There are three musicals now onstage in Boston. Only one really gave me a lift: The Tony award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS which has just been extended at The SpeakEasy Stage! Their production is MUCH better than the bloodless hip-jiggling, shoulder-shimmying Broadway roadshow that salsa-ed through town a few seasons ago. I thought it prosaic with its sitcom jokes (“What am I– chopped chuleta?”) and a bit too Ay-Yi-Yi. (There are several numbers devoted to just how hot it is in the fiery Latino enclave of Washington Heights). This production has a truly engaged young local cast that conquered the show’s cliches in Act II and took me somewhere emotionally. The show touches on family, identity, and following your heart– and your bare midriff –wherever it takes you. No songs or voices really popped for me– the dancing’s fine. But this cast give it their all, and by Act II– I was moved. See it through June 16 at the SpeakEasy!
Then there’s ON THE TOWN at The Lyric Stage. I just didn’t buy it. It’s WWII and it’s all about men on
leave and the dames who crave them, where love happens overnight in a madcap romp through New York, New York– a helluva town– and there may not be “Some Other Time.” This all requires a deft touch; there’s a lot at stake beneath the frisson; hard to pull off– and they didn’t. The voices were fine (especially John Ambrosino!) and the performances good– but the timing is off, so the jokes fall flat, and the giddy screwball vibe feels forced and the dancing–not as polished as it needs to be. But boy, those songs are swell– remember how there used to be tunes you couldn’t get out of your head? This show is loaded with ’em. Maybe that’s enough to take you there. Through June 8 at The Lyric Stage.
Finally, over at the A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge through June 2, Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic is ripped to shreds by Chicago troupe The Hypocrites who are very amused by their version which they call PIRATES OF PENZANCE. aarrrrghhhhh. But let me put it this way:
It is the very model of a modern mashup musical,
A sendup of a parody already quite satirical;
Gilbert and his Sullivan might think it quite heretical,
To chop their songs and plot and make it even more nonsensical.
The pirates are in swimming trunks and singing with their mandolins,
The maids are wearing bathing caps and lifting up their crinolines.
The silliness is rampant and the pitch and meter frantical,
It’s funny if you’re three years old –or three sheets to the windsical.
The melodies conveyed like felines sadly yowling at the moon,
Each syllable is garbled as if by a sailor drunk at noon.
In short, in matters antical, pedantical, piratical,
I hate to be fanatical –but I was not amused-(ical)
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