[NEohioPAL] Review of "Cannibal! The Musical" at Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

CVLT's 'Cannibal! The Musical' is so bad it's good

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Morning Journal, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 11/01/13

 

 

It is a rare and wonderful thing when the low-budget, no-frills theater space that is the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre's River Street Playhouse puts on a show that is actually intended to be low-budget and no-frills.  

 

Equally rare and wonderful is when the typically conservative community theater company opens itself up for something as blatantly irreverent, thoroughly inane, and joyously stupefying as Trey Parker's "Cannibal! The Musical."

 

In 1997, Parker and his writing partner Matt Stone created the acerbic animated TV comedy "South Park" that helped put the fledgling Comedy Central cable network on the map.  More recently, they created the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon."   

 

Before all this, as a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1993, Parker wrote, produced and starred in "Alferd Packer: The Musical," a film very loosely based on the true story of a 1870's Gold Rush travel guide who leaves his fellow travelers dead and partially eaten in the Colorado hills.

 

Several years later, an enterprising amateur theater troupe turned the film into the stage play "Cannibal! The Musical," which has been revised and remounted at equally enterprising amateur theaters ever since.

 

Yes, the play unabashedly dishonors the dead by turning real people into caricatures and their untimely demise into black comedy.

 

And, sure, it sets the act of cannibalism to whimsical music with playful choreography.  

 

But it is done by the guys who have raised planting tongue firmly in someone else's cheek into an art form.  Parker and Stone are infamous for going for the gross-out laugh, and nailing it, and purposefully seeking and destroying the rules of conformity, convention and proper etiquette. They delight in doing so.  So, yes, this is an absolutely ridiculous piece of theater.  

 

And a fine example of it.

 

Still, as a precursory work, "Cannibal! The Musical" lacks the sharp wit found in "South Park" and the clever undertones of parody that makes "The Book of Mormon" so much fun.  Its songs are merely serviceable.  And, as a movie turned stage play, the quick edits that connected its many short scenes on film have become more time-consuming and cumbersome interruptions in the action.

 

But it is funny to the core and, with astute add-ons and hilarious contemporary references inserted by Andrew Rothman, the show's director and music director, the musical manages to capture what Parker and Stone have become known for.  It is raw.  It is raunchy.  It is riotous. 

 

Best of all, Rothman fills the stage with game and talented performers who understand the juvenile journey they have taken and relish in it.

 

Seth Clerget, Genevieve Vince, Chris Macchione, John Wright and Dennis Burby play the very odd assortment of miners who embark on the ill-fated expedition from Utah to Colorado, and are a pleasure to watch throughout the entire production.  Their comic timing is impeccable and each performer gets a moment to shine in a solo or ensemble number.  Clerget's rendition of the corny "Let's Build a Snowman," sung while hallucinating from starvation, is a particularly outrageous highlight.

 

As a rag-tag gang of nasty fur trappers, Ron L. Davis, Robert Pollock, and Craig Gifford are hilarious.  Davis, the oversized bully of the bunch, comes equipped with an absolutely gorgeous singing voice, which adds an element of surprise to a production with no shortage of them.

 

Standout performances are turned in by James Paquignot as Packer, Laura Henri as his noble steed Liane, and Colleen O'Leary as reporter Polly Pry, who is chronicling Packer's adventure.  Henri manages to charm the audience without uttering a single word, and all three maintain their dignity and straight faces despite the silliness that surrounds them.

 

The delightful Carlos Piepenburg, Natalie Dolezal, Assad Khaishgi, and Alison Arko fill out the cast.      

 

So sit back, leave your political correctness at the door, and enjoy the inanity.  Come hungry for outlandish comedy, with a side of Utah miner. 

 

"Cannibal! The Musical" continues through November 2 at the CVLT's River Street Playhouse, 56 River Street, Chagrin Falls.  For tickets, which are $12, call 440-247-8955 or visit www.cvlt.org
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