Culture Fiend

I Have “Springtime for Hitler” in My Head

Thank you, Village Theatre.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on May 14, 2012 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

When he’s not playing mild-mannered accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers, young Seattle actor (and Oxford grad) Brian Earp is writing a book on the neuroscience of love. Seriously.

It’s not a bad thing—Mel Brooks wrote a catchy tune. “Springtime for Hitler and Germany. Deutschland is happy and gay!” It’s been lodged in my head since opening night of The Producers at Village Theatre, a big, bawdy, glitzy production—one of the biggest in the theater’s history—that’s my guilty pleasure of the week.

Before The Book of Mormon was the most gleefully offensive musical on Broadway, Brooks and Thomas Meehan’s The Producers was the champion—with a record-setting 12 Tonys to prove it. It starred Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane as scheming producers trying to craft the biggest bomb in theater history (a neo-Nazi musical!), close in one night, and run off with the investors’ cash. (Nowadays, we’d call this “Madoffing with your money.” Ohhh.) The Producers was—is—vintage Brooks satire with ribald T&A gags and a tap-dancing Fuehrer, and Village Theatre hits all the right notes with its production. Credit director Steve Tompkins with putting together a talented ensemble cast of VT regulars—notably Richard Gray as sleazy producer Max Bialystock and Nick DeSantis as a flamboyantly gay Adolf—and newcomers, and knowing the magic of a giant, glittering, swirling swastika.

The Producers
Thru July 1 at Village Theatre (Issaquah), $27–$62
July 6–29, Everett Performing Arts Center

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Tags: musical, Theater, Village Theatre

Musical Vanities Begs the Question: Where’s A Good Bonfire When You Need One?

Despite the best efforts of actress Billie Wildrick, ACT’s new production is all fluff.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 15, 2011 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Vanities star Billie Wildrick flies away with it. Photo: courtesy Chris Bennion.

Vanities: A New Musical, now on stage at ACT Theatre, follows three women through the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, from their cheerleading days at a Texas high school to sorority sisterhood at an unnamed college, and then to a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. There they reunite—it is unclear why—and end up exploring the myriad reasons why one’s high school friends are not one’s adult friends.

Coproduced by 5th Avenue Theatre and ACT, with 5th Ave’s David Armstrong at the helm, the new production is a musical remake of the original, songless Vanities—a 1976 off-Broadway comedy by Jack Heifner. The original play was a major commercial success, and for a time the most-produced play in the world. But critics never liked it, citing shallow characters, ill-devised plotting, and general fluffiness. Thirty-five years later, matters have not improved much.

From the moment we first meet the three women, it is obvious we have seen them many times before. There is clipboard-carrying control freak Kathy (Cayman Ilika), tiny, rule-abiding Joanne (Jennifer Sue Johnson), and Mary (Billie Wildrick), the blond slutty one. Seems there always has to be a slutty one. Songs are sung, and then comes an announcement over the loud speaker that the president has been shot. We in the audience—those of us not hiding lobotomy scars under our combovers, anyway—understand that it is President Kennedy who’s been shot. But not Joanne: “The president of the student council has been shot?” For such obtuseness to be charming, the audience needs to like Joanne, yet we have been given no reason to do so. Before we have time to puzzle over this, it’s off to college, where Kathy’s boyfriend has just dumped her.

But who the hell, I found myself asking as the play skidded into Act Two, is Kathy? Ilika is a striking woman with a strong set of pipes, but other than the consistency in character name, I have no reason to believe she was portraying the same person from act to act. Utterly unyouthful, but at least present, in her portrayal of high school Kathy, she seems to slowly evaporate as the play goes on. At the Manhattan penthouse where she lives in Act Three—a paid woman, not working—we are meant to understand she seeks to find herself via…meditation? (Literal) star-gazing on the veranda? Something like that. It’s inscrutable writing, and Ilika, despite her talents, seems lost in its vagaries. Johnson’s Joanne can be funny—she earns laughs when she develops a stumbling, champagne-induced honesty in the third act—but she veers too clunkily between rigidity and cartoonishness to achieve anything meaningful.

And so it is that Wildrick-as-Mary yoinks the show from her castmates. In a second-act solo, she nimbly converts the Steve Miller Band-ish “Fly Into the Future” into something that feels honest—a small-town woman escaping claustrophobic circumstances and a toxic family situation—despite an absurd red vinyl get-up that appears to have been plucked from the costume archives of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. By the time we get to Manhattan, Wildrick has conjured, from some place far outside this production, a blistering aura of despair around her character’s femme fatale bravado. She stomps around the penthouse porch in stiletto heels, commanding the audience to drink her poison cocktail of glamour and pain.

It’s not quite enough to save the play, but I’ll certainly buy tickets to whatever Wildrick does next.

Vanities: A New Musical is at ACT Theatre through May 1.

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Tags: musical, Review, Theater, 5th Avenue Theatre, ACT

6 Qs for ‘Rock of Ages’ Star Constantine Maroulis

The ‘American Idol’ alum-turned-Broadway star takes his rock on the road.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Feb 10, 2011 at 04:30PM 0 Comments

I wanna rock! Constantine Maroulis (center) stars in Rock of Ages. Photo: courtesy Joan Marcus.

In the middle of the big-hair ’80s spectacle Rock of Ages —with its cadre of strippers and poop jokes and Whitesnake songs—stands Constantine Maroulis, the show’s rock savior. Gone is the moody pout from his days on American Idol. In its place: a shy smile and a big voice as the musical’s star Drew, the wannabe rocker from Detroit who’s all torn up about a small-town girl he met on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. (Did we mention Journey is a major influence here?) It’s a bit of a surprise that Maroulis is taking the role he originated on Broadway—that earned him a Tony nomination—on a national tour, but we’re lucky he did. He lends coolness to high campiness, and turns the musical into an all-out rock concert, complete with air guitar. (See samples from the song list below.)

Before Rock of Ages finishes up its run at the Paramount Theatre on Sunday, Maroulis chatted with me about being on the road—and antiquing. The man loves antiques.

What made you decide to join the national tour?

You know, I set out and did everything I wanted to accomplish with the show in New York. Taking it off-Broadway, opening it on Broadway, the nominations, a very successful run. I actually was sort of ready to walk away from the whole thing. But when they came to me with the tour idea, I was intrigued, definitely. I thought: This is a passion project of mine that I’ve worked so hard for. Why not? I love touring, so that just seemed right.

You just became a dad recently too, right? Is it too early for the family to tour with you?

Yeah, I don’t answer personal questions about my family, but we are very happy. The baby, she was born December 23, and she and her mom [girlfriend Angel Reed] are both happy and healthy.

How are you liking Seattle? Is it your first time out here?

Not my first time, but I love this city. It’s got a great vibe. I have a lot of friends that came here. There’s a great theater scene here, obviously great music. Great restaurants and antiques and cool buildings and stuff. Pretty girls. It’s a lot of fun.

Had any free time to explore?

Not yet, but I’m going to grab a lunch with a friend today, see some friends after the show tonight. Go to some antique shops and things like that… I love traveling; it’s a big part of what I do, my career and my life. The new people, audiences, energies—it keeps it interesting.

Were you a fan of ’80s rock growing up?

I was, I was. I’m 35, I was born in ’75, so 1985 to 1989—those were really crucial, crucial years for me as far as music.

Did you ever get into grunge?

Oh very much. I was way into Poison and Bon Jovi and Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses, so it got progressively a little harder. But when I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it just kind of changed everything for me.

What you’ll hear at Rock of Ages: “Don’t Stop Believin,‘" “Any Way You Want It” (Journey), “Cum on Feel the Noize” (covered by Quiet Riot), “Just Like Living in Paradise” (David Lee Roth), “I Wanna Rock” (Twisted Sister), “Wanted Dead or Alive” (Bon Jovi), “Here I Go Again” (Whitesnake), "Can’t Fight This Feeling” (REO Speedwagon), “Every Rose Has its Thorn” (Poison), and more…

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Tags: Broadway, musical, Celebrity Interview

Review: Xanadu

What if all musicals ended with a roller disco scene?

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jan 20, 2010 at 11:30AM 1 Comments

Oh Xanadu. If only I was a 40-year-old gay man, I would have, could have loved you. I would delight in your sequins and disco balls, your glow sticks and roller skates. Giggled at the strutting “sisters” who offer plenty of finger wagging and “Uh uh, no she didn’t!”s. Because Xanadu—a Broadway musical about a boy and his muse making art and making out in 1980s Venice Beach—is camp of the highest order. The writers even admit to it in the best line of the show: “This is children’s theater for 40-year-old gay men.”

Xanadu bills itself as Broadway’s “surprise hit musical,” like even its creators are blown away by how well it’s been doing. Admittedly, when it opened in 2007, it benefited from the 1,000-watt charm of Cheyenne Jackson as Sonny, a bumbling Bill-and-Ted hybrid who wears scandalously short cutoff jeans and wants to build a place that celebrates art: a roller disco. Jackson has since gone on to star in hit Broadway revival Finian’s Rainbow and on NBC’s 30 Rock (he’s the robot), leaving the show wanting for star power.

In this national tour, under the direction of Christopher Ashley (La Jolla Playhouse), the cast is solid, but the jokes they deliver are practically vaudevillian. Some of the biggest laughs came when Kyra (Elizabeth Stanley), a rollerskating demigod who comes down from Mount Olympus to inspire Sonny, employs an outrageously exaggerated Australian accent (a nod to Olivia Newton-John, who starred as Kyra in the 1980 film version of Xanadu ). Other gags involved audience members—a select few sat onstage last night, including the Rat City Rollergirls. Cast members would nibble on their arms, give them massages, sit next to them and eat popcorn. It’s so silly, it makes Legally Blonde look like an Ibsen play. But the show got a standing ovation. Clearly, it wasn’t written for me—it was written for the girl next to me in leg warmers, a purple sweater, and a side-ponytail. And, of course, 40-year-old gay men.

Xanadu runs through January 24 at Paramount Theatre. For ideas on ‘80s attire to wear to the show, check out Style Editor Laura Cassidy’s blog Where What When.

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Tags: reviews, theater, Xanadu, Paramount Theatre, Broadway, musical, roller disco,