All around me people are laughing uproariously, slapping their knees, bursting into applause mid song and here I sit in the middle of it all utterly baffled. Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song at Theater 555 is not my cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for anyone! Clearly Gerard Alessandrini’s long running series is beloved by many. Even I had a few good laughs here and there. Overall though I found it a repetitive, drawn out, work that leaned on mean spiritedness over being actually funny.
The typical Forbidden Broadway number follows the same format. One of the show’s four performers comes out and within their first few lines directly states who they’ll be lampooning. This proves to be a necessary gesture given that the impressions are uneven at best. Danny Hayward and Jenny Lee Stern are skilled impersonators (Hayward’s trifecta of Cabaret emcees and Stern’s Patti LuPone are among the standouts), but Chris Collins-Pisano and Nicole Vanessa Ortiz (though a skilled singer) do little to differentiate their characters. Then, over the course of a song that’s much too long, the performer names one superficial reason their target is bad actually and repeats it over and over. Ben Platt has no charisma, Bernadette Peters is old but still playing sexy, Daniel Radcliffe is just doing Harry Potter, the list goes on. The observations aren’t particularly clever and frequently not even accurate (I have plenty of problems with Ben Platt but is he really charismaless?)
Photo by Carol Rosegg
DANNY HAYWARD (left) and CHRIS COLLINS-PISANO (right) spoof Back to the Future
The numbers that work best have an actual perspective and arc. Though it overstays its welcome, the scene between young Alicia Keys and her very much alive piano teacher is an amusing take on Hell’s Kitchen. The Back to the Future number lays out the potentially funny concept of derailing Sondheim’s musical theater career by indulging his secret fascination with cars, but falters in the execution. The main issue is that Alessandrini seems to intend for Back to the Future to serve as a framing device, but introduces it too late and ineffectively threads it throughout leaving it feeling like the show is getting an excessive amount of stage time for no reason.
There are also moments so deliriously stupid they managed to get a giggle out of me. Alessandrini liked the recent revival of Company so all he has to critique is the close quarters the set forced the actors into thus prompting the delightfully inane hook “bump-a-knee”. Unfortunately most of the numbers are neither silly, nor have anywhere to go. They are simply negative.
Photo By Carol Rosegg JENNY LEE STERN (left) and DANNY HAYWARD (right) spoof Cabaret
In his director’s note Alessandrini writes, “Even when this show began to spoof Broadway in 1982, it was already a blast from the past. Theatre goers and New Yorkers recognized that FB was a throwback to the 1950s, like the Julius Monk’s Upstairs at the Downstairs revues and An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May. So, when people refer to our comedy as old-fashioned, I only take that as a compliment because that is exactly the point!” That it’s old fashioned isn’t my problem with Forbidden Broadway. There is a certain giddy glee in watching the cast frantically rotating between Dustin Cross’s wild costumes and Ian Joseph’s wigs. Gerry McIntyre’s choreography is old school, but effective. Glenn Bassett’s set transports us even in its simplicity. I got a kick out of watching music director Fred Barton’s emphatic piano accompaniment. There are charming aspects to this production for sure. My problem with it is that it’s simply not funny. At least not to me. The chief joy seems to be the sense of self-satisfied in-the-know pride one gets in correctly identifying and deeming inferior whichever actor and/or song is being parodied. Or maybe people are just laughing because everyone else is and they want to seem in the loop.
But maybe I’m taking this all too seriously. After all, the show itself doesn’t seem too concerned with its own validity. As the cast sings in the second number, Forbidden Broadway- Not On Broadway (a cheeky call out to the show’s canceled Broadway run), “Our wit will never be legit but that’s ok!” And maybe for some it is.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Morgan Skolnik.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
