42 Balloons

Our first experience at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater wasn’t a play written by the Bard - it was a British musical about a real-life American who did something so strange that it’s hard to believe it really happened. Steve grew up near Los Angeles and remembers hearing about this in the news: on July 2, 1982, Larry Walters attached 42 weather balloons to a lawn chair and took flight for 45 minutes, rising to more than 16,000 feet before returning to earth.

Source: lawnchairpilot on Instagram

42 Balloons tells the story of “Lawn Chair Larry” and how he fulfilled his dream of flying. In keeping with the time period, the music was inspired by 80s pop. I liked the catchy chorus of the opening number:

“What makes a man try to fly in a lawn chair?
What makes a woman buy 42 weather balloons?”

I’m not sure if the show answered those questions, but it was certainly entertaining. The cast was excellent, and the choreography made good use of the minimal but inventive set. My thinking is that if they can trim the show down to one act (current run time with two acts is 2.5 hours), and if they can figure out how to actually show the balloons (they were oddly missing), 42 Balloons might make it to Broadway. After all, Floyd Collins, also based on a real-life person with an unusual claim to fame, was nominated for six Tony awards.

I liked the size and sight lines of the theater, and its location on Navy Pier. Kudos to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater for this off-beat and notable artistic production.

Postscript: Larry’s lawn chair is now at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.