11th Purple Party Easter Grand Marshals Reception raises $3,522 @ The Double Play ~ New Orleans ambush paparazzi 1st Bunnies in the Big Easy: Put the Good in Friday raises $5,270 @ Bywater Patio Bar & Secret Garden ~ New Orleans 26 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM April 13-26, 2010 Official ficial Gay Easter Parade Guide GayEasterParade.COM
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Little Murders at the Marigny Theater trodding the boards by Brian Sands Email: bsnola2@hotmail.com After nearly four years of hits, misses and worthy, if imperfect, offerings, Cripple Creek Theater Company has finally arrived with a vengeance with a pitch perfect production of Jules Feiffer s scabrous comedy Little Murders. A flop on Broadway in 1967, Murders returned two years later in a hit off-broadway production. Forty years later, if a reliance on snailmail and land-based telephones seems a bit quaint, Feiffer s social satire remains just as potent in the age of Obama as in the reign of Nixon. Assaulted by daily challenges (blackouts, traffic jams, pollution, obscene phone callers in addition to all sorts of urban violence), the sit comesque Newquist family prepares to meet daughter Patsy s fiancé whom Dad Carol is convinced will be a swish like all her other boyfriends. (Never mind that he hardly notices that son Kenny is ready to bust out of the closet.) As Mom Marjorie tries to keep the peace, Patsy arrives with Alfred, a pathologically passive photographer who has become wildly successful with his images of excrement. After the lovebirds settle their emotional conflicts, a quick marriage ceremony is followed by tragedy which seemingly liberates Alfred from his dourness. The play ends as the Newquists discover how best to deal with modern life in a manner apt and predictive of current times. Think of Neil Simon in his Barefoot in the Park/ The Prisoner of Second Avenue period on mescaline. Or Edward Albee crossed with a Warner Brothers cartoon. Either way, so much of today s comedy looks childish compared with Feiffer s masterpiece. Working with a cast of newcomers and Cripple Creek veterans, first time director Andrea Carlin elicited immaculate timing from them and maintained a beautiful balance between stylized absurdism and heightened realism. I look forward to seeing more of her work. As the father who doesn t want to be called by his feminine-sounding name, Jackson Townsend blustered and boiled with consummate skill, a fed up paterfamilias at the end of his rope who would probably be a Teabagger today. Emilie Whelan brought out Patsy s overpowering determination with conviction but balanced it with an emotional delicacy that lay just below the surface; with Townsend as her doting father, Whelan showed how easy it is for Patsy to wrap him around her little finger. Electra complex anyone? Though too young for Marjorie, Corina Lill captured this put upon Mom s trying-too-hard-to-please mien; keeping herself in check, Lill demonstrated that Patsy could be a younger version of herself emancipated by feminism. If Ross Britz overdid, though just by a smidgen, Kenny s hormonal urgencies in the first act, in the second, after being outed, he revealed a pleasing suavity as a young homosexual comfortable in his own skin, a swish perhaps but not swishy. Andrew Farrier made Alfred s metamorphosis from determined milquetoast to expansive entrepreneur thoroughly believable; Farrier s soft personality masked a sturdy backbone that could endure beatings as an existential statement. In three single-scene roles usually played by one actor, Jim Wright as a determined judge; Ian Hoch as a flaky minister; and, especially, Lloyd Dillon as an overwrought police lieutenant contributed fine comic turns. Selena Poznak s lighting, with its blood red overtones, suggested that the Newquists are living in a bloody Hell. They probably wouldn t disagree. Though certainly a product of the upheavals of the late 1960s, Feiffer s comedy of bad manners remains an indictment of modern times that has yet to go out of fashion. There should be a mandatory revival of it ever twenty years or so, providing it s as fine as Cripple Creek s. When Pigs Fly at Le Chat Noir >From its opening Dream Curly ballet, with five differ ently outfitted but equally fab Curly s, to its Over the Top finale, When Pigs Fly celebrates the triumph of the spectacular over the mundane and, in so doing, provides an evening of dizzying fun, a throwback to off- Broadway revues of the 1950s. Jermaine Keelen, Patrick Mendelson, William Bryant, Brian Peterson & Kyle Daigrepont in When Pigs Fly Conceived by Howard Crabtree and Mark Waldrop, When Pigs Fly began its long off-broadway run in August 1996. Sadly, Crabtree was felled by AIDS two months earlier just a few days after finishing the costumes that were worthy of a gay Mardi Gras Ball. Giving the show its regional premiere, Theatre 13 s budget may be slightly smaller than off-broadway s but Valerie Johnson s scrumptious costumes bring trees, mermaids and rococo vanities to colorful life with an abundance of feathers, sequins, and god knows what else. Somewhere, Crabtree is smiling with pride. The plot, such as it is, has the young Howard attempting to do a grand show to prove wrong his high school guidance counselor who warned him he d only be a successful theater artist when pigs fly. In support of Howard s quest, Waldrop s sketches & lyrics are witty & punny and if Dick Gallagher s music is not too, too memorable it serves Waldrop s words well. With musical director James Kelley at the piano keeping things moving along, Gary Rucker directed the five man ensemble with his usual panache. William Bryant made an endearing Howard. Kyle Daigrepont drolly spun torch songs expressing unrequited love for Newt Gingrich, Strom Thurmond, and Rush Limbaugh. Patrick Mendelson amused as a lonely halfman/half-horse (originally, a centaur) who wonders why it s hard for him to find a date. Jermaine Keelen twinkled through Bigger is Better, an ode to extravagance, among other numbers. And the luscious Brian Peterson, first among equals, brought perkiness to new heights as an adult Little Orphan Annie heading a Presidential commission on optimism. As with his Running With Scissors appearances, Peterson found untold humor by emphasizing his characters truthfulness whether as the terminally smiling Carol Ann Knippel, a regional theater impresario forced to present original work ( Brutally Frank, the Songs of Frank Loesser ) due to the dearth of new Broadway shows, or as a disgruntled actor fed up with Howard s ineptitude. One wishes the cast s voices were a little stronger, but it doesn t really matter since these pros know how to put over cheeky, campy material like this with innate elan. Karen Hebert & Kevin Champagne filled Le Chat s small stage with fizzy choreography while Su Gonczy s pretty lighting seemed to come up with 20 shades of pink. And though the copious wigs are uncredited, they were FAB-U-LOUS! Maybe the first act finale, You Can t Take the Color Out of Colorado, which goes on about how necessary and vital gays are, is a bit passé. Perhaps the Newt/Strom numbers, though cute, are a bit dated; how about a new one for Larry Craig, Mr. Waldrop? And if Pigs triumphs in its cheery waggishness, it s on less solid artistic ground when it occasionally turns serious. But these are minor quibbles. Because, if you re like me, you ll leave this delightful revue with your laughter and smile muscles feeling sore. God s Trombones at the Anthony Bean Community Theater Approaching the Anthony Bean Community Theater I was familiar with neither James Weldon Johnson nor God s Trombones his classic 1927 book of poems, subtitled Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Moreover, if you had told me the evening would consist of these sermons interspersed with traditional spirituals sung by a small choir and a history of the old-time Negro preacher related by a 95 year old preacher s widow, I might have doubted the theatrical validity of such a performance. Having seen the show, I doubt no more. Under Anthony Bean s simple but effective direction, Donna King s Sister Caroline anchored the presentation relating Johnson s text about Negro preachers, men of positive genius and the God s trombones of the title. The preacher, we are told, was above all an orator, and in good measure an actor...a master of all modes of eloquence...from a sepulchral whisper to a crashing thunder clap. Seven fine actors lived up to Johnson s historical description and expertly brought these sermons to life with the dramatic forcefulness and finesse of experienced Shakespearean players. It was a pleasure to see Tony Felix s talents continue to expand as he captured the inspiring cadences of a charismatic young preacher in The Creation. Though built like a linebacker, Alfred Aubrey wonderfully brought to life both a snake and the Ark in Noah Built the Ark. Damany Cormier straddled the border between religion and entertainment in The Crucifixion with captivating results. Derrick Deal found humor and passion in Let My People Go s retelling of the story of Moses freeing the Hebrew slaves. In Go Down Death: A Funeral Sermon, Harold X. Evans used words as a palliative to heal people s daily woes. Darryl Lutcher and Bean rounded out the preachers. King eschewed old lady mannerisms but rather endowed Sister Caroline with deep-rooted conviction to make the preacher s wife a simple but important presence. In its first appearance since Katrina, Sheriff Marlin Gusman s Voice of Thunder Choir, a prison-based seven man [continued on 42] 28 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM April 13-26, 2010 Official ficial Gay Easter Parade Guide GayEasterParade.COM
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Hunter s fabulous Spring BBQ acadiana paparazzi Justin finally made it! DJ Kyle D & company at Sound Factory These boys are always a mess! Clearly Mary, clearly... Amy & Ryan Show some love for Valarie Sugarbaker Rick, Chris & Scott @ Jules Joey Collins doing shots on the bar @ Jules Eureka Springs & friend @ Sound Factory Mario & his friends from Dallas hanging out @ Sound Factory Besties!! Fabulous, Love, Beautiful ~ Lafayette, Louisiana ~ Photos by Joey Collins Belinda Botox, always fabulous ILY! Good friends hanging out @ Sound Factory Well Rick & John, what do you have to say for yourselves now? Cutting up @ Jules Andre, Jason, Corey & Kevin @ Jules OMG, it s Mark Suire! 30 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM April 13-26, 2010 Official ficial Gay Easter Parade Guide GayEasterParade.COM Could there be a more beautiful group?