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Forbidden Broadway Dances with the Stars
Created and Written by Gerard Alessandrini
Directed by Gerard Alessandrini and William Selby
Royal George Cabaret Theatre
1641 N. Halsted
(312) 988-9000
$40-$55
Tuesdays through Thursdays 7:30 pm
Fridays 8 pm
Saturdays 5 and 8 pm
Sundays 2 and 5 pm
Running time is 1 hour 30 min
Through November 2, 2008
Fast-paced, lively parodies mock past and current theater scene
The music is splendid. How could it fail to be? After all, the tunes are tried-and-true show stoppers from such successful musicals as South Pacific, Annie, Jersey Boys, Gypsy, Chorus Line, Les Miserables, Phantom, Hairspray and the Lion King.
The 4-member cast is terrific. How could they fail to be considering their selection from amid all the talented performers trying out for this latest spoof.
The parodies – well, that's another story. Sometimes they are right on the money; at other times they fall short. How could they not be uneven considering the variety of shows covered, songs recast and the range of humor from broadly slapstick to vividly clever?
Taken all together, Forbidden Broadway provides a snide trip down memory lane offering a satire that means most to those who catch the references but is still enjoyable for the less informed.
Since 1982, when Gerard Alessandrini created his first satiric cabaret review poking fun at the tunes, characters, composers and plots of the past and present Broadway seasons, the annually updated show has been a rousing success. In 2006, the 25th anniversary production won the 2008 Drama Desk Award for an outstanding revue.
Most of the songs are available on annual recordings. This year, parody lovers can enjoy "Some Enchanted Evening" as it morphs into "Some Endangered Species." and "All that Jazz" when it goes high tech and becomes "All that Chat" (complete with laptop props).
And what a great cast of singer/dancer/comics. Mark David Kaplan does terrific take offs on Daniel Radcliffe's "bare" performance in Equus, and on Mandy Patinkin, only to top both of these when he takes on the role of the Giraffe in the Lion King. Leissa Mather is swimmingly good as the Little Mermaid. Val Fagan, belting out songs, can't be topped as Annie and Mary Poppins. Kevin B. McGlynn stops the show as the monster in Young Frankenstein.
Put them all together, and you get terrific ensembles for spoofs of Les Miserables and the life and professional times of Stephen Sondheim -- with Fagan as Red Riding Hood, McGlynn as Sweeny Todd, and Mather as Bernadette Peters, all surrounding Kaplan's portrayal of the composer.
Kudos to Alvin Colt for wonderful, often hilarious costumes – especially for the Lion King and Young Frankenstein sketches, and to musical director and highly-skilled pianist Eric Walton.
Forbidden Broadway Christmas will follow the Forbidden Broadway Dances with the Stars production at the Royal George Cabaret (Dec 3-Jan 4) by poking fun at such regular Christmas Shows as How the Grinch Stoke Christmas, and The Little Drummer Boy, and parodying big-name stars which include Celene Dion, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minelli.
Try to catch at least one of these shows as Alessandrini will end the sequence once his latest version, Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab, ends its New York run Jan. 15.
Recommended
Reviewed by Beverly Friend, Ph.D.
friend@oakton.edu
Date Reviewed: October 14, 2008
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