(Hedy Weiss’s article appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, 5/5.)
Chicago likes its Cash. Johnny Cash, that is.
Not only is the late lamented singer-songwriter a major figure in the long-running “Million Dollar Dollar Quartet,” but his voice and spirit were at the heart of James Kudelka’s “The Man in Black,” danced earlier this season by the Joffrey Ballet.
And now, with “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash,” a rousing revue at Mercury Theater Chicago, the man in black is the subject of a full-fledged, quasi-biographical show packed with 30 songs, all performed by a rip-roaring, multi-talented cast of seven big personalities who can sing up a storm, play a slew of instruments, and conjure the various times and places in the life of this man who so memorably proclaimed he had been everywhere.