With all the construction, it’s a bit bewildering to navigate into the Whitefish Bay High School Auditorium, but I managed to get there before the penultimate dress rehearsal of the Bay Players' production of Forbidden Broadway: Greatest Hits. The show’s director Ray Bradford was nice enough to let me see the show in advancea welcome opportunity on a weekend with some five shows opening-up . . .
The set is minimal for Forbidden Broadwaya Broadway musical revue spoof. The title has become something of a brand name in and around New Yorkauthor Gerard Alessandrini writes enough Broadway parody songs to fill a comfortable evening’s entertainment for a disposable comedy show that has a nice, healthy run until Alessandrini has enough new material to stage another Forbidden Broadway show.
Bradford’s decision to stage the show with the Bay Players is a provocative one. Broadway musicals are a staple for the venerable community theatre group and so many like it all over the country. While they have the reputation of not being as polished as professional productions, community theatre musicals have the opportunity to hit emotional chords that may lie just out of reach of more established actors.
Staging a community theatre program that casually satirizes some of the most beloved musicals of the past 50 years allows an opportunity for the distinctive emotional mix of community theatre to take some cathartic jabs at the over-hyped machinery of Broadway.
The program features parodies of iconic tunes from Annie, Chicago, Rent, Spamalot, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia and others. There’s an extended bit about Les Miserables. It’s a fast-paced comic musical with an enjoyable amount of lyrical detail. Some of the comedy is quite lame. The penultimate dress rehearsal had extended moments that didn’t quite seem to be working, but Bradford’s direction holds it all together pretty well.
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Forbidden Broadway uses actual Broadway tunes with spoof lyrics . . . something which could come across as being profoundly tedious if the actors were to camp-up the comedy and play the music as flat comedy. Bradford directs the ensemble to perform the show as a straight-ahead, serious musical revue with serious emotions. Estee O’Connor performs a beautifully passionate parody of a song from Wicked . . . Later-on she’s joining the entire cast in the classic line from Rent performing Seasons Of Hype. The tune is one of those rare pieces of music that resonates in a dimly lit theatre with a single piano regardless of who is performing it . . . that there is real talent in the cast performing makes it feel all the more interesting . . . amplifying the humor of slightly lame comic lyrics.
Judging from last night, the best comedy in the show seems to come from serious emotion being poured into something frivolous. In a way, that’s the inadvertent comedy of every Broadway musical. It’s nice to see that aspect of things brought into the center of the stage lights even if the production isn’t perfectly executed by a full ensemble of professionals.
The Bay Players’ production of Forbidden Broadway: Greatest Hits runs September 24th – October 2nd at The Whitefish Bay High School Auditorium on 1200 East Fairmount.
