“In the tower above the earth/ There is a view that reaches far.”
Such a view is the place from where singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens looks out at a world — cold and complex. It’s full of joy, peril and an untellable delicacy. Bordering Lake Michigan is the heartbeat of the Midwest, Illinois, a place of superheroes, zombies and forsaken love stories. In 2005, Stevens peered at the prairies and penned a 22-song mammoth of an album. It’s a collection of tunes that transcend the term ‘album’ as they fashion the experience of an ‘epic.’ The album reads like a grim, romantic and, at points, sardonic comment on the rich culture of Illinois with the ever-so exclamatory title of “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!”
From murder ballads to tales of queer love, the album prides itself on pushing the boundaries for what folk rock tunes can cover. The songs tell stories of emotional heft through complex orchestrations and philosophically bookish lyrics. The album was a critical hit at the time of its release and was more recently adapted by choreographer and director Justin Peck into a stage performance. It’s an adaptation that melds dance numbers into live arrangements of Stevens’ record.
The show started its 2024 run at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and later made its New York premiere with a brief set of performances at the Park Avenue Armory in March. More recently, it was announced that on April 24 the show would enter a 16-week run on Broadway at the St. James Theatre.
The continued growth in stock in the show and theater setting is with good reason. Its stage performance is an outstanding example of how certain things we may dream up in the deepest recesses of our brain can come to life exactly as we would’ve hoped. Because the songs from “Illinoise” play like a theatrical tour around the state, it’s possible to extravagantly envision the stories on the stage. Peck manages to accomplish the task magnificently.
The performance itself is conveyed in an unusual way as the singers do not dance and the dancers do not sing. The dance numbers are performed by three different singers who harmonize and deliver angelic complements to the album versions.
“Illinoise” follows a group of people on a camping retreat. A bulk of the narrative is set around a campfire as each individual tells a story that lines up in the order of the album. A man tells a story about a queer romance he experienced at summer camp while another talks about the nomadic life of moving from city to city and being devoid of a sense of belonging. These feelings arrange themselves to tell a moderately cohesive story.
The performers also depict feelings of regret and self-loathing in a time of American political discourse. 2005 was a time when former President George W. Bush’s administration had a chokehold over politics. The only way to better understand the present is to reflect on the past. A prominent component of what makes “Illinoise” such a feat is its ability to channel the past as a storytelling asset. Peck, through the eyes of Stevens, carves out a storyline using obscure references to history and societal constructs relating to fear of ‘the system.’
And, every song is a testament to the incredulity of Sufjan Stevens’ creativity. If a classic album is Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” (1942), the work of Stevens may feel like David Lean trudging through a sprawling desert to make “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962). The songwriting is still so poignant. The thematic descriptions are sublime. It’s all brought to life, and it’s a tear-jerking, one-or-two-tissue ordeal and a theatrical gift. It’s something special for all who are fans of being taken out of their banal daily lives for an hour and a half and provided with a rich plunge into the fluorescent gorges of imagination. Tread carefully, but also embrace the beauty of the world that’s been opened up for you.
