November 2019
To
my sensibility, Forbidden Broadway, has
always been a hit-or-miss proposition, and mostly miss. Then again, I have also
missed many of its incarnations, since the first edition debuted in 1982; but
there’s enough consistent between what I have seen and what I’ve heard (on
several of its various cast albums) that I have an informed enough opinion. However,
that opinion is tempered by something other than the show itself: an awareness
that it’s not really for insiders.
It’s a satire of whatever the current, mainstream theatre scene may be, for
theatre aficionados who only know the general lay of the land, and, to a lesser
degree, tourists…those two groups making up the majority of its audiences.
But even taken on those terms, the
problem I tend to have with the revue—as always, written and directed by Gerard Alessandrini—is that its targets
tend to be soft. Stuff you can make mild fun of, but not much truly worthy of
satirical evisceration.
To say that this has altogether changed with the new edition,
Forbidden
Broadway: The Next Generation, is
somewhat misleading, but it has changed quite a bit in the show’s favor,
because in the current climate, there are
targets worth the skewering, such as the new take on Oklahoma! (called here Wokelahoma!),
whose new-awareness excesses come under fire (in Wokelahoma‘s finale, the building chant is not the show’s title,
but rather, ‚”We’re so…angry! We’re
so…angry!”); jukebox approaches to new musicals (Moulin Rude); the preoccupation with multi-cultural and gender
representation (sung to the tune of ”Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, a
commentary called ‚”Everything Now is Inclusive”); and the trend toward making
any recent-ish movie, that was ever even remotely popular enough to be brand-name
marketed, into a musical.
And those made it worth sitting
through what struck me as the soft-target misfires, vague lobs at Irish drama,
the Fosse/Verdon miniseries,
Zellweger as Judy Garland in the current film, among others.
As always, the look-how-funny-this-is playing style is sometimes too aggressive
for the show’s own good, but the compensating factor there, also as always, is
a crazy-talented cast with a stunning gift for merciless mimickry: Chris Collins-Pisano, Immanuel Houston, Joshua Turchin and
the women, Aline Mayagoitia, Katheryne Penny, and Jerry Lee Stern, who apparently switch
off, since Ms. Penny is billed as a regular player but was not in the cast the
night I attended (a program insert particularizes who is).
Forbidden Broadway will always, at heart, be what it is. And made for those who would get the
most out of it. You can’t really argue with an institution like that; but when it
ups its game, you can give it an instant toot.
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