Sunday, May 01, 2005
'Floyd and Clea,' saviors with a song
From the Chicago Sun-Times
As Lee Smith pointed out in her novel The Devil's Dream, country singers tend to live more dramatic lives than the rest of us. Scrambling their way up from humble beginnings, they're prone to despair, self-doubt and dissolution, often ending up at rock bottom even before they come within hollering distance of the heights -- which can only mean that a comeback's in the offing.
And so it goes in "Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky," the sketchy but soulful musical (with a foot-tapping alt-country score by David Cale and Jonathan Kreisberg) now receiving a fine premiere directed by Michael Wilson at the Goodman Theatre. Cale's script follows Floyd, a gifted but down-and-out singer-songwriter in his 40s who makes an unlikely connection with Clea, a young woman on her way to fame and fortune in Nashville.
He's also, incidentally, a lovely singer with a sweet baritone and a nifty, winking way with a lyric. The striking thing about the songs, aside from their gorgeously atmospheric use of Dobro and pedal steel, is that they're neither pastiche nor homage; they're real country music, which is something of a miracle in an era when the major Nashville label heads wouldn't know such a thing if it bit them in the seat of their Armani suits.
Read the article
Chicago Sun-Times
As Lee Smith pointed out in her novel The Devil's Dream, country singers tend to live more dramatic lives than the rest of us. Scrambling their way up from humble beginnings, they're prone to despair, self-doubt and dissolution, often ending up at rock bottom even before they come within hollering distance of the heights -- which can only mean that a comeback's in the offing.
And so it goes in "Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky," the sketchy but soulful musical (with a foot-tapping alt-country score by David Cale and Jonathan Kreisberg) now receiving a fine premiere directed by Michael Wilson at the Goodman Theatre. Cale's script follows Floyd, a gifted but down-and-out singer-songwriter in his 40s who makes an unlikely connection with Clea, a young woman on her way to fame and fortune in Nashville.
He's also, incidentally, a lovely singer with a sweet baritone and a nifty, winking way with a lyric. The striking thing about the songs, aside from their gorgeously atmospheric use of Dobro and pedal steel, is that they're neither pastiche nor homage; they're real country music, which is something of a miracle in an era when the major Nashville label heads wouldn't know such a thing if it bit them in the seat of their Armani suits.
Read the article
Chicago Sun-Times
# posted by Dave Sichak @ 9:42 AM 
