Crescendo Falls, Episode Four:
Catacomb-Over
Theater Schmeater
Through Sept 2.
A few of the sins in this episode of Crescendo Falls: blackouts, blackmail, faked amnesia, infidelity, involuntary artificial insemination, cocksucking clergy, a daughter prostituted by her mother, rape at a frat party, and one character who commits inadvertent patricide and inadvertent incest, due to a paternity mystery solved post delicto. Clearly, the play—a burlesque of soap operas about the bed-hopping, backstabbing antics of a powerful record-industry family and their doctors, employees, and hangers-on—is deliciously sleazy. It’s also tasteless (to paraphrase one joke: “Rape is never funny, no matter how ugly the victim”). But here’s the problem: It’s only intermittently funny.
The script, by New Yorker Kevin Hammonds, is partly to blame—it’s more nasty than amusing, though there’s a comedy gold mine in there for an ensemble that’s smart, tight, and fearless enough to do a little extrapolation. But this crew isn’t that ensemble, despite the fact that director Erik Hill and most of the actors are veterans of previous episodes, which showed more potential. The 12-person cast hits a few great, manic moments: Matt Dennie, as a high-powered crook, does a captivatingly clownish death scene. Philip D. Clarke plays a variety of over-the-top homos (including one Father Dick). And Teri Weagant is consistently energetic and funny, doing double duty as a ruthlessly horny blackmailer and miserable TV reporter.
Crescendo Falls started on Theater Schmeater’s late-night rotation, which has been home to episodic comedy successes like The Twilight Zone and Money and Run. It’s been bumped into the prime-time slot, replacing a world-premiere project called The Mayor of Donkey Run that presumably fell apart. Crescendo Falls seems better suited to delirious late-night pleasure than sober prime-time scrutiny. BRENDAN KILEY
The Cotton Gin
Unexpected Productions
Through Aug 26.
The Cotton Gin is a rudimentary concept (a bar for drunk Muppets!) obviously made for Re-bar-style semihysterics. Unfortunately, it’s locked into the proper improv etiquette of Unexpected Productions, and—let’s face it—long-form improvisation is fussy. You need your beginning, you need your end, you need a climax in which many if not all of the previously introduced characters congregate and resolve their puppety problems. But these are not the needs of the audience—who basically just want to see puppets get drunk and say inadvertently witty shit.
In The Cotton Gin, exactly one of the puppeteers recognizes our desire for stupid non sequiturs and unwarranted aggression: Elizabeth Westermann, in the role of Scruffy, who also came up with the concept for the show. Scruffy is blue and fuzzy and likes to undercut other characters with random insults (a big improv no-no). The rest of the puppets have better-defined characters (a kidnapper with a side business hawking zygotes, the bar slut, an emo kid named Emo who loses his anal virginity in jail), but they are sort of dull.
Troy Mink (the Unexpected Productions alumnus behind Carlotta’s Late-Nite Wing Ding) is credited with directing the show. I would chide him for letting all these puppeteers slide into that self-absorption endemic to improv artists, but, interestingly, he says “directing” is too strong a word for his involvement: “They rejected the ideas I tried to give them.” ANNIE WAGNER
The Love List
Red Ribbon Productions
at Broadway Performance Hall
Through Sept 2.
Here’s what happens in Norm Foster’s The Love List: One British man, Bill, receives a piece of paper on his 50th birthday from his semisuccessful novelist friend, Leon. All Bill has to do is write down his ideal mate’s top 10 qualities and a matchmaking service run by a mysterious gypsy (is there any other kind?) guarantees his satisfaction. The two pals discuss, disagree, and settle on a list (including “Trusts me,” “Leaves me alone when I want her to,” and “Oral sex”), and Justine, the incarnation of Bill’s every wish, knocks on the door. Then, unbeknownst to Bill, Leon alters the list. Justine changes accordingly and the fun begins.
The problem with The Love List is not the acting. Jack Hamblin gives Bill a bemused energy as the straight-laced statistician bowled over by his first “real” love. His acting is strongly physical, making outlandish faces as he’s confronted with increasingly outlandish situations, allowing his awkward, angular body to convey the depth of his continual surprise. Brian Vyrostek offers a more subdued Leon, content to leave most of the comedy to Bill and Justine, but stepping up when needed for a laugh or two. Cindy Whiston as Justine has the most raw material to work with as she’s changing every few minutes in the second act, depending on whether the boys rank “Unpredictable” or “Enjoys singing” higher on the list. She’s appropriately manic, sometimes funny, and does her best with what she’s given.
The problem is that the script simply isn’t worth the effort. The Love List is a farce, injected, late in the second act, with some highfalutin ideas about the pursuit of impossible perfection. It goes from kinda funny—if you’re into the whole Weird Science thing—to a ham-fisted morality tale with an all-too-predictable ending. CHRIS McCANN
