” The Spitfire Grill”

Highly Recommended ***** In March of 2018, Refuge Theatre did “The Spitfire Grill” in a unique production by doing the play in an actual diner, the Windy City Café, on Chicago Avenue. It was a unique production, and on some of our “wintry Chicago days”, the actors who used the outside as well as the diner, got their feet wet ( truly). I had never seen the film that the musical play was based on, and immediately fell in love with the story.

Here we are, 16 months later, and with this new production of the play ( music and book by James Valcq,  Lyrics and book by Fred Alley of the original film written by Lee David Zlotoff), I have fallen even deeper in love with the story and the characters. “The Spitfire Grill” takes place in a small Wisconsin town, Gilead is its name. At one time this little town was bright and had a future, but with the closing of the Foundry, the key business, it has fallen greatly. The only restaurant in this town is The Spitfire Grill” where all the locals enjoy any meals that are not prepared at home.

The play begins with our main character, Percy Talbott ( an amazing performance by Jacqueline Jones) who has just been paroled from the local prison. Her parole officer is the local Sheriff of Gilead, Joe Sutter ( deftly handled by Donterrio Johnson) who helps her get situated at The Spitfire. The owner , Hannah Ferguson ( played to absolute perfection by Catherine Smitko) is getting up in years and needs all the help she can get. The townspeople she meets are Effy Krayneck ( Gabrielle Lott-Rogers is perfect), the local postmaster and busy-body, Caleb Thorpe ( powerfully played by Karl Hamilton) a relative, his wife, Shelby ( beautifully portrayed by Dara Cameron) and oh, yes, a “visitor” who I will get to later.

Aside: while Percy was in prison, she had a picture she tore out of a magazine. It was a forest of sorts with trees and grass and to her, it was nirvana, what she held in her dreams for the 5 years of being incarcerated. When she arrived in Gilead, she felt that while the townspeople felt they had nothing, she had found a place where she could live forever. There is some mystery to this story, so I will kind of tease you with some facts.  Hannah and her late husband had a son. His name was Eli, and for the townspeople, he was the perfect young man. The man who after he saved the country, would return and get Gilead back on its feet again. He is however, MIA ( missing in action).

Hannah gets injured and needs help with running the grill while also training her new employee, Percy, so Caleb allows his wife, Shelby, to come in and do the job. They get along famously and after a while, Percy even learns to cook a real breakfast. Each night, she wraps a loaf of bread and places it on the chopping block in the yard. Hannah asks Percy to do this in her stead. Later, we will learn a great deal more about the “visitor” ( I must say that I was very impressed with the portrayal of this man by Ian Paul Custer and his ability to bring a character to life without ever saying word one!).

Hannah wants out and since they have never been able to sell the Grill, the girls come up with an idea that might work. A raffle of sorts. People write letters as to why they feel “The Spitfire Grill” should be theirs. They enclose $100 for the chance to win, a sort of lottery, and the letters keep pouring in. The entire town comes alive and begins to sizzle. The characters whose lives had been very routine are now happy and doing things they had not done before. All except Caleb, who is an abusive husband and feels that he needs to find the goods on  Percy and why she went to jail.

As I said earlier, I will not give away any of the ending, so lets just say that many secrets will come out in the second act. Secrets that will bring a tear to your eye- maybe more! Some tears will be for the sadness you learn about and others will be for the gladness you truly feel in the closing moments of this wonderful “chamber-type musical” where the music is beautiful, but only there to push the story to its beautiful conclusion. Here is where I will shout it out loud, Tammy Mader! Your direction is superb and I am hopeful you will see a Jeff nomination for sure. The musical direction by Malcolm Ruhl is also deserving of same.

The band, Custer on the keyboard, Greg Hirte ( a Chicago institution) on violin, Ruhl on the accordion, Scott Sedlacek on guitar and mandolin and Magdalena Sustere on the cello are terrific as they never overpower the voices of this talented cast. The set ( Sarah E. Ross) is practical and works well. The lighting ( Jared Goodling) is sheer perfection as is the sound (Rick Sims) and the costumes ( Lily Grace Walls) very fitting for the place and period. A special tip of the hat to Mary O’Dowd for the myriad of props she has assembled. Wonderful! This is a five tissue production and I might suggest that if you are advertising a company and have the ability to get a small tissue packet with your company info on it, I would think that American Blues Theater would be happy to hand them to guests leaving who are in need.

“The Spitfire Grill” will continue at Stage 773’s PRO Theater through August 17th with performances as follows:

Thursdays  7:30 p.m.

Fridays   7:30 p.m.

Saturdays  3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Sundays  2:30 p.m.

check website www.AmericanBluesTheater.com for any additional performances.

run time: two hours including a ten minute intermission.

Tickets range from $19-$39 and can be purchased at the box office located at 1225 West Belmont, by phone at 773-654-3103 or on the website.

Please note: this is a wonderful storytelling experience for an audience and while it does involve some sub-plots that you may not want to hear about, you will find yourself joyous in what we learn and what takes lace. You will leave with tears, but they will be of happiness!

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