MJ's Extra: "Sunny Afternoon" brightens Chicago's Shakespeare Theater.

My introduction to the music of Ray Davies and the Kinks came from a cover track included on Gary Lewis & the Playboys' 1965 album,This Diamond Ring. A child of the 60s (literally - I was in elementary school then), I wasn't really connected to the British Invasion the way my older baby boomer cousins were, and my parents were reluctant to let me listen to music that was revolutionizing a generation. The benign-looking offspring of comedian Jerry Lewis seemed safe enough, and his impending tour of duty in Vietnam (the Ed Sullivan Show even did an Elvis-like military send-off cheekily titled "Good-bye, Gary"), seemed to secure a kind of classic All-American boy image, one without Elvis' swiveling hips and smoldering, curled lips.

Lewis had a few hit singles, including the title track from album above, but faded from view before his plane landed in Southeast Asia. He probably never had enough of his "own" songs to fill an album, so the Playboys' releases were packed with covers from other bands. In addition to the title track, This Diamond Ring contained several covers including the Kinks' hit "All the Day and All of the Night." Of course, I didn't know who the Kinks were then, so I just thought the Playboys had great range and musical style.

As I moved into adolesence in the early 1970s, I became increasingly aware of all the great music I'd missed and especially enjoyed hearing cuts by the original artists, including the Kinks. By the time I moved to my own apartment (and had my first teaching job far enough away from home to justify my independence - I come from a blue collar family, remember) in the early '80s, I was pretty much ensconced in the music of the 1960s. Feeling I'd been born too late (I don't have quite that sentiment anymore), I not only reveled in the rebelliousness of the counterculture, but also discovered how that music continued to influence and inspire the the next generation. It's hard to imagine Bruce Springsteen without Bob Dylan, U2 (and many more) without the Beatles, any punk, heavy metal or grunge band without the Kinks.

Fast-forward to the early 2000s, and music from the '60s and '70s made a comeback in a not-so-new venue: the jukebox musical. Jukebox musicals had been around since the 1970s, with seminal entries like Bubblin' Brown Sugar and Ain't Misbehavin' paying tribute to Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, respectively, but the projects were few and the artists mostly came from a bygone era. In 2001, fueled by the success of Mamma Mia! which cleverly wove '70s Swedish pop/dance band ABBA's greatest hits into a narrative that had nothing to do with the songs, Broadway found new life appealing to baby boomers' hunger for the tunes of their youth, retooled and reimagined as musical theater which, in itself, seemed like sacrilege with respect to the iconoclastic nature of rock and roll.

After Mamma Mia!'s phenominal success, numerous copycats followed, some (few) better than others (most). For every Jersey Boys there was a Rock of Ages. Dreamgirls, a thinly disguised peek-a-boo at The Supremes that debuted on Broadway in 1981, was dusted off and made into a movie in 2006. Bio-musicals emeged and, like Sirius radio, became vehicles to entice fans to indulge only their preferred music and/or favorite rock stars' catalogues. Moving these musical collections to the jukebox format also provided an environment less raucous than a rock concert. Entertainment for the whole family though, again, not exactly the place from which rock and roll was meant to be experienced.

Some jukebox musicals impose a fictional story on an artist's or popular genre's hit songs (the aforementioned Mamma Mia! and Rock of Ages). Others expose all the trials and tribulations embedded in one artist's experiences in the music industry, where all obstacles lead to eventual triumph: it is a Broadway musical after all; no one wants to pay hundreds of dollars to leave the theater depressed. From Carole King to Cher, audiences were taken on mostly linear life journeys that crammed every possible relationship, setback and song into a two-and-a-half hour show, but always left the audience singing one of the artist's career-defining (re: uplifting) anthems.

Over the years, the various iterations of the jukebox musical have been met with praise and criticism, with, arguably, the most cringeworthy offering being those that shamelessly water down both music and story: think Pretty Woman: The Musical, ...And Juliet or Titanique. Seriously, must we squeeze out every possible retelling of popular movies, or bring to life the question I've been asking myself since 1969: What would have happened had Romeo waited a smidge longer and witnessed Juliet waking up? In Broadway's jukebox world, she would have listened to the music of Pink, Ariana and Britney? Not in my imagination.

So when I read that a "jukebox" musical about The Kinks was coming to Chicago, I paused and wondered what new theatrical experience might be possible. I'd seen a few of the critically praised one, notably, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which I had looked forward to with great anticipation, as King was a major musical influence on my early teen years. I still count Tapestry as one of the greater albums of all time. Unfortunately, the musical left me cold, as the overly long and sometimes preachy libretto got in the way of King's music. Did we really need to plod through every little detail of her life?

As it turns out, Sunny Afternoon, named for one of the Kinks' mid-60s hits, is as unconventional a jukebox musical as the Kinks were influential rock stars. Known for their bluesy rock style and for being an integral part of the British Invasion, brothers Ray and Dave Davies changed how we hear music when Dave accidentally created the distorted guitar sound by angrily slashing an amplifier when it wouldn't produce the harsh sound he wanted for what would become the band's iconic hit, "You Realy Got Me."

In 2013, Dave Davies told The Guardian:

I was very depressed and fooling around with a razor blade. I could easily

have slashed my wrists, but I had a little green amplifier, an Elpico, that was sounding

[like] crap. I thought, "I'll teach it" – and slashed the speaker cone.

It changed the sound of my guitar. Then, when I wired that amp up to another, 

a Vox AC30, it made it a lot, lot louder.“

Dave's impromptu experiment forever altered the sound of rock music, impacting everyone from Jimi Hendrix to the Clash, a decade later.

But there's more to the Kinks than an unintended technical discovery. For some rock historians (myself included), Ray Davies single-handedly invented punk and hard rock. Davies' music or, more specifically, Ray's creative genius is the centerpiece of the musical: how his view of the world is completely music-centric - he thinks and speaks in musical terms - and how his process writing music produced some of the most powerful, poetic glimpses of the cultural and economic transformation he was surrounded by living in 1960s Britain.

It is here, in this shifted focus from a more conventional retelling of Ray's life to a deeper, more thoughtful examination of his creative process, that Sunny Afternoon shines. Most narratives in jukebox musicals serve to set up the next big song, but here playright Joe Penhall (who collaborated on Sunny w/producer Ray), steps back and lets the songs emerge from Ray's personal experiences. This type of storytelling makes the music more organic and connected to Davies' life, giving us, in the process, a sense of his soul.

The title song, a sort of companion piece to the Beatles' "Taxman" (both were released in the summer of 1966), is equally important to Sunny Afternoon's theme, as the lyrics reference the high levels of progressive taxes imposed by the British Labour party under then Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Using an unsympathetic aristocrat bemoaning the loss of unearned income as the song's narrator, the Davieses are commenting on their own situation as members of the English underclass living in richer surroudings. They clearly did not want the mundane factory life of their father, who worked in a slaughterhouse, but they soon find that the unethical business practices in the music industry create another kind of inequity and servitude. Touring is as much of a grind as factory work, and grinding out the expected hit song after hit song is, in itself, another form of routine monotony.

The Davies Brothers, two working class kids from Muswell Hill (a north London industrial neighborhood), were as much a product of their socio-economic upbringing as their music would become. Their early musical sound - rougher around the edges than contemporaries like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones - complimented their appearance and their way of living. Their economic circumstances as well as their family life are key characters that shaped the brothers' dreams and, conversely, helped mold their demons.

Ray, in particular, is haunted by the death of one of his older sisters, Rene, whose congential heart condition led to her premature death when Ray was thirteen years old. He recounts, in loving if painful detail, the memory of their last time they were together in ways that are profoundly poignant, perhaps an indication of his own search for redemption or even vindication for his own life. Penhall's book of the musical, written in collaboration with Davies, gently interweaves Ray's personal experiences with his music, allowing the words and music to surround the audience in a kind of warm and human embrace.

Sunny Afternoon premiered in London's West End in 2014 and ran until 2016, winning the London Theater Award for Best Musical. Its premiere at Chicago's Shakespeare Theater last month was its first run in North America, and what a glorious production it is. With leads played beautifully by British actor-musicians Danny Horn (Ray) and Oliver Hoare (Dave), we can feel the ambition and aspiration alongside the brotherly love and competition between the two. Horn goes beyond mere theatrical impression to recapture Ray's rock star reluctance, conflicted by both his own humble beginnings and the need to retain his musical integrity in the face of celebrity.

Ray wasn't the only one with demons, though, and Hoare's portrayal of younger brother Dave - the accidental innovator of the distorted guitar sound that has defined rock music for over a half-century - is layered with sibling bravado, sexual discovery, and seductive addiction (fame and all its material trappings can come at price). Hoare's impishly sexy strut, his expressive face and gestures, all serve as counterpoint to Horn's more introverted Ray. At the heart of their relationship, and a key driver of the narrative, is their competitive musical rivalry. Each sees himself as the Kinks' raison d'etre, but it's Ray whose prolific talent eventually solidifies Sunny Afternoon's emotional core.

Backed by an outstanding supporting cast (including ensemble students from Chicago's Roosevelt University) and buoyed by colorful and evocative scenic and costume design from Miriam Buether, Sunny Afternoon is a deeply personal, musically probing, spiritually satisfying theater experience. Like last year's A Complete Unknown, Sunny Afternoon doesn't try to tell the whole story of brothers Ray and Dave Davies, instead focusing on the narrower moments in their lives that have broader life implications, and yielding powerful, provocative results.

In my second row center seat, I was completely absorbed by the story: the acting, the music, and the infectious way director Edward Hall wove the disparate threads of Ray Davies' early career into a compelling 1960s musical pastiche. I felt as much a part of the story and the music as the actors on stage, swept up into a time long past, but one which still holds my own memories of coming from a blue collar family, having dreams that went beyond my social class, finding solace and hope in music. The show went by in a blink, but I could feel its presence long after, even now as I'm composing this blog post.

As my husband and I strolled through Navy Pier for a post-theater dinner, I decided to purchase two tickets to another show, that's how much I wanted to be caressed again by the Kinks' beautifully told, musically eloquent, poetically intense story. Sunny Afternoon really got me... in my head and in my heart.

Before the Saturday matinee, I received an invitation to attend a pre-show "scholar's conversation" led by a local University dean. When I arrived at the event, I couldn't help but notice the mostly grey-haired crowd gathered to hear more about the show. "They're all old people," I whispered to my husband. "They're not that much older than you," he retorted.

True enough, though I'd argue that ten-fifteen years can be significant in rock life. That said, the presumably older woman seated in front of me seemed completely oblivious to the music of the 1960s and audibly gasped every time the lecturer detailed another important event in Ray Davies' life. And the speaker, for all her thoroughly researched information and earnest efforts to give the audience insights into the performance, reminded me of my days at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum where more than one rock star raised an eyebrow about the idea of academics analyzing their music.

The well-intentioned, if pedantic, presentation made me smile at the intellectually outrageous suggestion that rock historians need to let the music tell its story and not impose preconceived notions about the importance of any musical artist or genre. Like Ray Davies, the really great musicians' work will form a truthful narrative, and the most an academic can do is respect, reveal, and understand that.

*******

Sunny Afternoon is not coming to a movie theater near you anytime soon. But - if any recent Broadway jukebox musical deserves a cinematic retelling - it's this one. Look for it, if it tours anywhere near you. It is time and emotion and joy well spent.

PS I loved Sunny Afternoon so much that I went a second time, and it was every bit (if not more) wonderful than the first.

Cast from Sunny Afternoon, Chicago Shakespeare: (L-R) Michael LePore, Oliver Hoare, Danny Horn, Kieran McCabe

*******

But I don't need no friends

As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset

I am in paradise.