Oh, oh.. traffic on the thread! yay. We got another few great reviews in, it seems that they are all agreeing this is our best show. and we appear in other reviews as well (Like :"[such and such] theatre company should learn from Gold Dust Orphans irreverence...") -- not sure what they meant but I'm gonna take it as a good thing.
Today we'll be doing 'talkback' - answering questions from the audience after the show. should be interesting, though for me it means just sitting quietly for awhile, for I am just a reindeed/whore/janitor/madwoman/nurse person...
But i cannot not post another gleeing review, i even get mentioned fleetingly. but i promise not to forget a2k once i'm rich and famous.
Issue Date: 12/07/2006, Posted On: 12/4/2006
Christmas in-santa-ty
Brian Jewell
[email protected]
Christmas carnage in Silent Night of the Lambs
Did you know that in the classic Rankin-Bass animated holiday special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Rudolph's love interest shares the same first name as the rookie FBI agent played by Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs? That's the sort of trivia most of us forget as soon as we hear it, and exactly the kind of pop culture connection that certified (and probably certifiable) theater genius Ryan Landry revels in. Landry takes that rainbow connection as the starting point for the fastest and funniest show he's blessed us with in ages, a hilarious spoof of Christmas schmaltz named Silent Night of the Lambs.
On Landry's bipolar Pole, holiday cheer has become holiday fear: a demented serial killer known as The Skinner is stalking Santa's magical reindeer. The jolly old elf can't protect his flying former charges, since he's been imprisoned for life after going Hannibal Lector on some naughty children. (A reindeer bureaucracy now operates the Christmas franchise.) It's up to doe-eyed doe Clarice Starling, fresh out of the academy, to crack the case. When it becomes clear that this inexperienced Species Agent is in over her head, she turns to Santa for help, who plays mind games with the determined agent while slowly doling out information about The Skinner's twisted psyche. Clarice races to unravel the riddles before the killer bumps off his next victim, a kidnapped heiress to a department store fortune.
Yes, the story follows the classic thriller Silence of the Lambs pretty closely ?- if it ain't broke, don't fix it ?- and part of the fun is seeing how iconic moments from the film have been rendered in clever low budget splendor on the tiny stage at Machine. The kidnap victim trapped in the well and the climactic infrared sequence, for instance, have been hilariously tweaked. Moments like these provoke laughter of recognition. Other moments evoke the laughter of surprise, like a raunchy story about Tiny Tim or the so-wrong-it's-right usurping of a classic moment from Disney's Bambi. What's delightful is that most of the laughs come out of both recognition and surprise, as the show references a bewildering barrage of pop culture nuggets, from holiday fables to basic cable fare, that seem to come out of left field yet have a loopy logic you can't help but go along with. A Jewish elf? Sure, why not? Eskimo hookers who channel Ratso Rizzo? Of course!
At their best, The Gold Dust Orphans ?- Landry's rotating ensemble of comic players and drag queens ?- can hum along like a mighty comedy machine, and they've been calibrated into a Rube Goldberg juggernaut for this show. The directing credits are shared by Landry, James P. Byrne and Larry Coen; it's this triple shot of energy and creativity that launches the cast into a neverending sugar plum high; the chemistry is so joyous and seemingly effortless that you chortle even at the bad jokes, so great is the pleasure of watching these actors. Even the minor players are a hoot; it's fun just to see where Deborah Downer, Dasha Kusa, Roger Moore, Derek Raposo, Julie Ray and Adam Sussman will turn up next as they morph into assorted reindeer, prison guards and ho-ho-whores. Bananas Foster, in particular, milks every line for all it's worth, and she gets one of the most outrageous zingers in the whole show in a scene lifted from A Christmas Carol, playing a "Cockney Hag" alongside the equally hilarious Josh Pritchard. Windsor Newton adopts a deliciously creepy/funny voice as The Skinner, and Meg O'Bucks is memorable as his feisty final victim. Landry has a blast with two roles, especially as Clarice's deadpan bulldyke boss, slyly teasing the audience with a staccato delivery that's sometimes hard to follow. It's not a mistake but an implicit warning: pay attention or you'll miss some of the jokes. Afrodite uses her commanding presence to hold our attention as the slower-paced J.C. Penney, a department store magnate who pleads for the return of her daughter with the strange smugness of a store detective. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth as she assures the kidnapper, "We have a liberal return policy."
The heart of the story is the strange relationship between Clarice and Lector, er, Santa, and here Landry's canny casting is impeccable. Larry Coen, one of Boston's funniest actors (is there anyone besides John Kuntz who can touch him?) is monumental as Santa Claus, amplifying and embellishing every tiny tic of Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lector with a wicked and barely supressed glee. He's such a tightly coiled spring that he listens with more intensity than most people speak, and when he combines hangdog neediness with a devilish grin, you squirm at his wonderful creepiness. In this manic production, even more than in the movie, the character needs to be balanced with a calm and empathetic presence. Penny Champayne's Clarice is so pitch perfect, so warm and subtly funny without every trying too hard or going too far, that you have to abandon the Gold Dust tradition of drag stage names to completely appreciate the work: Scott Martino makes a damn fine actress, lighting up Silent Night with a nose so bright you'll want to watch the show each Advent night.
