a rollicking show about outlaws with so many references to identity politics. Too many, in my view. This show busts stereotypes by being itself; we get it and we like it. It does not need to keep telling us about the virtue of what it is doing.
I’d argue the show would be much better at 90 tight minutes, instead of a two-act with a lot of air and B-grade material that it could lose. And although I didn’t see a musical director credited in the program to director Amanda Dehnert’s uneven production, the piece surely needs one and, frankly, at least a couple more truly legit singers in a cast that also plays instruments.
Most importantly, though, the show’s intentionally campy tone cannot be allowed to so often run roughshod through truth: We have to believe in where and why the guns are waving, what the characters are doing and there are times when Yee goes for the prurient laugh at the expense of what he’s previously told us about that particular personality. And, yes, if you are going to say “we went viral,” it takes a second or two to really look at your phone first.
All of that stuff, though, is pretty easy to fix with more care and far more attention to detail. Make no mistake: Yee is a whopping talent and some of his comedic scenarios (especially those involving brother Peter) get waves of laughter, not least because he knows how to write great roles. The gestalt is fresh, the set from Yu Shibagaki is a work of art itself, Adachi-Winter’s Lucy is a powerhouse of energy and verve, Zhang’s Bao helps the piece belatedly kick in some pivotal emotional engagement, and this genre needs precisely this kind of updating, with a more commercial vibe than “Cambodian Rock Band.”
Yee should keep working. He has something here that could be a funky off-Broadway type.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon” (3 stars)
When: Through July 16
Where: Lookingglass Theatre at Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Tickets: $35-$60 at lookingglasstheater.org
