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Regional Reviews: San Francisco Dirty Little Showtunes!, A Christmas Memory and Backwards in High Heels: The Ginger Musical
Tom Orr is one of the cleverest parodists in the gay cabaret field today, and he has been spotlighting this revue for several years. He provides explicit lyrics to classic Broadway and operetta tunes. It's not a show for your maiden Aunt Hester but for the gay crowd, it's fun entertainment with the naughty lyrics. Dirty Little Showtunes! bombards the audience with over 50 songs coming at you at a rapid pace—sometimes too fast, as it can be difficult to get all of the zingers that are coming from the group. There are titles like "Show Queens" (to "Show Me" from My Fair Lady), "Bossy Bottoms" (a parody of "Bosom Buddies" from Mame), "The Modern Homosexual" (a twist on "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from The Pirates of Penzance), and "I Love Men," ("I Hate Men" from Kiss Me, Kate). The cast includes David Bicha, Cameron Cummins aka Nellie Bear, Eric Brizee, Alpha Mulugeta, and Joe Wicht aka Trauma Flintstone and they sing, to the tune of the Cole Porter song,:
Especially side-splitting is the feud between leather and other gay subcultures in "The Leather Man and The Drag Queens Should be Friends." The whole cast are great parodying such songs as "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame", "Guys and Dolls" and "The Rumble" from West Side Story. Cameron Cummings gives an entertaining performance with powerful vocal cords in "The Great Big Bear Medley" consisting of melodies of "On the Good Ship Lollipop", "Hair" and "What Kind of Fool Am I?" David Bicha, acting a little like Noel Coward, sings the stereotype-ridden patter song "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Homosexual." He is also top notch singing "The Revolutionary Costume" to the tune of "The Revolutionary Costume for Today" from Grey Gardens. Alpha Mulugeta, making one of this first theatrical gigs, is gorgeous in drag singing with great chops "I've Got Versatility" to the tune of "You've Got Possibilities" from It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman. He looks like a wonderful African-American Julie Newmar. Joe Wicht has the strongest vocals of the group, and this shows in his rendition of "Gay, Gray and Glorious" to the "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" melody from Hairspray as a paean to the older gay members of the audience. He is terrific singing "Bossy Bottoms," aided by the zestful vocal chops of David Bicha. Eric Brizee does a nice arrangement of "The Boys Who Do Brunch" to the melody of "The Ladies Who Lunch" from Company. Tom Orr, Joe Wicht and Cameron Cummings are side-splitting singing as nuns on "How Do You Solve Your Problem Gonorrhea?" to the melody of "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" from The Sound of Music. Orr merrily interprets "I Love Men," the song Cole Porter might have written for Kiss Me, Kate. Orr is naughty and nice with terrific vocal chops singing "Santa is an Elf's Best Friend" from "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and becomes serious singing "Another Hundred T-Cells" to "Another Hundred People" from Company. Kuo-Hao Lo has designed a great Las Vegas set for the two-hour production. Christian Mejia's lighting is bright and colorful. Jorge R. Hernandez has designed some great drag outfits for the cast. Dirty Little Showtunes! plays through January 29th at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (Decker Theatre), 25 Van Ness Ave at Market Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available at the NCTC Box Office (415-861-8972) or online at www.nctcsf.org. Coming up next will be Henry Murray's Treefall opening on January 21, followed by Paul Rudnick's Regrets Only on February 25.
Capote's short story was originally published in Mademoiselle Magazine in December 1956. It ran just 14 pages and since then it has been filmed and televised. The plot takes place in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1933 and describes the lives of seven-year-old Bobby (Gabriel Hoffman) and his elderly cousin Sook (Penny Fuller). Director Robert Kelly gave the production a fine-looking staging at a comfortable pace. The music and songs were enjoyable. Some of the songs reminded me of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Ragtime. A Christmas Memory is a tale about young Bobby growing up during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The characters manage to create hope and love out of the muddle of their desolation, and this makes Capote's memoir captivating. Penny Fuller was wonderful as Sook, who has never seen a movie, eaten in a restaurant or traveled more that five miles from home. This consummate actress was charming as she brought the right feel of childlike wonder even when growing old. She showed lovely vocal cords singing the heartwarming ""Everything I've Ever Known" and "The Kite Song." Gabriel Hoffman was charismatic as Bobby and had great chemistry with Ms. Fuller. He was terrific in the countryfied upbeat "Alabama Fruitcake" and "Buddy's Midnight Adventure." Truman Capote has populated the house with a desperate hypochondriac played with style by Richard Farrell; disapproving Aunt Jeannie played by Eileen Barrett; and an enjoyable tomboy Nelle Harper played by Jennifer Chapman. Richard Farrell successfully morphed into a blundering postman and a terrifying giant moonshiner named Haha Jones. Cathleen Riddley was a real showstopper as the spirited housekeeper Anna. She showed beautiful vocal cords in the sublime blues number "Detour." Ian Leonard, substituting for Joshua Park, was excellent as the narrator and Adult Bobby. Rounding out the cast was a dog named Queenie played by cute little Rocky. William Liberatore's small orchestra handled the score perfectly. Allison Connor's Depression-era costumes were authentic for the period and Joe Ragey's rural set was excellent. A Christmas Memory was unabashedly sentimental but I liked the spirit of the play since I was raised in the Depression era in small-town Ohio. This musical play with some minor changes could play Off-Broadway during next year's Christmas season. TheatreWorks' next production will be The 39th Steps opening on January 19th and running through February 13 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, Castro Street, Mountain View. For tickets call 650-463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org. Photo: Mark Kitaoka
Backwards in High Heels: The Ginger Musical is a lightweight musical with a very thin plotline of the life of movie legend Ginger Rogers (Anne Aimee White). It provides some fancy footwork and classic songs of 1920s and '30s and there was a lot of Hollywood nostalgia going on during the recent two-hour production at San Jose Repertory Theatre. Backwards in High Heels is the brainchild of Lynnette Barkley and Christopher McGovern, who also provides some original songs and arrangements of nostalgic songs by the Gershwins, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. It is a charming, lightweight musical and direction by Scott Schwartz was smooth. The show follows the movie legend's life from her early days on the Orpheum circuit to her Oscar-winning turn in Kitty Foyle. (I first met this actress on the set of Storm Warning at Warners and became a friend in her later years.) On the way we get some flashy production numbers like "Fascinatin' Rhythm", "I Got Rhythm" and a great glitzy number from Warners Brothers' Gold Diggers of 1933 in which Ginger sings "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin. It was a great closing of the first act with round, shiny gold paper "coins" falling from the rafters onto the stage. Many notable parts of Rogers' life are skipped past, and the show dwells too much on her "romance" with chorus boy Jack Culpepper (James Patterson) during the vaudeville days. There are scenes of her relationship with her showbiz mother Lela (Heather Lee) that are straight out of Gypsy. The script by Barkley and McGovern is strictly run of mill musical theatre. Along the way we meet Fred Astaire, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich. The second act features the strange and bitter relationship between Ginger and Fred Astaire (Matthew LaBanca). However, their dancing to such songs as "Shall We Dance" and "Let's Face the Music and Dance" shows us the elegant style of these two during their RKO years. Following the good Rogers and Astaire number the audience is introduced to her five husband, and they fly by with one-liners for each one. Finally, we see her receive her Oscar for Kitty Foyle. Anne Aimee White was thoroughly appealing as Ginger Rogers. Her singing and dancing were first rate, especially in the Rogers and Astaire period, with Matthew LaBanca taking on the persona of Fred Astaire. He also played other parts in the show, including Ginger's husbands, movie directors and other characters. Heather Lee, veteran of New York and Los Angeles theatre, was very good as the mother Lela. Her peculiar take on the role was excellent. Christianne Tisdale was terrific, especially when she played the role of Ethel Merman and belted out the classic "I Got Rhythm." However, her impersonations of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn fell flat. Benjie Randall and James Patterson took on many roles in this showbiz musical. James Patterson was especially good as Hermes Pan and completely over the top as Jimmy Stewart giving the Oscar to Ginger Rogers. Benjie Randall showed good footwork in several of the dancing numbers. Tim Robertson's five-piece orchestra was very good, adding pleasure to the dance and song numbers. Alejo Vietti's costumes were in line with the '30s and '40s look. Walt Spangler's sound stage set was what one would find on the Burbank lot. His flashy Gold Diggers of 1933 set added color to the otherwise drab studio set. Backwards in High Heels played through December 19th at San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose.
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