Kiki & Herb Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:06am

Brantley RAVES:

"It is a tribute to the perverse showbiz genius of Kiki and Herb that once you twig on to this shameless trompe l’oeil, you don’t feel merely amused. Nor do you think that the singer has been trading only in paper-moon emotions, or making fun of those who do, as she croons her whiskey-pickled way through bathetic ballads and angry anthems.

Those artificial tears are a comic grace note, sure, but they are also a totem for feelings of devastating depth and substance. And a performance that should, by rights, be just a night of imitative song and shtick from another pair of happy high-campers from the alternative club scene becomes irresistibly full-bodied art.
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In their decade as one of downtown’s savviest acts, Kiki and Herb have always traded on the reassuring illusion of immortality conferred by deeply stylish cabaret performers of advanced age.

You know, the kind you stumble upon after midnight, improbably drawing oxygen from smoky tunes and smoky rooms in bars found everywhere from the inns Ramada to the hotels Carlyle and Algonquin. When Kiki sings — and her numbers go from Eisenhower-era velvet (“Make Yourself Comfortable”) to punk-era tarpaper (the Cure’s “Let’s Go to Bed”) — she suggests some wondrous hybrid of Marianne Faithfull, Elaine Stritch, Patti Smith and Kitty Carlisle Hart. As with those very different women, the point is never the prettiness of the voice but the history behind it and the passion to endure that vibrates within.
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At one point Kiki looks into the audience and wonders who on earth is out there. This is Broadway, after all, the place where tourists come from around the country with their families to be entertained. “Do any of you have a family?” she asks of the crowd and concludes that this must be an audience of foundlings.

Maybe. But remember that the subtitle of the show, which runs only through Sept. 10, is “Alive on Broadway,” not merely “Live.” Though they may disappear when the lights go down, and the makeup comes off, Kiki and Herb onstage are Alive with a capital A, with all the human vitality and fallibility that that implies. This is more than can be said for the synthetically enhanced automatons appearing in most Broadway musicals."



http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/theater/reviews/16kiki.html?ref=arts

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:11am

Talkin Broadway is Mixed

"The reports of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Kiki and Herb's disappearance following their landmark 2004 Carnegie Hall concert did not mean, as some feared, that one of New York's longest-standing (and longest-drinking) institutions had sashayed elegantly off this distressing mortal coil. It's now clear they were merely lying in wait, gathering their strength, and preparing for the greatest challenge of their careers: their Broadway debut.

In their quest to knock audiences dead, they've come to the Great White Way prepared. Perhaps, dare one say it, overprepared. Only their most ardent of fans, who can't feast often enough on Justin Bond's shattered, chattering chanteuse Kiki, or on Kenny Mellman's demonically driven piano player Herb, will be well equipped to not just survive the laudanum-infused spectacle at the Helen Hayes, but thrive on it. Just about everyone else can expect Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway to be an enigma inside a puzzle swathed in studded satin.

Established Kikites and Herbalists might well find they've heard much of this before; while the precise ingredients of this absinthe-kerosene cocktail of mashed-together medleys and pungent commentary have been blended specifically for Broadway, not all of Kiki's quips and anecdotes are newly minted. And newcomers (or at least those who can follow the train wrecks of thought weaving throughout this neo-apocalyptic concert) might find their tolerance sorely tested by an evening that, at nearly two and a half hours, likely bears as many stretch marks as Kiki's midsection.
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Aside from a spirited encore drawn from modern Broadway show tunes (especially those of legendary theatrical dramatist Jim Steinman), it's Bond and Mellman who ultimately rescue the evening from Kiki and Herb. Thrilling with their showmanship, their musicality, and their rapport, they do conquer, even during the many minutes that lack the spark that got them noticed - and to Broadway - in the first place. Perhaps their act, reportedly toned down for Broadway, has been reined in too much?

Even when their drawn-out antics bore or frustrate most, it's hard not to admire - perhaps even love? - the giddily insane perpetrators. As Kiki points out, it's much more difficult to love than it is to die, which means that's some sort of an accomplishment. Not that they have yet mastered either, and if they don't learn by September 10, when Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway is scheduled to close, then perhaps in the future. Even if these two never return to Broadway, one can't help but feel they'll never go away again."


http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/kikiherb.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:17am

Theatremania is Positive:

"Indeed, it's highly recommended that you take this opportunity to spend an evening in this extraordinary pair's presence, whether you've followed them for the past 15 years or never seen them before in your lives. Perhaps the only exception should be people who are truly offended by jokes about Catholics (specifically Pope Benedict), Jews, gays, retards (their word, not mine), child molestation, President Bush, or Mel Gibson. Or those folks who believe no one should ever cover a Public Enemy song, least of all a woman who could be the love child of Wayne Newton and Joan Crawford."
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/8818

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:22am

Curtainup is Positive:

"Kiki & Herb: Alive On Broadway is insidious. And I mean that as a compliment.

The hipster fav duo began their four-week stand at the Helen Hayes this week, returning after a two-year absence from Gotham. Downtown denizens might have seen their act at Here, Fez, and, if one were gainfully employed, at Carnegie Hall, but does the act survive its uptown move intact? With minor quibbles, the answer is YES.

Background for newbies: Kiki & Herb have been trawling the punk-cabaret-queer nightlife circuit before crack became whack. Performers Justin Bond (that's Ms. Kiki DuRane to you) and Kenny Mellman (Herb) sparkle as a pair of over-the-cliff lounge singers -- think Terry Schiavo of the Catskills -- and run with it. As far as Broadway theaters go, the Helen Hayes is a good choice. While I would have preferred Studio 54 for its cabaret seating, this is an intimate red room that lends itself to a spare performance that is disinterested in Lions. And Kings.
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Amid outbursts declaiming global warming, Mel Gibson, and the new "Nazi"" Pope ("the Devil really does wear Prada"), responding to the foiled terrorist plot by suggesting to Homeland Security that they really "don't want to see me without a sports beverage," and using song as scaffolding, Kiki's doing more than alterna-lounge. She's speaking volumes.

Finally, attention must be paid to Kenny Mellman's Herb. He is the safety net that allows Justin Bond to perform on the High Wire. As Herb the "retard," Mellman defers to Kiki onstage, but he completes the illusion of Kiki & Herb. The set design of Alive On Broadway is deceptively simple. In a style that might be called faux-naturalism, Scott Pask (Pillowman, Lieutenant of Inishmore) gives us an oversize frond flanking Herb and his upright, while Kiki has a tree stump serve as both a bar stool and a drink caddy. An Inconvenient Truth, indeed."
http://www.curtainup.com/kiki&herb2.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:24am

Reuters is Negative:

"And yet, for this reviewer's taste, at least, a little of their shtick goes a long way. What might be highly amusing at 90 minutes or so begins to pale long before the end of the show's nearly 2 1/2-hour running time, with the one-joke nature of the characterizations wearing more than a little thin. By the time they perform their encore, the bombastic "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- which Kiki cheekily notes was performed in the legendary Broadway flop "Dance of the Vampires" -- one would be all too happy to relegate them to the outer fringes of show business from where they came."
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reviewsNews&storyID=2006-08-16T005829Z_01_N15437820_RTRIDST_0_REVIEW-STAGE-KIKI-DC.XML

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:28am

USA Today gives it Two-and-a-half Stars:

"Sometimes, you really can get too much of a good thing.
Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman have delighted fans for years with their postmodern cabaret/drag act. Bond plays Kiki, a brassy, blowsy female entertainer of a certain age. Mellman is Herb, Kiki's gay accompanist, who indulges her eclectic and sometimes questionable taste in repertoire.

In Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway (* * ½ out of four), which opened Tuesday at the Helen Hayes Theatre, the duo brings its genre-bending, gender-blending shtick to Manhattan's tourist center. And if you think that shtick is safe for matinee crowds, well, either you don't know Kiki, or you've been drinking some of the same stuff she drinks, in similar quantities.
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The resulting program suggests what might happen if Dame Edna's dysfunctional sister showed up as a guest VJ on MTV2 but decided that rather than playing videos, she would sing the tracks herself.

It's a premise that could make for a great comedy skit, and Bond certainly has the timing and dexterity to pull it off, but not for more than two hours.

Much as I enjoyed most of the first half of Alive on Broadway, I had the sinking feeling I might remember the experience more fondly if I left during intermission. I didn't, so I had to watch Bond's repartee with the more subdued Mellman grow thinner, although Mellman showed spurts of comical animation.

In the first act, a few politically incorrect jokes didn't quite work — not because they were offensive, but because they weren't funny. But Bond delivered them with overwhelming panache. Later, some quips took on a whiff of preaching to the choir, as if to remind the faithful of the social conscience underlying Kiki and Herb's irreverent antics.

As for the musical numbers, no matter how you feel about Bright Eyes, Scissor Sisters or any of the other critical darlings represented here, chances are you could happily live out your life without hearing their tunes crooned by a hybrid of Ethel Merman and Liza Minnelli.

Not that Kiki isn't a swell gal to spend a little time with. But if you want to see a sassy older gal with great legs sing and tell jokes, I'd suggest waiting for Elaine Stritch's next show."



http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2006-08-15-kiki-herb-rev_x.htm

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:32am

Newsday is Mixed:

"Kiki & Herb, the parody lounge act who turn several generations of pop music into alternately screechy and treacly cabaret, are an acquired taste. For the initiated, these downtown provocateurs are absurdist geniuses who go miles beyond the cheesy irony of, say, "Saturday Night Live's" Sweeney Sisters. Beneath the guise of seedy show biz send-up, fans tell us, Kiki & Herb's secret weapon is coruscating satire.

To be sure, in an unlikely new month-long turn on the Main Stem, "Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway," the demented duo delivers an evening of song, shtick, and social commentary you'd never see at the Carlyle. At her best, Kiki (Justin Bond), a staggering blond chanteuse with a brassy, weather-beaten voice and a taste for meandering patter, is like a twisted amalgam of 20th century divas who lost their way in the '60s amid the baffling rise of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (Mae West's "Twist and Shout," anyone?). In this context, Kiki's renditions of everything from Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" to Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne," as well as her unhinged narrative digressions, play like the so-wrong-they're-right products of an addled mind.
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When Kiki is tearing like a bug-eyed banshee through the Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mama Out" or making a melodrama out of the twee anti-war anthem "One Tin Soldier," no one can touch her (and few would dare). And it must be said that Scott Pask's forest-themed set pieces, lit like Christmas candy by Jeff Croiter, make a witty match for the act's dubious glitter. But while fans shouldn't hesitate, the unconverted are likely to remain so after witnessing "Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway."
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-etkiki4851873aug16,0,5870830.story?coll=ny-theater-headlines

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:40am

Variety is Mixed-to-Positive:

"The last time we saw supposedly septuagenarian lounge lizards Kiki & Herb, in their Carnegie Hall farewell two years ago, part of the duo's unusual pact with the venue was that they'd die soon after the final note was played. But like any showbiz trooper who keeps returning from the brink -- Jason in "Friday the 13th," Cher, Streisand -- the club veterans have clawed their way back from beyond only to land at the Helen Hayes Theater with their edgy, winning revue, "Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway."

For those unfortunates who've never caught Justin Bond as Kiki -- a onetime burlesque dancer and mother of three who "kicked cancer with a case of vodka and an electric blanket," as she explains here -- and Kenny Mellman as her devoted pianist Herb on the cabaret circuit, the fun is watching the act devolve into chaos as Kiki knocks back an ocean of Canadian Club.
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The quotient of timely -- and particularly politically incorrect -- humor has been upped. Between numbers ranging from Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype," introduced as a "a folk song," to the Cure's "Let's Go to Bed," which from gravel-voiced Kiki sounds like a command rather than a suggestion, the chanteuse takes aim at Mel Gibson ("now he wants the Jews to treat him like they're Christian"), gay marriage (they should have the right to be as miserable as she was), the pope ("the devil really does wear Prada") and all things Bush-ian ("it was just Bush's birthday. He is a Cancer").

Some of Kiki's best chestnuts, however, are recycled from previous shows. "If you weren't molested as a child, you must've been an ugly kid," she quips, and one wonders what tourists may think if they unwittingly stumble into "Alive" to hear Kiki tell them Jesus was black, America is under apartheid, the Catholic Church is run by Nazis, Maya Angelou was once a go-go dancer and Herb is a "gay Jew-tard."
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As with any lounge act, the duo's flaw is that they don't always know quite when to exit -- and with no credited director aboard, the show is allowed to ramble at times. One outrageous encore of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- with Kiki giving a Mephistophelean emphasis to the lyric "now there's only love in the dark" -- would have done the trick. But the duo came back for another, Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill," making for a little too much of a good thing."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931313?categoryid=33&cs=1

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:44am

Broadway.com is Positive:

"Kiki's rambling, deliriously demented anecdotes comprise the other half and are equally entertaining. Some of the stories will be familiar to longtime fans, but they're still hysterical. Kiki recounts that she met Herb when "we were confined in the same institution in Western Pennsylvania where we were diagnosed as retards." She also tells the story of Daisy the cow, a stuffed animal that rests on the grand piano. Apparently Daisy was in the manger during the birth of Jesus Christ and "accidentally consumed the afterbirth of baby Jesus." The immortal Daisy later became "an indentured show cow in the service of the Pope" until Kiki rescued her. Aptly enough, Kiki caps the off-the-wall tale with Daniel Johnston's "Walking the Cow."

We also hear about her estranged son Bradford, "a homosexual travel agent in San Francisco," and her biracial daughter Miss D., whom she tracks down in Delaware. Kiki also touches on current issues like gay marriage and the new restrictions on carry-on luggage. "You don't want to see Kiki on an airplane without a sports beverage," she says. "You don't know terror!"

During her concerts, Kiki's preferred drink is Canadian Club Whiskey—or a drink that resembles whiskey—and she gets increasingly looped as the night wears on. A bottle is stashed away in a tree where she perches from time to time. (Scott Pask's quirky set also features a giant leaf behind Herb's piano.) Back when Kiki and Herb performed at downtown venues like Fez, Kiki would occasionally throw drinks at unruly customers or make patrons leave if they talked during her act. That doesn't happen now that she's on Broadway, but Kiki hasn't lost her edge. She does, after all, call the current Pope a Nazi and rues the state of America since "the Christians" took over the government.

I'm not sure if tourists will take a chance on Kiki and Herb, and if they do I'm not sure what they will make of the nutty duo. But the pair's admirers should fill the Helen Hayes Theatre for this limited run. And if they're anything like me, they won't mind hearing some of the songs and stories one more time. After all, Kiki and Herb have come to feel like lovably demented old friends. I, for one am thrilled that they're back from the dead and are breathing zany life into Broadway during the dog days of August."

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=534952

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 1:13am

Newark Star-Ledger is Positive:

"That bizarre lounge act known as Kiki & Herb has landed on Broadway -- and as blissfully deranged as ever.

Bowing last night at the Helen Hayes Theatre as the first attraction of the 2006-2007 Broadway season, "Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway" should please the twosome's following. As for anyone who's never witnessed their antics over the last dozen years, the show offers an undiluted take-it-or-leave-it sampling of the performers' outrageous artistry.
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As usual, rather bitter commentary streaks this essentially comical mix of singing and spieling. Assessing troubles in the Middle East, Kiki blithely declares, "The least we can do is worry." She mentions the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy about homosexuals has been eased "because they need the bodies in Iraq." The sequence climaxes in an all but insanely emotional rendering of the "Billy Jack" theme song "One Tin Soldier."

There's very little tongue-in-cheek quality to such typical Kiki & Herb doings as the actors go deeply into their characters. It's even a bit scary to watch how possessed by their eccentric characters Bond and Mellman can get. Long before they plunge into their encores -- including a deranged signature rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- it's obvious that the performers are existing in a twilight zone all their own.

Lurching along at 2 1/2 hours, the show offers perhaps a too-generous helping of the team's oeuvre, but then excess has always been something of a trademark for Kiki & Herb. Anyway, here they are on Broadway, love 'em or loathe 'em."

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/115570286548590.xml&coll=1

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 7:51am

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=907779&dt=3

Started this thread last night Margo. Although neither of ours seem to have gained much intrest. Eventhough most of these reviews are pretty damn good. As well they should be - its a good show that even surprised me into liking them!

[James2]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 8:47am

I didn't expect this praise. Good to see it early in the season.

[buddha2]

Posted: 8/25/06 at 7:34pm

Margo dear, did you give up on your complaint of the high cost of ticket and go see them yourself? It not the best I've seen them do but I felt obligated as a follower and I knew i would be entertained. Thanks, as always, for puting the reviews all together for us.
Updated On: 8/25/06 at 07:34 PM