[NEohioPAL] Review of "Xanadu"

[Bob Abelman]

Xanadon't

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the Times papers 3/11/10

 

It's been said that dying is easy but comedy is hard.  It takes a lot of work to find and tickle the collective funny bone in a theater full of people with a different sense of humor and willingness to laugh out loud.

 

If comedy is hard, parody is harder. It is difficult to successfully make fun of something that is taken very seriously. It is even more difficult if the thing being made fun of is too easy a mark, which is certainly the case with the musical Xanadu, currently on national tour and playing at PlayhouseSquare through March 14.

 

Here is a show that parodies the tacky, superficial 1980s.  It does so by targeting the very campy and outrageously bad 1980s Xanadu movie, which featured the inept yet adorable Olivia Newton-John and an assortment of synthetic pop-rock musical numbers.  It is really tough to make a joke about something that is, itself, a joke.

 

In order to be effective, Xanadu the musical must be campier, more outrageous and more synthetic than its subject matter.  Unfortunately, Xanadoesn't.

 

Both the movie and the stage production tell the tale of a young, not-so-bright painter and his muse, who find true love at a roller disco in Venice, California.  The muse is actually a demigod from Greek mythology.  She comes down from Mount Olympus to help the painter and takes the form of, what else, a gorgeous Australian on roller skates.  

 

Playwright Douglas Carter Beane mistakenly infuses this play with so many self-depreciating one-liners and so much self-conscious winking and nodding at its own silliness that it sucks the parody right out of the play.  Comics should never laugh at their own jokes, and parodies shouldn't ever call attention to their own enterprise. Xanadoes.

 

Another problem resides squarely with this touring company.  During the opening night performance, Anika Larsen, as Clio the muse, appeared to be flat, disinterested and incapable of hitting her high notes.  She and co-star Max Von Essen, who plays Sonny the painter, were not nearly as bold and broad as a parody requires and not nearly as interesting or energetic as leads in a Broadway tour should be.

 

Larry Marshall as Danny McGuire, the much older owner of the roller disco who had met and lost his muse in the 1940s, is an extraordinary talented performer who is clearly in a different and better musical than the rest of the cast.  He is a pleasure to watch but he is woefully out of place in here.  

 

Saving the day are Natasha Yvette Williams, as the scheming demigod Melpomene, and Annie Golden, as her quirky muse sidekick Calliope.  Both of these women, as well as the other members of the muse ensemble, try their hardest to keep the energy up and generate as much campiness as possible throughout this one-act production.  They are upstaged by the less brazen and out-of-sync featured players and the mediocre material they have to work with.

 

Those who reminisce about the 1980s, are mesmerized by a silver disco ball, love the feel of leg-warmers up against spandex, and appreciate the sweeping chords of the Electric Light Orchestra's "Strange Magic" will find pleasure in Xanadu.  David Zinn's costuming and Howell Binkley's lighting design do this era justice.  Just leave your brain at the door.

 

Those who expect a little more from professional theater will find this show tedious and unmemorable.  Xanadon't. 
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