If you are (or are parenting) a high schooler stressing over college applications and the imminent arrival of adulthood, Chicago’s youthful Blank Theatre Company has a sweet little coming-of-age musical that might offer a diversion and balm. It’s ideal for a summer mother-and-daughter outing to the Athenaeum Center on Chicago’s North Side.
Penned by Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk and previously seen in small venues in New York and London, this 2017 musical dives into the psyche of its heroine, Samantha, a likable high-school senior with Ivy League offers in her pocket, a loving but overbearing mother, a sweet but less-than-ambitious boyfriend and a far racier best friend who wants to coax her into trashing other people’s expectations and hitting the open road.
You have to buy some contrivances of plot, beginning with Samantha never really considering that college surely would allow her more self-actualization than just expressing her inner Jack Kerouac. “The Mad Ones” has only four characters and a minimal set and the story is told mostly in flashback. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll likely sit there for 95 minutes thinking, she’s 18, for goodness sake. She’ll figure it out. All of this angst really is only “for now,” as they sing in “Avenue Q.”
But when you actually are living at that high-pressure juncture in life, that’s not easy to know and it’s to the great credit of the moving lead performer, Rachel Guth, that she dives deep into her character and never condescends. I’d also note that in director Wyatt Kent’s production, Guth has a lot of chemistry with Aidan Leake, who plays her boyfriend Adam as a benign version of Cousin Greg in “Succession.”
Given that this is a gently feminist musical of self-actualization, you know from the start that the super-smart Samantha is not going to be satisfied by life with a guy, cute or not, whose ambitions run only into running his dad’s tire business. Nonetheless, you really pull for this pair: I saw plenty of romantically themed musicals on Broadway this season where the central couple was far less lovable. Guth and Leake are just terrific.
They’re surrounded here by Anne Sheridan-Smith, who plays Sam’s mom, and Karylin Veres, who plays best pal Kelly, who we know from the start is no longer at Sam’s side. Both of these performers have their moments, too. The score, employing a similar musical vocabulary to “Dear Evan Hansen” and orchestrated for piano, violin, harp and guitar, bops pleasantly and has some lovely ballads. It’s well sung here, too, and the music is live.
I fervently wish all four of these actors would overplay a little less; the third-floor studio at the Athenaeum is a very small space, the actors are right there and all we really crave is honesty and truth, qualities these performers are perfectly capable of delivering if they don’t push too hard. That’s especially true during the overtly comedic moments, when performances got too big, too often. Having said that, I was there on opening night with an audience clearly filled with overly reactive family and friends. That contributed.
Still, “The Mad Ones” is a warm-centered show that benefits from such a strong lead performance: Guth is quite delightful in this role and you can feel her emotional commitment and determination to bring her character to life. If you like these kinds of contemporary micro-musicals, as I do, you’ll find much to enjoy.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “The Mad Ones” (3 stars)
When: Through Aug. 11
Where: Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, 2936 N. Southport Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $15-$35 at www.blanktheatrecompany.org
