History Repeating

MusicalFare Theatre has its plate full this season, with two shows running concurrently:  “Bat Boy” at Studio Arena Theater, and “A Brief History of White Music” on their Amherst stage.  The two shows could not be more different, though they are both very comedic and touching, the sort of shows MusicalFare is apt at producing.  They tug at your heartstrings and make you spoil your pants in laughter.

With their regular company members ripping up the Studio Arena stage with flying bats and cross-dressing sheriffs, executive and artistic director Randy Kramer said before last night’s opening night performance of “A Brief History...” that he wanted a show that wouldn’t require audience members to think, just good musical fun.  And indeed, it is.

The premise is, well there isn’t one really.  Most musical revues tend toward the suave stylings of cruise ship dinner theater with the trademark wink-and-spontaneous-smile ordeal.  Because a good song can’t just sing itself, I suppose.  (A Sinatra standard needs finessing like a doughnut needs icing.) This show is no different, though a bunch of really hilarious moments make up for that fact.

Every song in the show, about two-dozen of them, was made famous by a white singer or group.  But there’s a twist here, as the three-member cast (and three-piece band led by Jason Bravo) performs is unlike you’ve ever heard them.  “Who Put the Bomp” gets a slightly operatic treatment to open the show, previewing what’s to come.  “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” is the funniest alteration of the night, with Kelly Ann Krupski giving it a Polish Eartha Kitt sort of flavor...if that’s possible.

Genres float between doo-whop, ‘60s girl group songs, psychedelic rock, The Beach Boys and The Beatles, all with new takes on the comparatively “white songs.” The idea, I think, being that white people have less heart and soul than black singers; or if that’s too much of a stretch, that they can (and should) at least be given new treatments to show that they’re not as whitewashed as we know them to be.

It’s an interesting take on the secretive and systemic whitening of music written and made popular by black, lesser-known artists.  You don’t think Elvis was so heartbroken because he had bad hips, do you?  And remember that scene in “Dreamgirls” where Effie and the Dreamettes lose the top chart position to the whitest kids in town singing “Cadillac Car”?

I don’t think there’s such a huge agenda for that here, as it really is just song after song.  But it did make me think about it, despite Randy’s advisement not to.  In all, it’s a very fun night of harmless song and dance with some local performers you might not necessarily recognize—Rodney Appleby, who delighted audiences earlier this year in Kavinoky’s season opener “Hank Williams: Lost Highway”; Victoria Perez who has appeared on many local stages and whose comedic timing is wonderful; and Krupski who won an Artvoice Artie for her titular role in “Always...Patsy Cline” at Kavinoky.  All are making their Musicalfare debuts as part of the company’s Inclusive Program.

This is a wonderful theater community-building partnership that brings artists from outside their typical coverage area into the fold, sometimes sharing whole productions with other theaters.  One of the best examples of this was the 2003 production of “Avenue X,” an a capella doo-wop musical about ‘50s-era racial tensions in an Italian and black neighborhood.  MusicalFare partnered with the Paul Robeson Theatre on the East Side and each theater ran the show for a month.  It was a phenomenal bridging of talent and insight and resources, on top of the fact that the show was very entertaining and thought-provoking.

Let’s hope more collaborations like this—and Studio Arena’s upcoming co-production with Road Less Traveled on “To Kill a Mockingbird”—continue.  It would be a shame to miss out on the talent we’ve got in all the corners of our region.

For more information, visit MusicalFare online.

Posted by on 11/08 at 12:46 PM