Martin Short "Fame Becomes Me" critics review

From the Contra Costa Times:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/entertainment/14552332.htm

"Barbs fly furiously in comical 'Fame'
If Short can lose the 'nice,' softened edges, the already hysterical but uneven show will be wittier and sharper

...

The first half of the piece is a bumpy mix of towering hilarity (a delightful parody of "The Wizard of Oz," with a killer Judy Garland impersonation by Mary Birdsong) with what appears to be nothing more than gratuitous material, almost along the lines of "but seriously, folks ..."

There are some screamingly funny bits in the first act -- an elderly heckler, a Bob Fosse parody that turns a heart attack into choreography, and a deliciously cruel version of one of those overly sincere '70s Jesus musicals.

But the rocket really flies in the second act, after Short has been killed by a giant snowball (a reference to his native Canada, where he, Sisyphus of the Great White North, endlessly pushes a snowball up a hill).

The act opens with news that Short is in a coma and a request going out for someone to replace him so the underpaid members of the ensemble can earn enough to support themselves. Cast members Brooks Ashmanskas, Birdsong, Capathia Jenkins and Nicole Parker, along with onstage pianist and performer Marc Shaiman, go through a number of celebrity impressions before bringing the real Dennis Miller onstage for a guest turn. He is quickly guided into Short's hospital room, where he is joined by creepy celebrity worshiper/critic/interviewer Jiminy Glick (one of Short's best-known characters), and the two tear up the house with material that's only partly scripted. (Other celebrity and non-celebrity audience members will be used in this gag during the run of the show.)

The musical catches fire from there, flying across a winding road of near out-of-control comedy, which gives considerable indication of just how funny this show is going to be by the time it gets to New York. Short and crew are making constant changes (two songs have been replaced since "Fame Becomes Me" began previews a couple of weeks ago).".

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Not bad. Not bad at all.

'Fame' exposes its shortcomings
COMEDIAN'S LOVEFEST PERFECT FOR LAS VEGAS, NOT BROADWAY
By Glenn Lovell
Mercury News

Martin Short tells us his new show is Broadway-bound after stops in Toronto and Chicago. The elfin dynamo might want to adjust his sights. ``Fame Becomes Me,' now at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco through May 21, is a pastiche of song, shtick and recycled TV bits that belongs not on the Great White Way but on the Vegas Strip.

If ever a voice cried out for the accompaniment of noisy slot machines, it's this one. Short, a comic best known for his characters Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick, obviously trained at the Jerry Lewis School of Performing Arts, where the motto remains ``Can't sell it? Belt it! Whaaaaa!'

Conceived by Short and the songwriting team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (``Hairspray'), ``Fame Becomes Me' appears at first to be a send-up of Short's well-tended reputation as a performer who has never seen a spotlight he didn't want to hog. I say appears because, after a couple of songs about how egomaniacal and needy Short is, the show morphs into exactly what it says it's spoofing -- a narcissistic lovefest to an insecure entertainer.

How low will Short stoop to win the audience's approval? By the end of Act 1, he's doing Cathy Rigby as Peter Pan, pedaling through the air. At the end of what now passes for an Act 2, he pulls a Tinker Bell, shamelessly soliciting applause to bring his alter-ego back from the show-biz version of The Hereafter.

When the clapping does the trick, Short rewards the crowd with a mawkish ballad titled ``Glass Half Full.' It should be called ``You Love Me -- You Really Love Me!'

At moments, the show flirts with the idea of deconstructing the one-person format as practiced by Tracey Ullman and Jackie Mason, among others.

There's a heckler in the house, played by the wonderful Capathia Jenkins, who counsels Short to drop the tried-and-true -- the first-audition memories, the ``Born in a Trunk' showstopper, etc. -- and to sex things up with drugs, rehab and full frontal nudity (finally supplied in a charmingly chaste fashion).

Later, Jenkins returns to salvage a second act very much in need of salvaging. If your show needs some bling, she says, ``let a big black lady sing.' She then proceeds to stop the show by belting out ``Stop the Show.' It's a funny bit, but it says less about the state of Broadway now than about the state of this particular show at this particular juncture.

The satirical approach comes in and out of focus and finally is jettisoned altogether in favor of what only can be described as `` `All that Jazz' Meets `It's a Wonderful Life.' ' The moral -- after impressions by Short of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Grimley and, in fat suit, celebrity leech Glick: Be yourself, Marty. They love you for who you are.

The humor? A succession of botox, Viagra and ``American Idol' one-liners. I lost count of the sight gags involving heaving breasts and undulating crotches.

The irony of Short's tribute to Short: For all the energy he expends -- and let no one doubt that this guy sweats gallons dashing between sketches -- the star is upstaged at almost every turn by Jenkins and three other backup performers who, among them, deliver dead-on impressions of Judy Garland, Ellen DeGeneres, Simon Cowell and Joan Rivers.

Brooks Ashmanskas' Tommy Tune (on stilts) and Bob Fosse (gasping for breath through a haze of cigarette smoke) are among the show's highlights. Musical director-composer Shaiman, almost as much of a ham as Short, provides on-stage accompaniment and hoists an ``Applause' sign periodically.

``Fame Becomes Me' is being billed as a work-in-progress. That's generous. In place of a second act, the show now offers Shaiman at the piano singing ``Stretch' (his mea culpa for baring his bottom earlier in the evening) and an extended Jiminy Glick routine, wherein Short as the porcine interviewer chats with a celebrity plucked from the audience.

As luck would have it, Dennis Miller was in the house for the press preview and proved a very good sport. Good thing. Without an honest-to-gosh celeb on the hot seat, this spot could cause a mass exodus.

Parents, beware. As you probably can tell from the above, ``Fame Becomes Me' isn't what you'd call family entertainment. If you're a die-hard Short fan and must partake, leave the children at home.