By Damien Jaques Senior Contributing Editor Published Feb 10, 2011 at 9:02 AM

Parkas. Blizzards. Descending into the deep freeze.

This is the time of the year Wisconsin theater goes for the gut. We are ready for themes and stories that grab us where we live. Just like the weather.

Two productions on Milwaukee stages are addressing some of the same profoundly human issues in dramatically different ways. The intensely emotional story songs written by the late Belgian singer-composer Jacques Brel focus on life's most visceral moments and situations -- love, loss, conflict, family and death. The Skylight Opera Theatre has mounted a vivid and affecting production of "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," a frequently produced revue of 26 of the composer's songs.

In its Stiemke Theater, the Milwaukee Rep is staging "Speaking in Tongues," a chilly and chilling look at middle age malaise and how that impacts intimate relationships. The play, written by Australian dramatist and screenwriter Andrew Bovell, is close to Rep artistic director Mark Clements' heart. He directed the world premiere in England and an off-Broadway production in New York before moving to Milwaukee last year.

The Rep's current production was staged by company member Laura Gordon.

"Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" has become a theatrical evergreen since its initial production off-Broadway in 1968. Brel, who spent much of his adult life in the City of Light, wrote his lyrics in French and Dutch, reflecting his Belgian heritage, and although both languages are heard in the revue, the show is performed by four singers with English translations. Over the years songs have been added and dropped, and their performance order has been shuffled in various productions.

The revue contains no narrative thread. Each number tells a distinct story of its own, but a unifying tone that resonates with Brel's place, time and destiny in 20th century Europe hangs over the show like a moody cloud of cigarette smoke. It should be noted that Brel's adolescence was spent in Nazi-occupied Belgium, and he died at 49 from cancer.

"Jacques Brel" is often staged sparely, with an abstract set and costuming to match. Director Ray Jivoff has taken the Skylight production in the opposite direction with interesting and compelling results. He placed the show in a theatrical warehouse bursting with assorted stage curiosities.

Items that look like they belong in a carnival boneyard are stuffed into shelving units. Everything appears to be well worn. Keith Pitts is responsible for the set.

Lighting designer Jason Fassl intensifies the scenic effect with evocative splashes of light and darkness.

Jivoff has given his performers considerable stage business to do during numbers and as connecting tissue between them. Some of it involves small bits of mime, while other moments add a concrete dimension to songs. "Timid Frieda," for example, is fully realized through acting.

Common theatrical wisdom suggests that bare and spare staging directs the audience to focus more on the text, which in this show is the lyrics and music. In other words, eliminate the distractions.

But Jivoff's more florid concept has done the opposite. Brel's words, via translation, and music attain a heightened clarity, and the stories being told pop before our eyes and ears. This should not be missed.

The Skylight cast is very able. Steve Koehler kills in "Funeral Tango," a boisterously bitter declaration of how a fellow is going to even the score with some of the folks who attend his last rites. PJ Baccari nails the mockingly derisive "Jackie," a tale of yearning for the dissipated life.

Liz Baltes finds the poignance and wistfulness in Brel's "Sons Of" with a tenderly and beautifully sung performance. But the Skylight production ultimately belongs to Alison Mary Forbes, who commandeers the second act, beginning with a rousing "Ca Va," the Devil's report about how well his interests are being served on Earth.

She changes up the pace and tone with a gentle and graceful delivery of "Old Folks," and then comes roaring back with "Marieke" before topping off her terrific run as the lead singer in "Carousel." Forbes has always been under-appreciated in her hometown, and "Jacques Brel" is her statement of what she can do.

"Speaking in Tongues" shares an issue with "Jacques Brel," the difficulty of making and maintaining satisfying intimate connections. But "Brel" is overflowing with passion, and "Tongues" is passionless.

That is not necessarily bad. In Bovell's drama, cheating isn't driven by lust and indifference isn't the product of animosity.

Emotional numbness is the malady. "Is that all there is?" is the question.

We don't have to look far to find this condition in contemporary society, but portraying it presents dramatic problems. There are nine characters, portrayed by four actors, in "Speaking in Tongues," and none of them are likable. They all leave us cold.

We can intellectually understand the characters' quiet anguish but we never care.

Bovell's text is elegantly theatrical in the first act. In a nifty bit of symmetrical writing and staging, the inhabitants of two marriages individually go trolling for adulterous flings on the same night and inadvertently swap spouses.

Fling is probably an inaccurate word for their encounters because they are such joyless affairs. These people are really seeking therapy, not sex.

The separate conversations of the two sets of philanderers are echos of each other, and director Gordon cleverly re-enforces that by having them spoken on opposite sides of the same hotel bed. The married couples are back home discussing their trysts in the follow scene. What is next for their crippled relationships?

Bovell's dialog is smart and no doubt reflects reality for way too many people. But the second act introduces a new crop of unhappy characters who are also perversely connected to each other, this time through infidelity, ethical deficiency and possibly murder. I found myself longing for a few rays of sunshine to pierce these heavy clouds.

"Speaking in Tongues" is definitely an actors' play, with the four-person cast given rich opportunities to etch multiple portraits of anguish and unease. Three of the state's best stage artists -- Deborah Staples, Lee Ernst and Jonathan Smoots -- are joined by Chicagoan Jenny McKnight, and they provide a class on how to make this material feel genuine and authentic.

Damien Jaques Senior Contributing Editor

Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.

During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.

Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.