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Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) Review from two review article entitled
`Mack and Mabel,' Musical Spoofs Hoof It to London: Matt Wolf
April 13 (Bloomberg)
Fun With Musicals
Jerry Herman, as it happens, is among the talents agreeably skewered in ``The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!),'' the cumbersome title of a delightful evening of satire and pastiche at the new Sound Theatre, off Leicester Square. Director Julian Woolford's production runs through April 22.
First seen Off Broadway in 2003, composer Eric Rockwell and lyricist Joanne Bogart have now brought their musical lampoons to London, a city that doesn't feed on song and dance in quite the same way as New York. Even if you don't get the joke embedded in lines like ``warily they stroll along,'' there's still abundant fun to be had from a parodic canter through some of the more overt excesses of the likes of Herman, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander and Fred Ebb, and Rodgers and Hammerstein.
The show tells the same story five times over of a young woman, June (played in all her various manifestations by the irresistible Joanna Ampil), who is having trouble paying her rent. What differs on each occasion are the musical styles and idioms that get sent up.
Crushed Soubrette
The R&H skit makes much of corn and Kansas and bowdlerized lyrics like, ``Don't throw OKs at me,'' while the Sondheim one is predictably clever-clever and cool. (The other female in the cast of four, Susannah Fellows, delivers a merciless dig at one of the abiding showstoppers from that composer's 1971 musical, ``Company.'') In the Jerry Herman segment, the rent is waived once an evil landlord discovers his own inner Carol Channing.
This being Britain, the greatest laughs on opening night were reserved for the start of the second half, which has an affectionate go at Andrew Lloyd Webber. That's nothing new, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical ``Monty Python's Spamalot'' does the same in its best-known number, ``The Song That Goes Like This.''
Still, it's amusing to see the trilling soubrette -- June has been renamed Junita (sic) --felled by a falling chandelier.
And if that visual gag leaves you scratching your head, then this really isn't the show for you. In which case, perhaps, like Mack Sennett, you should turn your attention to the movies.
"Mack and Mabel'' is booking through July 22 at the Criterion Theatre; there is no Web site for the show. For tickets, call (44) (870) 060-2313. ``The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)'' is running through April 22 at the Sound Theatre. For more information, go to http://www.musicalofmusicals.com / or call (44) (870) 890-0503.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matt Wolf at culvul@aol.com.
April 12, 2006 20:57 EDT |
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