“The Factotum” reviewed by Jacob Davis

rating=4]There’s a new factotum in opera, and he’s not one who serves a count. From the musical collaboration of Will Liverman and DJ King Rico with a book and directing by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj comes a world premiere by the Lyric Opera featuring a barber who is the pillar of an entire neighborhood. Set on the southside of Chicago, The Factotum is part modern-day verismo, part protest, and, in the words of its creators, expands the definition of what opera can be. It’s also sweet and incredibly funny. The Factotum is the story of two brothers with very different outlooks on life who are basically co-parenting their orphaned niece, but it’s also a cross-section of a whole world that exists within a space of just a few blocks.

Mike (baritone Will Liverman) is the proprietor of Master Kutz, a barbershop he inherited from his father. It’s not just a business, he insists, it’s a living monument to the Civil Rights movement, the embodiment of all their family’s dreams, a sanctuary and place of transformation. His brother Garby (baritone Norman Garrett) doesn’t roll his eyes at this, exactly, since the place is important to him, too, but mainly as a base for him to run a numbers racket. Mike believes this has something to do with the increased police activity in the area that is scaring customers and accuses Garby of endangering their family legacy, but Garby points out that they would have likely gone under already if not for him, and that he’s the one paying college tuition for their niece, Cece (Nissi Shalome), since Mike can’t. Mike doesn’t like hearing this; Garby doesn’t do any actual barbering and Mike’s the one who employs people and is popular with the clients, but more people play the numbers than he seems to think. As a popular gathering place, the barbershop is also the nexus of a lot of romantic developments involving its employees and customers, including the newly returned soldier CJ (tenor Martin Luther Clark) and Garby’s girlfriend, Rose (soprano Cecilia Violetta López).

There’s a lot going on in this story, director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj keeps it feeling lively instead of confusing. Part of the reason for its creation, its makers say, was to be a celebration of Black joy. Promotional material is upfront that there is a tasing, but nobody dies, and the love triangle is dramatic, but not tragic. The dialogue is mostly delivered in rhyming couplets but is about everyday things, including a very topical debate over LeBron James’s place in basketball history. Whether using contemporary slang allows the opera to age gracefully or not remains to be seen, but it is stylized to be quite poetic, and we get several demonstrations of how rap is a skill that has a lot of overlap with Rossini-esque patter songs.

The expansion of opera Maharaj mentioned isn’t just in regards to the kinds of people seen onstage, but also in regard to the musical style. The Factotum features a live orchestra, conducted by Kedrick Armstrong, and DJ King Rico supplying electric sounds live in-person. The orchestra includes both electric and acoustic string instruments as well as saxophones and a drum set, resulting in something both modern and as complex as any opera. (This isn’t unusual; last season Florencia en el Amazonas, which make heavy use of marimbas and steel drums, became the Lyric’s first Spanish-language mainstage production, but The Factotum takes updating instruments a lot further). The voices are classical, though, which adds a sense of historical weight and grand importance to these characters’ struggles, and choreography by Maleek Washington is seamlessly integrated into the story, which makes The Factotum something special for the stage. For all its Cause-consciousness, The Factotum also has a lot of humor, including what I think may have been a very dark call-back to the Zitti, zitti, piano, piano moment in Rossini’s Barber. It’s certainly a major investment by the Lyric in trying something new, which may be reflected in having sold out the entire run before it opened, but we likely haven’t heard the last of The Factotum.

The Factotum will continue at The Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, 205 E. Randolph St, Chicago, thru February 12 with the following showtimes:
Feb 12 2:00 pm

Running time is two hours and twenty minutes with one intermission.
Performances are in English with English supertitles.

The Factotum addresses adult themes and contains adult language.
Tickets start at $35. To order, visit  harristheaterchicago.org  orcall 312-334-7777.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click “The Factotum.”