#1
Posted: 10/13/05 at 11:34pm
If you get a chance to catch Forbidden Broadway, Special Victims Unit and you like a good spoof, head over to the 47th Street Theatre for a rollicking sendup of many Broadway shows. It's a long-running show that keeps changing to keep pace with the changes of shows, which isn't easy.
Playwright and co-director Gerard Alessandrini is a master at the over the top style, Phillip George also directing. David Caldwell provides piano accompaniment of familiar tunes from the shows (the song owners clearly have a sense of humor to give permission for use of their music) and four actors, Felicia Finley, Edward Staudenmayer, Jeanne Montano and James Sasser perform transformational feats in smoothly becoming many characters through rapid costume changes and devilishly good acting.
While seeing the exaggerations of shows is maybe a bit more fun if you have seen the Broadway show first, it isn't necessary, as I haven't seen Wicked but the scene of the witches warring over the bows and Tonys was rediculous and funny.
Everybody gets skewered. I think Yoko Ono takes the most ribbing over her relationship to the show Lennon; she is carried out as far as caricature can take and even "sings" occaisionally, sounding something like Beijing Opera to the wrong music.
The Piazza spoof of the flying hat scene concocts an utterly rediculous Clara, naughty mother Margaret, and fascinated suitor Fabrizio, together a hilarious combo. Clara's antics are a non-stop tour de force, delightfully so, especially as she wears an aqua dress to mirror the first she wears in the show creating an absurd contrast to the Clara at Lincoln Center.
Avenue Q's "It Sucks to be Me" is given a good send-up with its frisky puppets, as is Lion King with neck-crunching head puppets. Spelling Bee, Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels...no show is safe from Gerard Alessandrini, and you leave the theatre thinking hey, that's a good thing.
Playwright and co-director Gerard Alessandrini is a master at the over the top style, Phillip George also directing. David Caldwell provides piano accompaniment of familiar tunes from the shows (the song owners clearly have a sense of humor to give permission for use of their music) and four actors, Felicia Finley, Edward Staudenmayer, Jeanne Montano and James Sasser perform transformational feats in smoothly becoming many characters through rapid costume changes and devilishly good acting.
While seeing the exaggerations of shows is maybe a bit more fun if you have seen the Broadway show first, it isn't necessary, as I haven't seen Wicked but the scene of the witches warring over the bows and Tonys was rediculous and funny.
Everybody gets skewered. I think Yoko Ono takes the most ribbing over her relationship to the show Lennon; she is carried out as far as caricature can take and even "sings" occaisionally, sounding something like Beijing Opera to the wrong music.
The Piazza spoof of the flying hat scene concocts an utterly rediculous Clara, naughty mother Margaret, and fascinated suitor Fabrizio, together a hilarious combo. Clara's antics are a non-stop tour de force, delightfully so, especially as she wears an aqua dress to mirror the first she wears in the show creating an absurd contrast to the Clara at Lincoln Center.
Avenue Q's "It Sucks to be Me" is given a good send-up with its frisky puppets, as is Lion King with neck-crunching head puppets. Spelling Bee, Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels...no show is safe from Gerard Alessandrini, and you leave the theatre thinking hey, that's a good thing.
Updated On: 10/14/05 at 11:34 PM
