Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

REVIEW:

Working’: A show about work

Cast and crew competently present praise for jobs big and small

Working

Leila Navidi

Performers sing “All the Livelong Day,” the opening number of “Working,” a musical tribute to the world of work based on the Studs Terkel book by the same name. The production, staged outdoors at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, is the last in the Super Summer Theatre season.

Working

The cast sings the ensemble opening number Launch slideshow »

If You Go

  • What: “Working,” presented by Jade Productions and Super Summer Theatre
  • When: 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday through Sept. 26
  • Where: Spring Mountain Ranch, 10 miles west of the Las Vegas Beltway on Charleston Boulevard
  • Admission: $10 advance, $15 at the gate; tickets available at the UNLV box office; 594-7529, unlvtickets.com
  • Running time: One hour 45 minutes; no intermission
  • Audience advisory: Bring a jacket or sweater

Beyond the Sun

When the lights go up on “Working,” a musical about, well, working, it seems as if the show has made a dent in Las Vegas’ unemployment problem all by itself. At least as far as actors are concerned — there are at least 30 performers on the stage, including five musicians behind a scrim.

The final production of Super Summer Theatre’s season of outdoor musicals at Spring Mountain Ranch, “Working” was originally staged in 1978, and though there are no mentions of “outsourcing” or “downsizing” in this heartfelt staging, it’s just as relevant and affecting today.

Based on the 1974 book by the late oral historian Studs Terkel, “Working” plays sort of like “A Chorus Line” for all the rest of us. Instead of dancers revealing their lives as they audition for a part in a show, everyday Americans, from schoolteachers to prostitutes to cubicle drones, step forward to talk about what they do and how they feel about it in a pastiche of dovetailed monologues and songs.

Work — in concept and reality, from the heroic to the mundane — is examined from a variety of angles by six songwriters, including James Taylor, whose “Millwork” is a lament from a factory assembly line. Taylor’s “Traffic Jam” is energetically performed by the entire ensemble as an amusingly familiar expression of collective commuter frustration.

Director Joy Demain and choreographer Kristin Gressley deserve praise for a job well done, and a raise just for keeping the onstage traffic moving. Super Summer Theatre seems to have worked out the sound problems that marred productions this summer, and the onstage band led by Pat Demain (husband of Joy) contributes subtle shadings with electric guitar, keyboards and percussion.

A number of vivid characters emerge from this big ensemble. Jennifer deAnne King takes an especially exuberant turn as a waitress who sees serving people as an art form.

After being snapped at by an impatient customer, a beleaguered grocery bagger (sweetly played by Angela Perales) drifts into memories of her childhood as a migrant fieldworker. And that snippy shopper turns out to be a weary mother, played by Kate Rushton, who beautifully sings “Just a Housewife” — the song of the unsung.

Playing a representative of an endangered species, Alec TerBerg squeaks endearingly through his chipper number “Gee, It’s Neat to Be a Newsboy.” And as he sings “Fathers and Sons,” about working for the sake of his kids, Stephen McMillan’s emotion seems entirely genuine.

Jeff Fleming delivers perhaps the show’s most poignant performance, singing “Joe,” about a retiree struggling to keep his spirits up and fill his suddenly empty days.

And that’s the question (and answer) at the heart of “Working”: We may gripe about it, but what would we do without it?

The moving finale, “Something to Point To,” insists that all people should be able to take pride in work, to feel that they matter, from bullying bosses to the all-but-invisible cadre of domestic workers.

And “Thank You for Asking,” a quiet plaint of receptionists and other unseen phone workers, achieves the near-impossible, managing to evoke sympathy for the telemarketer.

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