Displaying items by tag: The Beatles

A show somewhere between a play, standup act, memoir, and PowerPoint presentation. A show so chaotic you think it could never work. A show only Brendan Hunt could so perfectly pull off. Hunt’s solo performance is as hilarious as it is unexpectedly emotional, striking a balance between humor and trauma that only a child of divorce could pull off.

Hunt begins in 2022 with the story of the impromptu opportunity he had to meet Paul McCartney. Despite getting the opportunity by virtue of being a celebrity himself, Hunt – a lifelong, second-generation Beatles fan – was starstruck and wanted to tell Paul everything. He refrained, however, and thus The Movement You Need was born: a show where, instead, Hunt tells you everything he wanted to tell Paul. What unfolds is less a traditional narrative and more a kind of extended, often chaotic, and retrospective confession that uses that near-miss encounter as a framing device. It’s a clever but risky structure that gives the show both direction and elasticity, allowing Hunt to bounce between stories, timelines, and emotional registers (as well as lean into his personal neuroticism) without ever letting us forget that he’s fangirling to Sir Paul McCartney.

Loosely structured like a memoir, the show traces Hunt’s life from his earliest memories through adulthood and into fatherhood. Along the way, he paints a picture of growing up as a child of divorce and the son of an addict, filtering those experiences through humor that feels both self-aware and disarmingly honest. The performance leans into its rough edges in a way that works in its favor – featuring remarkably bad impressions, authentically cringey home videos, and stories that range from deeply processed to intentionally brushed past. Often, the line between curated and embarrassing is difficult to walk well (and such is the risk of making art) but as both a writer and performer, under the incredible direction of Ashley Rodbro, Hunt does so perfectly.

The evening, however, actually included more than one Brendan: Brendan Hunt, an avid Beatles fan, and an audience member who we will refer to as Brendan #2 – the lone, brave audience member who admitted to not being a Beatles fan at all. Centering a play around a fandom, even one of the largest of all time, is a premise that, on paper, might seem limiting. And yet, while Hunt’s love for the Beatles is the backbone of the piece, it’s not the barrier to entry you might expect. The show ultimately isn’t about encyclopedic knowledge of the band; it’s about memory, identity, and the stories we carry with us, as well as the way that we use something – anything – to form connections with those around us, even in the hardest of circumstances.

Technically, the production is just as thoroughly considered as the writing. The set strikes a careful balance between cozy realism and subtle nostalgia, creating a space that feels lived-in without becoming cluttered. Design elements – from Meredith Ries’s scenic work to Nick Solyom’s lighting, Kate Marvin’s sound, and Stefania Bulbarella’s projections – support the storytelling without overpowering it. Under the direction of Ashley Rodbro, everything feels intentional, giving Hunt the space to carry the show while ensuring the world around him remains fully realized and reflects his theatrical background, but never overpowering his performance.

Brendan Hunt’s one-man play-comedy-memoir hybrid is, from its writing to acting to production, one of the most cohesive and well-executed pieces of art I have seen in a long time. One big creative risk, the result is a show that feels less like something you watched and more like something you experienced alongside him. It’s funny, yes, and often wildly so – but it’s the emotional honesty underneath that gives it weight, turning what could have been a niche concept into something far more universal.

The Movement You Need: An Evening with Brendan Hunt is running at Steppenwolf Theatre through May 10th. More information and tickets are available at https://www.steppenwolf.org/tickets--events/seasons-/2025-26/the-movement-you-need/.

The promise of hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band performed live in its entirety drove me to RAIN, the Beatles' tribute band playing at the Oriental Theater. But the show is much more than that.

Perfectly controlled, with exactingly beat and chord progressions, RAIN lovingly renders selections from the Beatles repertoire to the ‘T’. The group has been playing for years - longer than the originals. A new generation of performers, all born after the Beatles stopped recording, has taken up the torch at RAIN to keep the songs alive.

It was founded by Mark Lewis, who began in the 1970's as a Beatles cover artist, and recruited the original players and made many of the arrangements they perform. Aaron Chiazza plays Ringo Starr; Paul Curatolo plays Paul McCartney; Steve Landes is John Lennon; and Alastar McNeil is George Harrison.

The players are not so much actors, as they are masters of performing as their Beatles characters. So while they are fully realized in musical performance, they can be a little wooden in beckoning to audience participation. Paul Curatolo succeeds most, channeling the warmth of Paul McCartney pretty closely, and he looks quite a bit like him. When Aaron Chiazza's Ringo Starr sings his solo, "With a Little Help from My Friends," he brings the house down by evoking one of many people's favorite Beatles personalities. Though the real Beatles were ready handy with social commentary, these Beatles do not make much small talk, commenting neither on current - or past - events. It's all about the music. And that's just fine.

Most of us never heard the Beatles perform live in person, so hearing their music in a concert setting is striking, but also a little unsettling in a real venue. The group is not exactly impersonating the Beatles, and there is inevitably some personal expression involved. But they do have the various songs nailed down pretty well. 

This show at the Oriental Theatre also gives us a hint of how it would have felt to hear the band play their own works on stage themselves. 

At the point when they recorded Sgt. Pepper (it was released in 1967) the Beatles had mostly ended live performances, and were doing studio albums and seeing themselves not as rockers, but artists. It wasn’t too long after when they broke up, recording their last album Abbey Road in 1969, and ultimately heading their own ways. (Let It Be was recorded in 1969, prior to Abbey Road, but released afterward.) 

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was recorded over a four-month period from December 6, 1966 – April 21, 1967.  Released on June 1, 1967, it is considered to be the greatest rock album ever released. It was also the first concept album. So for the 50th anniversary of its release, RAIN has essentially created a performance art piece, and it is pretty awesome - and well worth seeing.

The album is just 40 minutes long, so it forms the core of the second act at the Oriental Theatre performances. The first half retraces the Beatles rise from Liverpool to global phenomenon. With a strongly representative selection of the history of Beatles music, it provides a wonderful context for the performance of Sgt, Pepper in toto. 

Visual backgrounds are nicely done, though if I may quibble, I expected a horse for "of course, Henry the horse, dances the waltz" rather than a cartoon carousel figure. I was also hoping for a full orchestra for the monumental "A Day in the Life."  The original recording used 40 classical musicians who were instructed to play gradually from their individual instruments' lowest notes to its highest, and to go gradually from the quietest to the loudest, over the course of 40 bars. That sound is pretty distinctive, and is simulated by RAIN's "fifth Beatle" Mark Beyer, who fills in all the synthesized music along the way. 

The show at the Oriental Theatre, a launch of the 2017 Tour, runs through April 2 here in Chicago, with remaining performances at 8 p.m. April 1, and 2 and 8 pm on April 2. Tickets are at www.BroadwayInChicago.com