NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Psycho Beach Party
Trish Denmark and Fred Nuccio,
the savvy producers for the
True Brew Theatre, have struck pay dirt yet again. With a boffo revival of one of their earliest hits, Carl Walker's production of Charles Busch's madcap, ridiculous comedy, Psycho Beach Party, these two theatre empresarios are now the official hit makers of New Orleans. If you liked ...And The Ball And All, Ruthless! or the recent Daryl's Perils, you'll be in hog heaven with Psycho Beach Party.
And if you saw its earlier incarnation in 1990, you won't recognize the latest version, which is all sun beams and day-glo now-thanks to designer Ron Williams-with all performers humming the same zany tune. This is, after all, a take-off on, an insane spoof of 60's movie dreck, from Gidget to Beach Blanket Bingo to aging actresses like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, to The Three Faces Of Eve, with just a smidgeon of sex symbols Dee/Monroe/Mansfield tossed in to sweeten the pot.
Everything about this production is deliciously perverse, from the chintzy 60's memorabilia hanging from fishnet that surrounds the audience to the beige padded floor that serves brilliantly as beach sand, upon which the action transpires at warp speed, to the baby blue Rorschach inkblot backdrop that lets you know immediately that the "psycho" part of this beach party is going to predominate.
The plot revolves around 16 year old Florence Forrest (played to cross-dressing, wide-eyed perfection by Brian Rosenberg) and her insatiable quest to become a Surf Queen. Florence (nicknamed "Chicklet" because when the other girls sprouted, and became "chicks," she lagged behind and became a skinny "chicklet") has another problem. Like Joanne Woodward's Eve, she suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder-Chicklet's mind contains a dozen or more alter-egos, including a vamping dominatrix, Anne Bowman (who unleashes havoc all over the beach by shaving sleeping sunbathers head to toe), soul-sister Safeway-checker Tye-Lee, male model heartthrob Steve-each one of whom is triggered into existence by the word "red."
Of course, this condition was caused by her voracious ex-whore of a mommie dearest-a part Becky Allen consumes with consummate glee-and the journey to its resolution, in 90 mincing minutes, is the plot.
Along the way we're served up delirious double and triple entendres, outright profanity, fabulous directorial flourishes (a balletic slow-motion fight sequence, an equally balletic swimming sequence, a rip roaring surfing sequence) and rapier-like attacks on the ludicrous movie industry with such peripheral but on-the-mark characters as Chicklet's philosophy-spouting side-kick Berdine (Melissa Parrish); the "men" in her life: the main beach bum Kanaka (butch and hairy Bob Scully who has a deep desire to be dominated); her ultimate "other", Star Cat (Pete Bontrager); Yo Yo (Richard Read) and Provoloney (Marco Esteban Hidalgo) who discover their love for one another while enacting a scene (the underwater ballet) for a screenplay they're writing for movie star Bettina Barnes (gorgeous Kerry Mendelson) who has run away from the studio because of inferior roles.
And then there is Roy Haylock, New Orleans' answer to Edith Head-or at least Freddy Wittop (look him up). His first appearance in drag in Mr. Walker's definitive production of last summer's Pageant, could not possibly prepare this reviewer for the outstanding performance he turns in both as costume designer and as Marvel Ann, the scuzzy beach broad whose outfits provoke gales of laughter before he/she even opens his/her mouth with dialogue even Dorothy Parker would envy. His timing, takes, and general attitude are priceless. He has learned his lessons well from his illustrious roommie, Becky Allen. Together they must be seen to be believed.
The Amorous Flea
C
omparing Rivertown's latest, a
(musical) adaptation of
Moliere's The School For Wives called The Amorous Flea, to Psycho Beach Party is like comparing gold to tin foil.
With the exception of the leading lady, Amanda Norman-Rucker, nothing in this production hangs together; indeed, it has been so under rehearsed and so poorly staged and cast by director Elliott Keener that the least said by this reviewer the better. Excellent actors like Randy Cheramie and Peter Gabb were reduced to fumbling lines, missing entrances and other theatrical no-no's usually associated with inept directorial control. But the final responsibility for this bomb rests at the feet of Charlie Ward, the indefatigable producer who chose this abortive adaptation because of fond memories of a college production. He should have reread it before doing it-and listened once again to the non-score. Harpsicords, even sampled ones, belong in the conservatory-not in a musical comedy.
The next production of the Kenner community theater will be Stocker Fontelieu's production of Ken Ludwig's Moon Over Buffalo--at least it was written in this century.
Complexions
A new dance company (created
in 1993) under the direction of
Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson (two ex-members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre) which was created to be "an extension of a common appreciation for beauty of difference, for setting the pace, for pushing limits, breaking boundaries and taking chances" recently played a one-night gig at the Theatre of the Performing Arts to a full house.
Presented by the New Orleans Ballet Association, Complexions' ads bearing pictures of tight muscled men did much to sell out such an unknown company.
Due to this year's on-going parking conflicts with the Municipal Auditorium's popular ice hockey, the performance was twenty minutes late in beginning. By the second intermission of the three-act program, many in the audience had fled-they only missed more of the same.
True, the company bills itself as a "concept in dance" but by chocking their program with so many dances, most set to the same Phillip Glass-like repetitive over amplified percussive music, the atheletic performers, exhibiting the rainbow hues of the human race, took on the aspect of aerobic dancers on speed-mirroring the jagged, angular lines cast through smoke by the many lighting instruments of lighting designer Michael Korsch's elaborate designs, not only in their energetic moves but also in the angular, robotic use of the arms.
Opening soloist Sharita Allen set the tone at the outset, performing a dervishesque convolution to the repetitively enervating loud rhythms emitting from the massive speakers as she shook her cellutitic "booty." Her "avoirdupois" became her medal of honor and she did indeed push limits. Likewise, in another solo, another female member of the troupe danced through physical limitations to great effect. Sheri Williams, the company's fitness trainer, exhibits thunder thighs from hell and a chest as flat as a boy's as she practically screws herself into the floor to the unlikely music of Steve Reich in a dance called "Growth." Hers was the most admired performance of the long evening.
Other dances that tried to break the boundaries: a dance to a torch song, dances with no accompaniement and a dance broken occasionally for a few breathless, garbled amplified words from the dancers themselves.
What is most telling about this explosively energetic company of ten-it travels with its own chiropractor.
