For the theme of its fifth edition, Forbidden Broadway, the satiric off-Broadway musical revue, takes on what it calls the "mousification" of Broadway, as Disney and New York mayor Rudy Giulani team up to sanitize the Great White Way. "Now the strange thing is," notes writer/director Gerard Alessandrini in his annotations, "that as Broadway cleans up its hookers and seedier aspects outside, Broadway inside seems to get raunchier (i.e. Cabaret, Chicago, and The Life -- even Swan Lake). So, the revue begins with an
Alan Cumming-like emcee from Cabaret launching into a bawdy rendition of "Welcome," only to be interrupted by "Giuliani," who is joined by "Julie Andrews," leading to a duet that celebrates the transformation, declaring, "Broadway's dull as City Hall." From there on, Alessandrini goes about catching up with the new shows that have opened since his last edition, skewering the "cheesy concert version" of Chicago, dismissing Footloose as "too cute," attacking The Lion King for being nothing but a puppet show with fancy, hard-to-wear costumes, and Titanic for having a set that "looks a lot like cardboard." Ragtime's convoluted, melodramatic plot leads to its being rendered as Gagtime, and the transformation scene in Jekyll & Hyde finds the hero and his evil alter-ego descending into a rendition of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." But, of course, it's not enough to send up the shows: Alessandrini also has it in for
Bernadette Peters ("a cupie doll who's pushing 58"), British producer Cameron Mackintosh, "Andrew Lloyd Superstar," and hammy
Mandy Patinkin, otherwise known as "Super-Frantic-Hyperactive-Self-Indulgent Mandy!" (to the tune of "Super-cali-fragilistic-expiali-docious," of course). There's even room for decrying those shows that seem like they're going to run forever, notably in "More Miserable/Ten Years More." The barbs are so sharp that it seems a shame Alessandrini goes all mushy at the end, reassuring us of his affection for Broadway, as if we didn't know. Of course, as with any parody, Forbidden Broadway is more or less funny depending on how much you know about the things being made fun of, and it will elicit more laughs from Broadway fans than people with only a glancing knowledge of New York theater. But one effect of that mousification is that a lot of this material is familiar beyond Broadway, and the send-ups of Footloose, The Lion King, and Titanic (which naturally includes the unrelated film version along with the late Broadway musical) should elicit laughs even from people who've never been to New York. ~ William Ruhlmann