Arts & Entertainment
‘Sunny Afternoon’ at Chicago Shakespeare Tells the Musical, Messy Story of Rock Band The Kinks
Chicago Shakespeare presents the North American Premiere of “Sunny Afternoon,” the story of The Kinks’ iconic rise to fame told through their own hit songs plays at Chicago Shakespeare March 21-April 27, 2025. (Carol Rosegg)
At a music rehearsal for “Sunny Afternoon,” four scruffy actors launch into “You Really Got Me,” the hugely influential Kinks hit from 1964.
The actors play it tight but loose, and they capture the original sound with lethal accuracy.
“It took five months to find that cast,” director Ed Hall told WTTW News. “They’re playing and singing all of it. We’ve sourced period Vox valve amps and the right guitars with Ray’s help. So what you’ll hear in the theater is exactly what you heard in 1963 and ‘64.”
“Ray” is none other than Ray Davies, the brilliant songwriter behind so many great songs from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Ray and his brother Dave grew up in north London in a musical household with six older sisters.
Hall directed the world premiere of “Sunny Afternoon” in London in 2014, and the show won four Olivier Awards. Now, Hall is artistic director at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and he’s having another go at telling the musical story of the Kinks through the eyes of bandleader Ray Davies.
“He [Davies] was in rehearsals every day. We built the whole show with him,” Hall said. “He was absolutely an integral part of it, so you’re getting his perspective. He’d sit and tell us ‘No it didn’t happen like that’ or ‘I think it was more like this,’ so he’s very much been part of the building blocks of it.”
The Kinks were snakebit by chaotic tours, bad timing and internal conflict, but they still managed to record classics that stood up to the greatest hits of the era.
There was no one quite like them.
“In some ways the story is about nonconformity. It’s about artists, in this case songwriters, who are original and who are trying to hold on to their independence,” Hall said. “That resonates today for me in a world where difference is treated with suspicion and where the marketplace wants to know ‘What are you selling? Are you appealing to the majority?’ and anything on the margins doesn’t feel mainstream.”
Hall said that there’s even common ground between the rock musical and Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” which he directed last year at Chicago Shakes.
“There are parallels. Richard III is a family story about people trying to influence, and the Kinks story is a family story,” Hall said. “As their music explodes on the world and changes so much in rock and roll, a lot of people tried to own them and take control of them, which they had huge fights about. Still do, actually.”
Danny Horn (Ray), Oliver Hoare (Dave), Ana Margaret Marcu (Rasa) and Michael Lepore (Peter) in Chicago Shakepeare’s “Sunny Afternoon,” the story of The Kinks. (Carol Rosegg)
In the rehearsal room, the actor/musicians keep kicking out Kinks tunes – “Stop Your Sobbing,” “Tired of Waiting,” “All Day and All of the Night” – and the band’s creative flights turn into physical fights.
The show comes to a brief hush with the devastating story of the inspiration behind Davies’ writing. I won’t divulge it here except to say that the big reveal makes their later hit “Come Dancing” (1982) all the more poignant.
The Kinks shook up everyone from The Who to David Bowie, from Van Halen to the Pretenders. The band broke up in 1997, but their music and their story can still draw a crowd.
“When we did it in London the whole of Fleetwood Mac came. Then Brian May of Queen came. We had Paul Weller. Liam and Noel Gallagher came, and Liam saw it twice,” Hall said. “One night Brian Johnson [AC/DC] was standing in the foyer. They were just the tip of the iceberg, and obviously the Kinks were a huge influence on them.”
Other songs in the show include the classics “Lola,” “A Well-Respected Man” and “Till the End of the Day.” Lesser-known gems such as “This Time Tomorrow” also shine.
We asked Hall, an Englishman — his father, Sir Peter Hall, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company — how the Kinks reflected British culture
“They were about community and neighborhood and family,” he said. “I got to know Ray a little bit and you really feel that from him. You’ll be wandering around north London still today and you’ll find him in a coffee shop or sitting on Primrose Hill. Community and neighborhood was important to them.
“For me, the idea of a tiny house packed with a big working-class family playing music late into the night – and that being the most important thing in their lives – has always resonated. Because when they became global superstars, hanging onto that becomes harder and harder – but they did, and I love that about them. In the end, the story is all about the music.”
“Sunny Afternoon” is now in previews at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier. It opens this weekend and plays until April 27.
Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.
