Midcentury America was a scary time. We worried about the Bomb because the Russians had one too—and it might be bigger than ours (theirs was plutonium). Today is scary too but back then at least we knew we could rely on a sane, intelligent leader in the White House, whether or not we had voted for him. But we did have our teevee sets, one in almost every home, and entertainers were beginning to recognize the potential of that screen. City Lit Theater’s Changing Channels is the story of a group of entertainers who are learning the potency of television as they feel the impact of the Red Scare. Set in 1952, the play is based on actual events.
Changing Channels, written by Chicago theater veteran John Reeger and directed by Kevin Theis, is an entertaining comic drama about an early TV venture, led by a Jackie Gleason-like character named Eddie Kilroy (played with pizzazz by Orion Lay-Sleeper). The drama plays out in a dressing room at the pioneer Dumont Television Network.
The weekly live show, Your Show of Stars, features a sketch about a brawling married couple, played by Maggie Carlin (Kat Evans) and Eddie. Maggie is married to Peter Bell (Skyler Tipton), a radio actor. As the play opens, he arrives at Maggie’s dressing room with her deli sandwich, after performing in a radio show downtown.
Maggie and Pete run her lines while she puts on her makeup for that night’s sketch. They’re interrupted by Kenny (Andrew Pappas), a studio assistant, who’s looking for a moosehead for another sketch. Pete watches the sketch on the dressing room TV (we get to hear the dialogue) and Maggie and Eddie return to the dressing room. Eddie is still in costume, dressed like an NYC bus driver ala Ralph Kramden. He briefs Maggie and Pete on the new deal he’s about to sign with CBS. Right now, he says “We got a first-class show on a fourth-class network.” The CBS version will be totally first class top to bottom and Eddie and Maggie will make a lot more money. “We’ll make Ed Sullivan look like a piker.” His agent is finalizing the deal with CBS now.
The next week, the agent, Bullets Bloomquist (Johnny Moran) arrives with details and a new demand from CBS. Maggie and Peter marched in a May Day parade and now they’re listed in a blacklist directory titled Red Channels, published by a right-wing organization. Bullets has the CBS loyalty oath, which Eddie and Maggie must sign so they can work for CBS. Eddie signs immediately. Maggie says CBS has no right to ask her to incriminate herself; she has rights under the First Amendment (and the Fifth). She can’t believe that Murrow and the other newsmen agreed to do this. Bullets says yes, they grumbled but they signed. (And sadly, they did. Another hero with a tarnished halo.)
Changing Channels continues as the protagonists wrestle with this difficult moral and economic question. No spoilers from me, but I will say that the playwright’s solution to Maggie’s problem is a bit facile. Nevertheless, the play is very entertaining with crisp dialogue and an excellent cast.
We have to make a special note of studio assistant Kenny’s breakout scene. He tells Peter Bell that he really isn’t interested in TV or acting; what he’d love to do is be the new Russ Hodges—the Giants’ play-by-play announcer. (We already know he’s a baseball fan because when Eddie asks him in act one if he’s worried about the Red Scare, he says he’s not worried that the (Cincinnati) Reds are any danger to his favorite team, the Giants.)
“Boy, what I would give to be that guy behind the mic, calling the game. Choosing words that somehow paint perfect pictures,” he tells Peter. And Peter says, “Show me. Take me out to the ballgame.” And thus Kenny gets his big scene, one that should be right up there with Lucky’s monologue in Waiting for Godot. Of course, Kenny picks “the shot heard round the world,” the Bobby Thomson homerun that wins the 1951 pennant and sends the Giants to the World Series. Andrew Pappas’ delivery is masterful, including his final bounce on the sofa, as he repeats Russ Hodges’ shout, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”
Director Theis directs this scene perfectly and keeps Changing Channels moving briskly; the one-set stage design (by Joe Larkin with lighting by Liz Cooper) works well for the story. Petter Wahlback is sound designer and Emily McConnell handles costume design. Tseela Sokolin-Maimon is stage manager.
Changing Channels continues at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., through April 12. Running time is just under two hours with one intermission. Tickets and more information available here.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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