Illinoise, a state of motion

There are two kinds of theatergoers: those who like to read about (and listen to, if possible) a show before they see it and those who want to go in pure.

I'm usually the first, but life and time and stuff got in the way and I made a quick decision to get a ticket the day before I saw the Broadway musical Illinoise.

The show opened at the Park Avenue Armory last spring, then transferred to Broadway and is playing at the St. James Theater through August 10. 

My decision proved the power of the Tony Awards show. I had never heard of the composer, Sufjan Stevens, or knew anything about the show, but I was riveted by a number performed on the Tonys (above) on June 16, 2024.

Two men, awakening on the floor, obviously in bed, obviously a couple, danced fluid, passionate movement, tender but not madly erotic until a final kiss. The choreography for the men's arms, as they were intertwined while they were seated, was exhilarating. A male-female couple entered. One of the men on the floor was friends with the couple, but something separated their friendship. These brief moments were deeply poignant and left me wanting to see more. 

The musical won Best Choreography for Justin Peck, who is the Resident Choreographer at the New York City Ballet. Sadly, I've fallen out of the habit of attending NYCB, so I was familiar with Peck's name, but not much of his work. 

I randomly listened to a couple of Stevens' songs the night before the show - lyrical, sensitive songs about love in the singer-songwriter mold. I learned that he is, at age 49, beloved by "geriatric millennials," those born between 1980 and 1985. This 1954 baby liked them, too, and wondered if the term "geriatric baby boomer" is redundant.

Justin Peck
Photo/Ryan Pfluger

The Illinoise set at first looks bare. The onstage band is on a high level platform and three singers are on a mid-level deck, but the stage becomes a field, a bedroom, a campfire.

The show is described as a musical, but there are no words other than Steven's lyrics. Although playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury is credited with the book, her work, with Peck, consists more toward drawing Stevens' songs together in a linear story. 

Storytelling is key to Illinoise. The Playbill program contains a graphically-lovely insert that's a few pages of a diary kept by one of the characters, Henry, that is full of the yearning and questioning of a young person looking at love. 

Sufjan Stevens

He brings his journal to a campfire gathering, where the characters bring glowing lanterns to signify the fire. Henry and the others write in their journals as Stevens' lyrics ask, "Are you writing from the heart?"

I've read posts online from people who were confused about the plot of Illinoise, but a show that's purely dance and music allows us to bring our own memories and experiences to the adventure happening onstage. 

During the campfire scene, I thought, "Yes, I remember my in-laws' family gathered in the summer evenings around a campfire on Prince Edward Island, Canada."

The scenes and songs move smoothly as Henry recalls a road trip to Chicago ("Chicago"), the friendship with Carl and Shelby that ended in tragedy ("The Seer's Tower" - a play on Chicago's Sears Tower), his awakening to his true nature and his love with a man named Douglas:

I fell in love again

All things go

All things go

Drove to Chicago

All things know

All things know ...

The lyrics seem simple, but paired with Stevens' hymn-like, dreamy music, they conjure up emotions and thoughts - "Why did she go?" "Oh yes, I remember him from elementary school. I really liked him." "I had a sense of adventure then."

Not all the songs are related to Henry's journey, but all have some connection to the state nicknamed "The Prairie State."

"A story about zombies," one of my favorite scenes, has a young woman powerfully fighting the undead, who emerge from (what else) a cornfield. The creatures of the night, however, wear the masks of well-known figures of American history: Ronald Reagan, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph McCarthy, Andrew Jackson, suggesting that the country's past continues to haunt its present and future.

 

Despite the show's deeply-felt moment of sadness, it ends on a hopeful but realistic note about longing and remembering in the song "Epilogue": "I stand in awe of gratefulness. I can and call forgetfulness."