Citadel Theatre presents UPRIGHT GRAND, story about a musical family

In Laura Schellhardt’s UPRIGHT GRAND, the history of two pianos – one upright, one grand – becomes the history of a family. According to Pops, the humble musician dad, it’s “storytelling with piano accents.”

Indeed. The three-character play now onstage at Citadel Theatre has plenty of accents as it tracks Pops, Kiddo and the Accompanist through their decades at the keyboard. Only the Accompanist literally plays the piano while the other two simulate. The technique – father and daughter’s hands moving slightly above the keys in sync with the music – is graceful and consistent. With such simplicity, director Scott Weinstein’s production builds a tiny universe that is fused with emotion.

Citadel Theatre offers a trio of talent

UPRIGHT GRAND’s plot doesn’t go anywhere unexpected. The frustrated dad, the gifted child, the tug between family and fame. But the show holds many delights, especially its talented trio of actors – Chicago veteran Mark Ulrich as Pops, buoyantly youthful Charlotte Mae Ellison as Kiddo and the agile Matt Edmonds who handles multiple roles as pliantly as he does the musical accompaniment.

Ulrich, a versatile and innate actor, takes on Pops with ease. In clothes that hang from his lanky frame with weary bagginess, Ulrich’s Pops loves his music even if it hasn’t loved him back enough. The same could be said of the people his life, including his unseen wife and her disdainful, well-to-do parents. “We’re more upright than we’ll ever be grand,” he tells Kiddo.

UPRIGHT GRAND’s offstage characters

To focus entirely on a father-daughter bond is a valid choice. But UPRIGHT GRAND makes the offstage mother a significant factor in her husband and daughter’s life – and that omission becomes increasingly unsatisfying. Also not present but decisive are Kiddo’s maternal grandparents who buy her a grand piano and attend her first significant public recital in New York.

UPRIGHT GRAND poses fascinating and fundamental questions, sometimes so directly that they come off more as an agenda than drama. Pops speaks of “a grand capacity for joy” several times. Like the much-discussed offstage characters, tangible evidence of Pops and Kiddo experiencing joy together – not just talking about it – would enrich the story.

Grand hands at Citadel

When there is direct interaction, UPRIGHT GRAND makes its point effectively. Refusing to let Pops see Kiddo before a concert, a Russian teacher calls parental attachment “a noose” and assesses Pop’s life as “small – in scale, not importance.” Blunt and unsparing, the teacher asks, “Why have children if not to surpass you?”

The child surpassing the parent is a foregone conclusion in UPRIGHT PIANO. What hangs in the balance is Kiddo’s recognition of Pops as the progenitor of her own musical gifts. Of course she owns her talent and how she makes use of it. But sacrificing much to put her hands to the keys of a battered upright, Pops proves his own hands are grand enough for any piano.