[NEohioPAL] Review of "Bathroom Humor" at Blank Canvas Theatre

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Blank Canvas' 'Bathroom Humor' is vacant

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News on 5/16/14

 

 

In 1787, Wolfgang Armadeus Mozart wrote "Difficile lectu" (K. 559), a canon in F major for three singers. The song is extremely somber and, with its Latin lyrics, seems downright sanctimonious.  But several of its phrases do not make sense in this language and intentionally resemble Bavarian German and Italian phrases that are incredibly nasty and naughty.  

 

Mozart relished in the incongruity of sophomoric humor shrouded in classical composition and bawdiness bolstered by an art form with a higher purpose.  It is not hard to imagine 18th century audience's both shocked and amused by his audacity.

 

Such subtlety and impudence is missing from Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore's "Bathroom Humor," currently on stage at Blank Canvas Theatre.  This comedy is nasty and naughty but minus the cleverness of incongruity, void of higher purpose, and absent of artistic integrity.  It is merely a continuous supply of PG-13 rated sexual innuendos, inane potty references and running gags that actually involve gagging.  

 

The show has all the earmarks of a farce but embellishes none of them and excels in even fewer.  

 

There's the highly improbable plot situation, but the entire play takes place in the physically and comically limited confines of a bathroom during a work party in the boss' suburban home.  After the first five minutes, the plot becomes repetitious. and not in a good way.

 

There's the exaggerated characters, but every person is just a caricature delivering a steady stream of fat girl (Jenna Messina), old man (Len Lieber), druggie (Jeffrey Glover), gay (David Turner) and adultery jokes (Ashley Conlon, Luke Scattergood, Tamicka Scruggs).

 

There's the moments of broad slapstick, where a character leaps through a window, a door gets repeatedly slammed, and an Elvis impersonator with no self-confidence (Steven Schuerger) gyrates.  But while delivered with the breakneck speed befitting a farce, this ensemble manages to steamroll through the play without any semblance of comic timing.  

 

Nothing works in this production; not even the playwright's desperate and obvious attempt to work heart into the festivities by having the loneliest characters find each other in the end.

  

As if to punctuate this point, even some of the actors can't wait to get off the stage during the curtain call.

 
WHAT:            "Bathroom Humor"
WHERE:        Blank Canvas Theatre at 78th Street Studios in Cleveland

WHEN:           Through May 24

TICKETS:       $15, call 440-941-0458 or visit www.blankcanvastheatre.com