Billy Surges’ Surging Films and Theatrics may not be a huge “name” company, but it has been producing plays and musicals in Chicago since 2014, among which have been solid productions of Big Fish, Urinetown, The Pillowman, and Next to Normal. This summer, they are back at The Edge Theatre with Catch Me If You Can (the musical based on the 2002 film of the same name), with a book by Terrence McNally and songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.
The musical tells the allegedly true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Casey Huls), a 1960s con artist who claimed in the autobiography from which the film and play derive to have been a master forger (he says he cashed phony checks worth over $2.5 million), an ER doctor, and an American Airlines pilot, all while in his teens and on the run from the FBI. (There is much evidence to dispute these claims and little to support them, but what the heck: it’s a fun story.)
His FBI antagonist and, according to the story, pretty much the only person who ever totally understood and appreciated him, is played by Surges, who also directs. Hanratty is a law-and-order agent “The game ain’t worth winning if you’re breaking all the rules”), though as the play begins he is in need of a big win. The FBI has assigned him a small office and a clutch of clowns to work with, and when he realizes that there is a major criminal getting away with multitudinous cons, he comes to believe that he is the man who can take him down. (Hanratty doesn’t realize that Abagnale is a teenager until the end of Act One.)
Act One begins with the moment of Abagnale’s arrest and then tells the story of how that came to pass. Surges and choreographer Tim Huggenberger use every opportunity to take advantage of their phenomenal female ensemble (Sarah Dolins, Flower Wang, Sarah Beth Lipsman, Eve Moyer, Gabriella Smurawa, and Amber Golich), highlighting them as much as possible: a good decision, because they are the most consistently excellent part of the show. There is some solid stuff elsewhere, but nothing that touches the dances that these young women pull off. (Too bad that their mics often are off, as they all possess strong voices as well.)
We meet Frank with his parents, Frank, Sr. (Ian Rigg) and Paula (Annie Beaubien). His dad is a petty con man himself, and his mom, by the time we meet her, is on the verge of leaving her ne’er-do-well husband. (It’s hard to blame her.) Rigg and Beaubien do a fine job in these roles, especially in the plaintive “Don’t Be a Stranger,” with Rigg turning in probably the finest acting of the night when Frank, Sr. is left broken down, drunk, and alone, in a bar.
Amanda Donohoe is Brenda Strong, the young nurse that Frank, Jr. falls in love with when he is pretending to be a doctor. He proposes—the guy is seriously blending his character and his real life, whatever that even means by this point—and travels with her to Louisiana to meet her parents. Hanratty, though, is right on his trail. He may feel for the kid—it doesn’t take a genius to see how lonely and lost Frank is—but Frank has broken the rules, and without them, Carl firmly believes we’d be “living in the Wild, Wild West.” Donohoe gets a moment in the spotlight when she sings “Fly, Fly Away,” in which she sees the truth about her erstwhile fiancé: “They only saw the magic tricks, the smoke and mirrors; Was I the only one to ever see the boy? So now they want to clip his precious wings and bring him down, But in his heart and soul’s the kind of good they can’t destroy.” Hanratty sees that truth too, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
As Hanratty and Frank, Surges and Huls do their best to play off of each other even though the script rarely allows them onstage at the same time. Huls, who has a glorious, angelic tenor voice, plays Frank as a passenger in his own life. He does have things planned, but his face doesn’t often reveal any emotion other than enjoying whatever is happening at the moment. Surges is the opposite: he may not have the finest singing voice in the world, but he lives deep within his character, allowing us to know much more about Hanratty than the script reveals.
You can catch the play (if you can) at The Edge Theatre through July 23. Tickets are available at surgingtheatrics.com. For more Chicago reviews or show information, see chicagoonstage.com or theatreinchicago.com.