Wickedrentq's review of The Musical of Musicals: The Musical (SPOILERS)

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 12:35am

Pretty hard to post a review of this without spoilers...and bare with me I'm exhausted, I may edit tomorrow if necessary.

Okay so in general I have to say this show was very funny and very clever. It obviously takes a lot of theatre knowledge to truly appreciate and understand, but the more you know, the more you'll love. Sometimes it's hard to really capture everything, because at the same time you're trying to figure out what song/show they're singing the tune of and listening to the new lyrics at the same time. But if you're a fan of FB, you'll really love this, I love both!

R&H tidbit: This skit featured a lot more paroding of their shows than the composters themselves, but was a perfect opening to the show. It was certainly the most coherent plot. The show was called "Corn" and the main show it parodied was of course Oklahoma!, people singing about what beautiful corn there is, etc. But what was really great about this skit was how everything was greatly intertwined, and they very easily jumped from different shows within the same song. Luckily, I know a lot of R&H and the only references I didn't get was a couple of Carousel songs. But lotsa great songs, plus a dream-ballet and a happy ending. Favorite line: "The hills are alive, but I am half dead."

Sondheim: This skit was a combination of both paroding his shows but actually focused on him more. For example, a song would be sung that the performer kept saying was so melodic, to prove how completely unmelodic it was, and there was lots of jokes about his story and song styles. This show was called "A Little Complex," and talked about each character being pretty disturbed and slightly insane. From what I could tell it mainly parodied Into the Woods(Stay with me consisted of the boyfriend and a psycho killer trying to convince the girl to stay with him), and the classic song "No One Is A Loon." They also of course had a lot of Sweeney Todd moments, mostly singing things to "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," complete with flashing lights, scary faces and sounds, it was really well done. There were several art references which I assume was "Sunday"(don't really know that one) and the only other one I recognized was "Not Getting Married" from Company when the performer just sang about how fast and fast she has to sing but it was pretty great of her.

Jerry Herman: Again, though this one was sung to the tune of his songs, it really more emphasized him and the style of his shows. It featured a performer who we were told to keep wildly applauding whenever she entered or exited the stage, and there was a little dance break in between where the dancers mentioned that they better get through this because it's just filler till the big star returns. This show was called "Dear Abby." It mostly was sung to "Mame" songs, with some "Hello, Dolly" and "La Cage" moments, and made lots of reference to him writing good old-fashioned memorable showtunes. Again, very well done.

Andrew Lloyd Webber: The first thing to come out of this skit was a large, large amount of smoke. I was ROFL, it was perfect for setting the mood. This was called "Aspects of Junita." There was a girl named "Junita"(the inital character was named June in the other skits) who was chanted and she wanted to be a star, and Phantom Jitter said he'd make her one. There was also lots of Sunset Boulevard in there, about big stars going insane, and lots of mentions in songs about him stealing Puccini's song. One of my favorite moments was once the mask was pulled off, the Phantom was revealed to be...a cat! And favorite line of this one: "Did you write this yourself?" "Have you ever heard of Opera?" "No." "Then yes, I did."

Kander and Ebb: This took place in a Cabaret in Chicago and was appropriately named "Speakeasy." The choereography of this one was really perfectly reflecting both "Chicago" and "Cabaret." As you can imagine, lots of stage acts, dancing, skin-stirring, and slight gayness found in this one. My aunt actually thought especially with the choerogaphy that they were the composers who were actually captured the best.

The cast:

In my opinion, Lovette George completely stole the show--she was fantastic! Her voice and range was astounding, whether she was a R&H soprano(and she appropriately was Audra's understudy in Carousel), a Carol-Channing impersonator, a Christine/Norma Desmond type in "Aspects of Junita" or a Cabaret Girl/Chicago dancer, she was just phenomenal in whatever she did.

Eric Rockwell, who was one of the shows creators, played piano a lot, but also would narrate and played a character in each. His best moments I felt were as a Sweeney-type in "A Little Complex", making wonderful psychotic faces and as the Emcee in "Speakeasy," he did a great Joel Grey impersonation, particularly at the end of Ca-ba-reeeet.

Joanne Bogart, the other creator, did an adequate job in her roles as well, she demonstrated a great soprano as mother Abby in "Corn" and really had the star down in "Dear Abby," particularly the poses.

My favorite skit with Craig Fols was "Corn," but that was probably because he had the biggest part in that as the Curly-type character. He was also a great dancer, both in the dream ballet and all of "Speakeasy."

So hope I didn't give away too much, but it was definitely an enjoyable night at the theatre, and between certain deals, TDF, and TKTS you can see it for a very reasonable price and I highly recommend it for you theater buffs. Oh, it was also my first time at Dodger Stages, I actually thought it was really cool. Okay, that's all.

[zepka102]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 12:51am

great review! i wanna see it :P

[Phantom487]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 1:01am

Im dying to see this show... I've heard great things about it. Is it anything like "Forbidden Broadway"? I know its all parodies and stuff...

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 11:27am

Yes Phantom, it's a lot like Forbidden Broadway, like I said if you love FB, then you'll love this too.

[FranklinShepard-Inc.]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 11:30am

A terrific show, I liked it a lot. And I think I even got all the references they did

[Juliet2170]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 1:27pm

hahaha phantom..cat...i can't get over it. great review!! i opted not to see it because im not as familiar with all the shows to understand more than 50-60% of the spoofs but i've been wanting to know about it for a while. thanks again!

[mirramar]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 1:28pm

It's really clever, I saw it a few months ago and really enjoyed it.

Great review!

[apdarcey]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 1:35pm

i really want to see this show. who knows how long it is running?

[Thenardier]

Posted: 3/30/05 at 2:11pm

I want to see it -- but don't think i'd get everything...