'Adrift in Macao' Is a Bellyful of Laughs
2013-02-28
When the director is Bradford Blake and the musical is a parody of some venerated show business form, you know you're in for a good time. And that's precisely what you'll have watching his new production of "Adrift in Macao" at New Milford's TheatreWorks.
The musical is a song and dance takeoff on a memorable chapter of American film history: the Hollywood film noir hits of the 1940s and 1950s.
If you're an enthusiast of movies like "Casablanca," "Double Indemnity" or "The Maltese Falcon," it's a cinch you'll go for a show that satirizes them in a big way. And the fact that "Adrift" is awash in silly, often sophomoric and seemingly endless riffs on the oldies only adds to the enjoyment.
The one-act musical is the brainchild of Christopher Durang (book) and Peter Melnick (music). The former is a playwright with a reputation for outrageous and zany scripts like "Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge," "Beyond Therapy" and "The Idiots Karamazov." The latter, the grandson of Richard Rodgers, was responsible for 26 film scores.
"Adrift" involves characters who find themselves in China for reasons that remain mysterious. They are all waiting for something, though none of them knows exactly what it is. They include your expected film noir standards: Laureena, a seductive blonde who is a nightclub singer, Rick Shaw a cynical night-club owner (with apologies to Humphrey Bogart), Mitch, a hard-bitten American on the lam from the police after being framed for murder by a shady villain, Mr. McGuffin.
Then there's Corinna, Rick's current nightclub chanteuse, who -- habituating the Orient -- naturally has a thing for opium. Finally, there's Tempura, a Chinese person, so named because he has been "battered by life." He's as full of the puns and quips -- often in less than acceptable taste -- as any other character in the musical.
But the thing about "Adrift" that grabs you is that its humor is never sophisticated, nor do you expect it to be. Durang's dialogue doesn't hold a candle to Stephen Sondheim's. If it did, something would be dreadfully wrong. You're just carried on the wave of its never-ending mindlessness as if underneath its quirky exterior it had a symphonic underbelly of its own enjoyable kind. A golem with a heart of gold.
Blake has assembled an accomplished cast to do the Durang/Melnick bidding. Jonathan Ross plays Rick, the casino owner with an eye for the ladies; Tom Denihan is Mitch, the hard-bitten expatriated Yank on the trail of the stranger who framed him; and Shannon-Courtney Denihan plays Lureena, the beautiful blonde seductress who can show the best of them how to slink around in a black gown.
Vicki J. Sosbe is Corinna, the equally alluring casino singer who -- in a trade-off to keep the gods scratching their heads -- finally exchanges opium for tranquilizers when putting all her problems behind her.
Tom Libonate, as Tempura, injects some of the most hilarious moments of the show into the mix, while Blake's direction has all performers putting their best feet forward.