The Curse of the Mummy at Greenway Station through October 24
They say, metaphorically, that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. Well, at Greenway Station, on Lafitte Greenway, lightning has struck not twice but thrice.
With The NOLA Project‘s current production of The Curse of the Mummy, playwright Pete McElligott has achieved a hat trick. Following his Dracula (2023) and Frankenstein (2025), both deliriously creative and both nominated for the GAA’s Critic Choice Award with Dracula winning, he’s now given us his ridiculously wonderful take on The Mummy.
The Mummy is less well-known today than its two cinematic predecessors, which were based on classic novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, respectively. McElligott thus allows his imagination to run even wilder as he comes up with a Mummy-inspired plot. And what a wild imagination he has.
In the aftermath of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, teams of archaeologists from all over the world compete to find other such tombs (and their loot). McElligott stirs into this an adventuresome inventor, Emilia Loudon, who comes from a long line of such fearless women and hopes to build an electrical grid that can power a city; apparently, she believes, the ancient Egyptians knew a thing or two about this.
Emilia’s rival and nemesis? None other than inventor Thomas Edison who’s the bad guy here as he schemes to usurp Emilia’s achievements and call them his own.
There’s more, much more, and with all the verbiage, especially at the start, I’m not sure I got all the plot points (most, but perhaps not all), but it didn’t really matter as I enjoyed the witty wordplay, the campy humor, and McElligott’s finely filigreed characterizations. As Mummy takes us overseas, into caves, and on to an immensely satisfying ending, along the way McElligott not only mixes in wise words about love and relationships, but provides juicy cameos which the cast brings to marvelous comic life.
Matthew Thompson, Keith Claverie, Alex Martinez Wallace, & Arrianna Chai in The Curse of the Mummy (photo by Jillian Desirée Oliveras Maldonado)
And what a grand cast it is. As Emilia, Arrianna Chai makes a wonderful heroine in her NOLA Project debut. Radiating intelligence and a timeless beauty, passionate about her cause and decent at heart, Chai allows an audience to easily understand why every male she journeys with is after her.
Despite the cloths enveloping her, PJ Ruffins shows that this Mummy is as fine a “monster” as one could hope for, one whose heart, even after thousands of years, beats with a gentle warmth.
The Mummy’s other six actors each fluidly shape-shift through a cavalcade of roles, regardless of gender, age and such other constraining demographics. Throughout the show’s two hours, Khiry Armstead, Emily Bagwill and Matthew Thompson are each in top form; how can you not adore Thompson, as the Gallic explorer Jean-Pierre Pierre-Jean, sporting an outrageous French accent?
Natalie Boyd, droll as can be, is too, too funny as Emilia’s 117-year-old great-grandmother, a pioneering woman of her own. That less than 6 months ago Boyd was starring as Medea, superbly, in this same Greenway Station, is an incredible testament to her vast talents.
Alex Martinez Wallace, whether as an emotionally constipated nerd, a geographically challenged “dashing scoundrel” or, letting his flowing hair loose, as a…nope, no spoilers here (but it’s yet another glorious turn of his), brings McElligott’s words to brilliant theatrical life.
And then there’s Keith Claverie who snarls villainously as Thomas Edison, exudes palpitating intensity as a “madman” and, as he “fights” The Invisible Man in balletic fashion, delivers as spectacular a theatrical moment as I’ve ever seen, the kind of performance that, if it occurred in New York, people would be talking about 50 years from now.
Having worked with The NOLA Project for 20+ years, and particularly, Boyd, Claverie & Wallace, McElligott knows just how to tailor roles for them in the most bespoke fashion.
Leslie Claverie directed Frankenstein and co-directed Dracula (with Armstead), and she partners with McElligott again for The Curse of the Mummy, taking audiences underground and onto ships that list–watch how she choreographs the cast to go back and forth from side to side. Claverie’s magnificently stylized direction recalls some of Charles Busch’s early off-off-Broadway productions, and she enables the many facets of McElligott’s wide-ranging script to cohere into the treat-iest of Halloween treats.
Claverie is greatly aided by Megan Harms’ ingenious costumes that turn people into telegraph machines and blood-soaked shirts, as well as by Amara Elizabeth Skinner’s sound design which adds terrific aural effects.
The Curse of the Mummy may not be the cure-all for everything in these challenging times but what an escapist blessing it affords for 120 minutes. One can only hope that, in future years, The NOLA Project will bring it back and run it in repertory with Dracula and Frankenstein. Now that would be a monstrous thrill!
[For tickets and more information, go to https://www.nolaproject.com/mummy]
Laughter on the 23rd Floor at Le Petit Theatre
A mystery recently existed at Le Petit Theatre. Not the Agatha Christie kind, though. Rather one had to wonder why, of all the plays by Neil Simon, Laughter on the 23rd Floor was chosen to open Le Petit’s 110th season.
Now I have nothing against Simon; he’s certainly one of the most successful playwrights, critically and commercially, of the twentieth century. If some of the plays that first made his reputation (Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, etc.) tend to creak a bit, dramaturgically, these days, many of his middle period works, particularly the “BB” trilogy (Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound) have aged very well, even benefitting from smaller productions than the original Broadway-scale ones; I have especially fond memories of the rarely-revived I Ought to Be in Pictures.
Laughter, however, comes from his last, least successful period. A roman à clef inspired by Simon’s own experiences working alongside such other comic geniuses as Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner as young staffers on the legendary Your Show of Shows, Laughter depicts this posse of writers striving to satisfy TV star Max Prince (the Sid Caesar stand-in); meanwhile, looming over them are network threats of censorship due to McCarthyism and budget cuts due to changing tastes.
All well and good with, potentially, lotsa comedy and drama; Reiner mined the same material to great success with The Dick Van Dyke Show. In Laughter, though, Simon tells rather than shows. Exposition runs rampant. Characters are given one trait, little depth. We’re never on the edge of our seats waiting to find out what happens next.
Worst of all, there’s little laughter in Laughter; I counted only four good jokes in the whole thing. And while it may not be Simon’s fault, 30+ years after its debut, references to Gene Kelly, Edward R. Murrow, George Bernard Shaw, the Cherry Lane Theater, Yvonne De Carlo and even Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar and On the Waterfront tend to fall flat (tho the audience noticeably perked up when Streetcar Named Desire was mentioned).
Equally problematic is that Caesar’s star (Sid’s, not Julius’) has faded since his passing 12 years ago; Your Show of Shows–who really remembers it any more? Simon never convinces us that these writers could’ve written material that had all of America gathered around TV screens in the early 1950s. The one extended example we get is Brando as Stanley Kowalski doing Shakespeare. Maybe this was a real knee-slapper in 1954, but now it makes us wonder why Max Prince & Co. were so successful.
Director Scott Burrell did the best he could with this material; his production barreled along and I was never bored.
Yet, unlike most Le Petit productions, the physical aspects of it seemed off. While Andre LaSalle’s split level set allowed for better sight lines as characters ventured upstage, I can’t imagine a writers’ room ever having a design like that; the cramped quarters of Rob Petrie, Buddy and Sally on The Dick Van Dyke Show would’ve been much more likely rather than the high ceilings and snazzy wall sconces that LaSalle provided.
Likewise, the usually reliable Daniel Zimmer’s lighting puzzled; with no mention of rain or grey skies, shouldn’t there have been sunlight streaming thru the window at 10am, especially if they’re on the 23rd floor? Jennifer Johnson’s costumes, however, evoked the mid-century period nicely.
This was one of the rare times when I actually felt sorry for the worthy cast as they valiantly tried to pump life into their characters and the overall situations; that they succeeded as well as they did was admirable even if I did overhear one theatergoer aptly commenting at intermission that there was “lotsa screaming.”
As Prince, Joshua Mark Sienkiewicz, seen to laudable effect earlier this year in God of Carnage, was good and got all the contours of the role, but was slightly miscast. He gave off more of an angry vibe than one of inspired madness; missing was Prince/Caesar’s innate manic-ness and neuroticism.
Danielle Morvant as Carol, the one female writer in the room was pitch perfect; I just wish she had had more to do. The same goes for Brady Lewis as Lucas, the Neil Simon stand-in, who’s more observer than participant.
Two performances stood out. With red hair piled high on head, cat eye glasses perched on her nose and a high-pitched voice, Yvette Bourgeois summoned up a great comic creation as Helen, Prince’s secretary; when, towards the end, Helen’s given her longed-for chance to do stand-up and fails, Bourgeois elicited one of the few moments of empathy for any of these characters.
And as the hypochondriac Ira, supposedly modeled on Mel Brooks, A.J. Allegra was the last to enter but lit up the stage with full-blown comic energy and just the right style for the material. Oozing neurosis and hogging the spotlight, Ira is the best written part and Allegra took full advantage of it. Having been serving as Le Petit’s Artistic Director and mostly directing these past few years, it was an unalloyed pleasure seeing Allegra on stage again in a prime role.
A.J. Allegra (on table) and the cast of Laughter on the 23rd Floor (photo by Britney Werner)
I can perhaps understand why Laughter was programmed, its not very well-developed narrative strand about McCarthyism a parallel to Trump’s recent attacks on late night talk shows. But, ultimately, Laughter on the 23rd Floor is a bygone relic, a subpar Broadway Neil Simon comedy about a bygone era. Let’s hope Le Petit, now headed by Allegra and new Executive Director Nicole Hackmann, will be presenting more vital shows in the future.
[To see Le Petit’s upcoming schedule, go to https://www.lepetittheatre.com/]
New in New York
I usually see one or two Broadway shows when I’m in New York, but when I was there last month, everything running I had either seen (including two previous productions of the worthy School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, and the joyously hysterical Schmigadoon!), will be seeing at the Saenger this season (Buena Vista Social Club, The Outsiders, Just in Time, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child), or had no desire to see (Paranormal Activity, Stranger Things: The First Shadow).
Which was fine because I did see the most brilliant, the most audacious and the most entertaining original show I’ve seen in ages. If you’re going to be in NYC before November 30, do NOT miss Slam Frank at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village. It turned out to be the exact show for our times that I desperately wanted to see but never imagined that anyone could come up with.
Slam Frank takes its inspiration from an actual tweet which went viral in 2022 that asked “Did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her white privilege?” From this slender prompt, Joel Sinensky (book) and Andrew Fox (music and lyrics) have crafted a postmodern show that makes the case for diversity…and sends it up. That includes performance art…and sends it up. That owes a lot to Hamilton but is it stealing from Lin-Manuel Miranda? Lovingly ripping him off? Criticizing the multi-Tony-winningjuggernaut? All of the above?
None of this would matter if Slam Frank wasn’t SO darn good. But its 15 song score is one of the best I’ve heard in ages, its numbers reflecting a diverse range of styles (Broadway, pop, hip hop, rap, ballad, etc.), and, more importantly, featuring tunes you actually wouldn’t mind hearing again, something all too rare these days.
Sinensky’s book brims with wit and takes you into a funhouse filled with mirrors as you wonder when it’s being sincere and who are the true targets of the authors’ barbs. (Though some are pretty clear such as “Fck you Neil Simon and double fck you David Mamet.” Subtle Frank ain’t…except when it is.) Its tongue is in its cheek and pointing right at you (and you and you and you) simultaneously.
You enter the theater, excuse me, “The Annex” as it is dubbed, a reference to the concealed space where Anne Frank hid for over two years during World War II, to discover Adam Koch’s mostly bare stage, though there are balcony spaces higher up which will be well-used later; Zack Lobel’s quick-changing videos do a lot of the heavy lifting for scene setting. Jamie Roderick’s Christmas lights adorn the stage giving it a festive feel in contrast to the serious subject at hand; he’ll employ razzle-dazzle lighting throughout the rest of the show, his spotlights directing eyes where to look.
Sam LaFrage’s slam-bang direction keeps the action flowing, the characterizations sharp as a stiletto, and corrals the disparate elements of Slam Frank into a cohesive whole. Frank operates with so many exacting pistons firing at the same time that I’d hate to see it done by lesser hands; under LaFrage’s watchful eyes, Sinensky and Fox get the production of their (fever) dreams.
In this reimagined Diary of Anne Frank, Anne is actually Latinx (she calls herself “Anita Franco”), her mother is Black, her father is gay & neurodivergent, and her kindasorta boyfriend in the attic comes out as non-binary. And that’s the straightforward part of the script. Reviewers have been asked not to divulge the last 20 minutes of the show (and I won’t) but it’s a doozy–transgressive, provocative and I loved it.
The cast can’t be beat, all of them so polished, not only in ways that you’d expect from top tier NYC performers (acting, singing, dancing), but in pinpointing the exact “snark vs. sincerity” setting for each of their boldly reinvented, iconic characters.
The cast of Slam Frank (photo by Shawn Salley)
Olivia Bernábe should be showered with awards for her exuberant Anita who exudes just the right amount of both sugar and spice. And “Brava!” to her as she spits out Fox’s lyrics in rat-a-tat fashion–unlike Hamiltonians, I could understand virtually every word Bernábe rapped (same went for the rest of the cast, tho Bernábe seemed to have the majority of the tongue-twisting lyrics).
As Anne/Anita’s mother Edith, Austen Horne perfectly balances righteous indignation with sending up the “angry Black woman” stereotype. Horne is so knowing and gives such an incisive comic performance I couldn’t help wondering “When will she be cast as a repertory member on SNL?”
Amelia Louise Barr toggles between Anne’s stoic sister Margot and her doting “Abuela” (grandmother), whose shawl is covered with yellow stars like those the Nazis made Jews wear, just one of costume designer Sarah Lockwood’s many clever touches. Barr shines as these two wildly different characters.
Rocky Paterra as father Otto, and playing the Van Daans who come to share the Annex with the Franks, John Anker Bow as the obnoxious Mr., Jaz Zepatos as the put-upon Mrs., and Alex Lewis as their finding-his-gender-identity son Peter–all wholly divine.
And last, but certainly not least, is Walker Stovall in the mostly wordless, but utterly essential, role of “The ASM” (“Assistant Stage Manager”) whose live video feeds parody every show that has used this once cutting edge, now cliched device. He does a lot of other things really, really well, too. And is absolutely adorable when he comes out at one point wearing only a jockstrap.
I might just quibble with Sinensky positing Slam Frank as a show-within-a show. While, as he gives a curtain speech, Bow is priceless as the mush-mouthed Artistic Director of the community theater presenting this “woke” production, it really doesn’t add much to what comes afterwards; it reminded me of the not-all-that-essential intro to The Taming of the Shrew. More importantly, ain’t no way some community theater could mount such a fiendishly well-written, phenomenally performed show.
Oh yes, there’s also an extended sequence about Anne/Anita’s Mexican roots that, afterwards, even one of the characters acknowledges was a bit of an overlong detour.
Other than that, Slam Frank might best be described as a thrilling amusement park ride that, the second you get off, you immediately want to experience again. In spite of all the dreck around, after seeing Slam Frank, I again believe that musical theater can be outrageously fabulous at heart.
[For more information and tickets, go to https://www.slamfrankmusical.com/]
