The Front Page - Highly Recommended

I am now officially a fan of the TimeLine Theatre. Their staging of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's "The Front Page" was gritty, intelligent, funny, challenging, and clever. The acting was top-shelf, the set (in the round) was stunning and engaging, and - in short - this production represents the best of what theater has to offer - not just local theater, but Theater.

As if that weren't enough, the wealth of educational materials - both in the lobby and online - draws one even further into the story and its historical roots. Again, kudos to TimeLine!

"A Front Page" is a challenging play to mount: I know a little bit about this, as I had the good fortune to be a "fly on the wall" on an excellent college production a half-dozen years ago. The pacing is frenetic; dialogue is constantly overlapping; and the topics - the ethics of news and politics, capital punishment, racism, misogyny - are serious. Many subsequent reworkings of the play (such as the Howard Hawks film "His Girl Friday") discard the darker side to emphasize the comedic strengths of the work, but this production is ample proof that such guttings do a great disservice to the playwrights.

For those unaware of the basics, it is the eve of Earl Williams' execution for murdering a "colored" policeman, and all the action takes place in the press room, where reporters from eight different Chicago newspapers first fend off boredom and then attempt to cope with the chaos that ensues when plans for the execution go awry. The other line of tension comes from the imminent departure of star reporter Hildy Johnson, who is about to be married and is leaving to take an advertising job in New York.

All the corruption for which Chicago is rightly or wrongly famous is exposed in this bit of historical fiction, which is broadly based on real newspapers, characters and events, but is clearly more fiction than fact.

The choice of presenting this in the round is inspired; having seen it in this form, I can't imagine a traditional approach working anywhere near as well. The acting is flawless, and the technical challenges of entries, exits, phones ringing and gallows falling are overcome in what seems to be an effortless manner. The pathos of Molly, Earl and even to some extent Mrs. Schlosser are well-defined.

I would say more about the play, but I fear it would amount to simple gushing. This is a production that has it all: run quickly to the TimeLine and see this before its last show on June 17!