The Beastly Bombing

I really wonder if there's a target audience beyond me for The Beastly Bombing. Well, sure, I'm sure they didn't have most 20-year-old females in mind when they were writing this terrorist operetta, but I'm an odd case - my parents and I flew all the way to Buxton, England when I was nine to attend the Gilbert & Sullivan festival, where I performed in the ensemble of the Mikado and saw a different show every night. And on top of that, I'm incredibly politically incorrect, and love myself a good terrorist joke. So last fall when I saw that this was being produced in LA, where my parents live, I sent them an email begging them to go watch and report. They didn't of course. Imagine my delight when it shows up as part of NYMF!

The show opens with two white supremacists and two members of Al Qaeda attempting to bomb the Brooklyn bridge - they fail, but yet another terrorist group succeeds and various misadventures eventually find them in jail with the president's two druggie daughters. Love (by way of E) eventually curbs their evil ways (and since there are four males and two females, guess what!), but not before they find themselves at the White House, epicenter of ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government.


The score feels very much like an authentic operetta, and most of the actors do an admirable job handling it. Especially apt is Jesse Merlin as President Dodgeson, handling the patter (I suppose he plays the John Reed role?) with remarkable ease. Whether the songs themselves work is hit and miss - they all sound appropriate to the format, but the girls' songs about their drug addiction don't have quite the same level of hilarity of "The Union of Forgotten Terrorists." The best song, though, has to be "The Sorrows of the Sensitive White Supremacist," a song immediately preceeded by my favorite line in any NYMF show so far: "I sick of being treated like crap because I'm a loser!" You can listen to the song at the Beastly Bombing's show page, though I doubt it will be quite the same as watching Aaron Matijasic prance around the stage while singing it.

And speaking of prancing, I feel I should mention the choreography by Kevin Remington. Always appropriate to the score but still finding ways to make the audience laugh out loud, it's really masterfully done, providing context to the songs while elevating the humor.

As I said, this show may have trouble finding an audience. Just like any theater crowd, a majority of the patrons were... let's say elderly, and I saw more than a few with their hands folded politely in their late during curtain call while the people surrounding hooted and hollered. And I'll admit, some parts crossed the line of decency even for little old me. So who knows? I mostly enjoyed it. Who knows if you will.
(Haha, sorry. Worst ending to a review ever, I know.)

Going Down Swingin'

Going Down Swingin' is, quality-wise, the best show of the festival so far. Though it may not be my favorite (as those spots generally go to the flawed underdogs - what can I say, I'm a sucker for musicals that need work), there's not a single song or plot point that needs cutting or expanding. It all works perfectly.
... I feel really weird writing that.

An adaptation of the opera Don Giovanni set in the dying days of radio, Going Down Swingin' takes you through a rehearsal of The Liberty Cigarettes Dean Newhouse Variety Hour, then the live airing of a show a week later. It's probably not a spoiler to tell you that things don't go all that well for Dean - in a tragedy a character used to getting what they want simply won't. And it's not hard to see why Christopher Shyer took a few days off from starring in Mamma Mia! to play Dean. His portrayal is a far cry from Sam, who is by necessity drowned out by ABBA songs - Dean is charming yet sinister, and Shyer's subtle and slow realization that his whole world is crumbling around him is both satisfying and devastating to watch.

I'd heard most of the score before, as they sang a full six songs at the D-Lounge event in late August, but while out of context the songs lacked personality, in the show they were presented as glorious pieces of irony. Almost all sung within the context of the radio program, they seem to be plucked straight out of the era - some added some levity to a heavy show, some enhanced the drama, all worked beautifully. Without a song list I'll have a hard time listing favorites, but I particularly loved Meredith Patterson's 11 o'clock rendition of "Sorry, My Dear" and Maria Schaffel's stunning farewell in "He Thrills Me." The radio program itself provides numerous hilarious moments - shows like "Our Boy Harry" (starring 28-year-old Max Meadows, brilliantly played by Spamalot star Tim Deckman, as 16-year-old Harry) and "The Trials of Constance" (about a 30-year-old spinster trying to find love in her waning years) are played to their full potential, and the constant plugs for Liberty Cigarettes are side-splitting.

I suppose my only qualm with the show is that as a constant checker of the NYMF website when cast lists were being finalized, I noticed them listing one Colin Hanlon as playing Oscar Van Zandt for a week or so - I mean no slight against Leo Ash Evens, but it's simply not fair to tease me with one of my favorite actors then yank that away.

The Family Fiorelli

Friends of mine had opined that this year's NYMF festival had shows with less gripping concepts than last's - where is the Oedipus for Kids? The [title of show]? The Family Fiorelli had that problem for me, and if it wasn't one of the very few shows I was given tickets to, I wouldn't have sought it out. Which would have meant missing one of my favorite shows of the festival so far - go figure.

The Family Fiorelli consists of a stereotypical Italian grandfather, the husband who spends all his time working at the winery, the wife having an affair with a priest, the son with cerebral palsy who's learning karate, the 9-year-old wine savant and the pregnant lesbian sister. They've tried to market it on the craziness of this group of characters, but the stories are much more human than that. While on paper the characters sounds bizarre, its their very quirks that make them so real and sympathetic on stage. If my life had to be summed up with a pithy phrase, I'm sure I'd sound insane too.

The ensemble of actors all play their roles with heart and honesty, but the two that really stood out where Harrsion Chad (who'd make a cracking Evan if they decide Ricky Ashley looks too old to star in 13, though I suppose Chad doesn't look any younger) and Sy Adamowsky, possibly the most talented child I've ever seen on stage. With a gorgeous clear voice, he never relies on acting cute to get the laugh, and his poignant act one finale "A Prayer to St Jude" is a gentle but perfect way to be sent to intermission.

The score is a strange mix of 80s power ballads and traditional musical theater songs, but it works, and provides multiple opportunities for what a show like this needs - extreme emotion let out through music. Several times characters are singing the same song and words with entirely different context - "So Close," for example, is a duet between husband and wife, with the wife opining about how close the two of them used to be and the husband singing about being so close to success. "I Am Delivered Too," a song after the lesbian lovers' baby has been born had me cringing in its early bars at the very concept, but close to tears by the end of Daria Hardeman's powerful delivery. (Ooh. Pun. Sorry. That was really, really bad.) Other songs allow for the adult men to showcase their strong tenors, and "Turn the Other Cheek" is a hilarious trio in which the three men talk about all the people who's asses they want to kick. An immature reaction to events, for sure, but one that's thoroughly real.

I hope that others didn't have the same reaction to Fiorelli's marketing that I did - and from the way it's selling it looks like they didn't. Regardless, there are still tickets to the Friday, October 5th performance - I suggest you buy them.

Bernice Bobs Her Mullet, a mini-review

Almost every NYMF show I've been to has had walk-outs at intermission. It's never indicative of the quality of the show, at least not in my mind - even my favorites have seen a significantly smaller second act crowd. So it looks like the NYMF audiences are looking for shows more like
Bernice Bobs Her Mullet: a tight, enjoyable 90 minutes of simple plot and catchy songs.

Loosely based on the F Scott Fitzgerald story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," the musical changes the social status of the titular character from the wealthy girl of the 1920s to trailer trash (complete with mullet) in a more modern decade. It immediately sets her up as an outcast - I'm not ashamed to admit that I had to keep my gag reflex in check during that first hour - and presents numerous opportunities for the show to be a raucous comedy, at which it mostly succeeds.

I'm keeping this short since, well, I'm tired, Bernice has been covered before, and it sadly closed already. Many of the songs were stand-outs, but besides Bernice's two cracking solo numbers near the end I also loved "Hate Yourself" and "What an Awkward Moment." The cast is almost uniformly great, but I can only describe Hollie Howard's Marjorie as the worst G(a)linda I've ever seen - take that as you will.