Ruthless I Can Never Be That Way Again
Julia Dale as Tina Denmark, Amy Miller Brennan as her mother Judy and Gabriel Zenone equally talent agent Sylvia St. Croix in Actors Playhouse's Ruthless! the Musical / Photo past Brooke Noble.
By Neb Hirschman
Everything almost Ruthless! The Musical from dripping furs to the Ethel Merman voices, everything is over the top. Style over the acme. Give thanks goodness. Well, actually, don't thank goodness. Equally Mae West advised, "Goodness has cipher to do with it." Ruthless is a gleefully uninhibited commemoration of greed, venality, appetite and ego. In other words, show business.
The folks at Actors Playhouse wallow in the opportunity to pull out all the stops in this wicked Joel Paley/Melvin Laird lampoon about excess. Produced beginning in 1992, this meld of The Bad Seed and All About Eve presciently predicted what was and so thought as outrageous satire and now has come up to laissez passer in the horrifying specter of Honey Boo Boo.
Ruthless tells of the preternaturally talented eight-twelvemonth-old Tina Denmark with a biological need to get a stage star. The celestial-looking third-grader is sufficiently equipped with the skills plus a steely will more than deadly than a bear trap. She lives with her June Cleaver-like mother, the chirpy and empty-headed hausfrau Judy. When Tina fails to get the lead in the schoolhouse play, Pippi in Tahiti (equally in Pippi Longstocking), Tina's sucrose outside slips away to expose a maniacal murderess under the tutelage of the mysterious talent agent Sylvia St. Croix.
Plot twists, intentionally transparent secrets, witty nods to shows like Gypsy and the infectious chugalug-a-thon of a score requite director David Arisco, his cast and designers the proverbial field solar day. Arisco has characters perpetually dueling to steal the spotlight from each other, upstaging with a slight step in front of someone, artillery outstretched. That goes for everyone from the star's scheming assistant Eve to Tina'south has-been extra turned teacher Miss Thorne.
The media attention prior to opening night has focused on Julia Dale, the 12-year-old Broward daughter who brings beauty pageant charisma and True cat 5 vocal power to Tina. When she makes her big tap trip the light fantastic entrance and sings "I was born to entertain," the audience is bought and paid for. Information technology's like when Andrea McArdle came center phase with a mangy cur and sang about the lord's day coming out tomorrow.
Dale's claim to fame is singing "The Star Spangled Banner" at Rut games and her stage experience has been limited to kids' productions like Cats Jr., Annie Jr. and Madeleine's Christmas. So her power to deed assuredly in a professional person production without seeming out of place is impressive. She clearly understands the wry humor when Judy says to her, "I want you to have a normal babyhood" and Dale answers blithely, "I've had a normal babyhood. I want to move on." Information technology volition be a pleasure to watch those acting chops deepen over the next few years.
Simply the linchpin is someone else. It's embarrassing to one time once again limited surprise at rediscovering the talent and skill of Amy Miller Brennan. As Tina'south cookie-blistering, pearl-bedecked shrinking violet of a mother and (major spoiler warning) as the transmogrified Broadway star with an unbridled ego and arrogance, Brennan is jaw-droppingly excellent from her buttermilk and bourbon voice to her deft handling of wide one-act. As the housewife, Miller affects a blatant Jackie Kennedy timbre and a Broadway brass equally the diva. When Judy's mind begins to fray, Brennan gets this Norma Desmond await in her eyes that is priceless. When she blasts out the second act "Information technology Tin Never Be That Way Again," she scorches the paint off the walls.
Gabriel Zenone is clearly having a hoot playing the pragmatic Sylvia, a part traditionally played past a man in elevate. Commendably, other than once dropping into his natural baritone for i verse, Zenone and Arisco never even wink at the fact that the character is being played as a homo – which makes information technology all the funnier. With a plummy showbiz voice, Zenone creates a cantankerous between a wounded Joan Crawford from Mildred Pierce to a Gorgon of a stage mother who could have downwardly Mama Rose.
Leigh Bennett steals every scene she's in with her deliciously fell portrayal of a theater critic who loathes the fine art grade simply loves pouring toxic venom all over a production. Intentionally and perfectly channeling Ethel Merman, Bennett belts out i of the funniest songs in the evidence, which ends with the trumpeting proclamation "I detest musicals" sung with that Merman bray, and so adds, "just not as much as I hate this song."
The cast includes the wonderful Sally Bondi doubling as Tina's third-grade teacher whose bid for the stardom was crushed, and as a snoopy entertainment reporter. Jeni Hacker besides doubles every bit Tina'southward untalented and doomed contest for Pippi, as well as the insanely ambitious assistant Eve. Hacker also helped Arisco with musical staging and the choreography created by Nikki Allred.
Equally usual, musical director Eric Alsford non only coaches the singers, but leads a fine pit band including David Nagy, Martha Spangler and Julie Jacobs.
Every bit thoroughly entertaining as Ruthless is, there are flaws. Both acts equally written have ever gone on just a little too long, especially since Tina is offstage for well-nigh of the second half. Also, for all the unflagging energy the cast delivers, this edition drags its heels a bit. But that may have been due to Saturday night'southward unresponsive audience. Information technology also may be in part because at least one role player wasn't picking up cues crisply. That may change when performances resume side by side week.
It also operates at a decibel level they tin hear in Hialeah — not merely the sound system (which once again has improved markedly over the last flavour or two), but the unrelieved fever pitch of characters fairly screaming at each other every few minutes.
Finally, this is a small-scale chamber musical meant to poke fun at over-produced mega-productions. Then this relatively well-heeled undertaking on the main phase undercuts the sense of a scruffy mutt nipping at the heels of the institution like Forbidden Broadway.
That said, Ellis Tillman'due south costume design is absolutely fabulous, mayhap marking a personal all-time. With a bear witness set amorphously around the 1950s or 1960s, he has let himself go wild: gold lame, turbans, leopard pare wraps, pink party dresses, Hedda Hopper hats with feathers sprouting at weird angles, majestic sequined pants, a closet full of furs and stoles accented with ostentatious jewelry and strings of pearls. Each outfit is an extension of character, but all of them formed every bit wicked a satire as anything else in the show.
Tim Bennett'south set design is just as delightful and equally satirical. The Denmark home is Barbie's Dream House in Pepto pink and eggshell blueish, down to the Princess telephone. The second act Manhattan penthouse has that garish thing that passed for sophisticated taste in some people'due south minds.
Information technology's been 18 years since the terrific product at the Colony Theater starring Margot Moreland and Hugh Tater, and 11 years since the accolade-winning version at Hollywood Playhouse with Stacy Schwartz and Wayne LeGette. And then it'southward a pleasure that Arisco and company have brought it dorsum with a sextet of actors willing to hold their artillery aloft at the slightest provocation like Evita asking the crowds not to cry for her.
Ruthless! The Musical plays through Nov. iii at the Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. Performances 8 p.chiliad. Wednesday-Sat, 3 p.one thousand. Sunday and 2 p.thou. Oct. sixteen. Two hours 40 minutes including intermission. Tickets $40-$48, educatee blitz $15. Visit actorsplayhouse.org or telephone call (305) 441-4181.
Source: http://www.floridatheateronstage.com/reviews/showbiz-lampoon-ruthless-is-a-bit-long-but-wickedly-funny/
0 Response to "Ruthless I Can Never Be That Way Again"
Post a Comment