An
outsider’s view
by Michael
Dresdner
Let me say
at the outset that I am not the target audience for Girls Night: The Musical, now
playing at Centerstage. It appears to be aimed at the past 40, unerringly
heterosexual female, preferably one who has been married (at least once), had
children, and imagines herself wilder and raunchier than she really is.
As I am a
retirement age male, please feel free to intone “but it’s not MEANT for YOU”
after any unflattering or uncomprehending comment I might utter. With that out
of the way, we can dive in.
Neither a
play or a true musical, Girls Night is collection of loosely strung together
song and dance numbers. There’s no real plot or arc and little in the way of
cohesive flow.
Set in a
karaoke bar, the conceit is that four longtime friends get together to drink,
get down and dirty, and remind one another of their checkered past and patchy
present. The official occasion is the engagement of the fifth friend’s daughter.
We don’t meet the daughter, but missing mom, who died in a motorbike accident
at the age of 17 and keeps watch as an angel, narrates and adds needed
exposition.
The women,
engaging in almost non-stop singing and dancing, are decidedly better than the
property they are working with. They are all quite good, in spite of being cast
as rather unrealistic, two-dimensional stereotypes.
L to R: Alicia Mendez, Anna Clausen, Kate Alden, Meg McLynn, Hilary Heinz
Alicia
Mendez plays Sharon, the aforementioned dead-at-seventeen, not-so-guardian
angel trying to join in the fun, if only vicariously. Her job is to stitch
together the otherwise unconnected chunks of energetic song and dance.
Statuesque
and clear-voiced Anna Marie Clausen creates Liza, the snarky, athletic,
well-heeled presentation wife brimming with self-confidence. I’m sure I’m not
the first to compare her (favorably) to Cameron Diaz.
Then there’s
Anita (Hilary Heinz Luthi) who functions normally only thanks to mood
controlling drugs, a matured version of the sweet but dippy paste-eater we all
remember from grade school. Luthi reinforced Anita’s essential lack of cool
with a lanky, puppet-like style of dancing and movement that was quite
endearing.
Carol (Meg
McLynn) is an overtly sexual, decidedly raunchy character whose clothes clearly
blare “slut.” She dances hard, sings
harder in what some call “belter” style, and vaguely reminds one of a 40-year-old Bette Midler with untamed hair.
My easy
favorite among the five was Kate Alden as (coincidentally) Kate, a married
school teacher – make that schoolmarm – who was always well-behaved but plain,
and except for cutting loose at this karaoke night, still is. Alden managed to
maintain the overlay of her somewhat gawky character even while singing and
dancing vastly better than her mousy persona had any right to be capable of
doing. She then clinched it in the second half (there are no acts here) delivering
an entirely delightful drunk Kate, something that is difficult to do
convincingly. She did it all marvelously.
Both the
musical director, Amy Jones, and the choreographer, Leslie McQueen, deserve
props for the flow and energy, while costume designer Karl Ruckdeschel did a
nice job of identifying the various personalities definitively by their
outfits.
And what of
the property itself? Let me just say that it’s a far cry from the cleverly
crafted and smoothly integrated barbs of, say, a Tina Fey or Amy Sedaris. The
humor was more like a series of giggly, dirty Facebook memes, often dabbling in
penis, merkin, and other sexual themes. Like most memes, they were generally
familiar, a bit ham-handed, and easy to see coming. If I were downright cruel,
I might call the writing vacuous. Luckily, I’m not.
At the core
of this production are song and dance numbers mostly fitting into the karaoke
genre; songs with more elan than relevance. At times it seemed the dialog
existed more to cue a song than the other way around. The women on stage did
their all to extend the energy to the crowd, encouraging everyone to get up and
dance in the aisles along with them, but it was much more fun watching them.
Unfortunately,
some of the song choices have been forever tainted by their popular culture
connections. It is hard to hear “Don’t Cry Out Loud” without seeing the anorexic
beauty queen from Drop Dead Gorgeous, and impossible to avoid images of The
Birdcage during “We Are Family.”
Come to
think of it, this whole play would have been more compelling done at The
Birdcage, since drag queens are easier to swallow as female stereotypes.
Perhaps next time.
Again, this
was aimed not at me but at the mostly female audience. They seemed to be having
a good time and relating to the genre, so take that for what it’s worth. I’ve
done my best to paint an accurate picture. Perhaps the best thing is to see it
for yourself and either agree or disagree.
Girls Night:
The Musical
Jan. 22
through Feb. 8, 2015
Centerstage
http://www.centerstagetheatre.com/
Dude, saying "If I were downright cruel, I might call the writing vacuous" is a sneaky way of calling the writing vacuous that doesn't fool anybody.
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