Hayes Theatre, April 15
7/10
For those of you who are reading this on a screen and didn’t know there was another way, about 586 years ago a German bloke named Johannes Gutenberg rather shook things up with a device called a printing press. While this did a thorough job of putting the clerical longhand copyists out of business, his printed books helped foster literacy and spread ideas, which were germane to fostering the Renaissance. So, his was about as big a contribution to our world as one can make, or – how shall I put this for the screen-addicted? – up there with the inventors of Facebook and TikTok.
Not your usual subject-matter for a musical, then – or even for a musical within a musical, as this is, written by Anthony King and Scott Brown in 2005. Doug (Stephen Anderson) and Bud (Ryan Gonzalez) are two aged-care workers who’ve penned the titular musical, and are presenting it to an audience in the hope of attracting a Broadway producer. Because they have no budget, they play the avalanche of characters themselves, delineating them with names on baseball caps. They are accompanied only by Charles (musical director Zara Stanton) on piano, so, in the grand scheme of musicals, it’s as cheap as chips to mount.
Richard Carroll’s production, with every “i” dotted and “t” crossed, adds up to a fun night out, not so much because of the music – I can’t imagine ever thinking, “I must play Gutenberg! The Musical!” – as because it’s intermittently very funny, and Anderson and Gonzalez expertly ensure no laughs go begging. Indeed, they compound the humour with the exaggeratedly precise singing, visual gags and execution of Shannon Burns’ intrinsically amusing choreography.
Given that the show within the show is set up as amateurish, much of the comedy is not reliant on story or characters, so much as the solutions to no-budget staging, from the hats to a stuffed cat, cardboard boxes as a bucket and the printing press, and a stepladder for a tower.
Intermittently, Doug and Bud step out of character to explain what’s going on, why certain songs are in the show when they don’t seem to belong, or the mechanics of musicals. “A motif,” Doug tells us, “is when you use the same piece of music over and over again, but it’s not lazy.”
It’s worth going just to see the singing rats, or Gonzalez’ evil Monk (who doesn’t want the hoi polloi able to read the Bible, so he can falsify its contents), or Stephenson playing Helvetica, Gutenberg’s love-interest and font inspiration.
Often it seems more geared for nine-year-olds rather than adults in its silliness. It’s also zany, satirical, goofy, quaintly folksy and warm-hearted, and the design elements are as sharp as the performances, directing, accompaniment and choreography. Just don’t expect to go home whistling any of the tunes.
Until May 10.