"The Musical Of Musicals: The Musical!"

BY GORDON COX | Gordon Cox is a regular contributor to Newsday.

June 11, 2004

"The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!" saves the best for last. The first half of this broad, good-natured parody plays like a mildly amusing goof that, at intermission, you may be tempted to shrug off and leave behind. Stick around.

If you don't, you'll miss actor and piano accompanist Eric Rockwell's gleefully demonic turn as a naughty German from a Kander and Ebb show ( ... la the Emcee in "Cabaret"). The second act is also when actress Lovette George gets to show off some lively personality with a skewering portrait of a self-important Andrew Lloyd Webber diva (think Patti LuPone or Sarah Brightman).

The MAD Magazine-worthy concept of "The Musical of Musicals" presents the same story five times, each in the style of a different musical-theater legend. A basic plot pitting the damsel against the dastardly landlord ("I can't pay the rent!" "You must pay the rent!") gets embellished with the musical tropes and tonal quirks of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Lloyd Webber, and Kander and Ebb.

Even in the moderately engaging first half, Rockwell and co-star Joanne Bogart, who created the production, show plenty of savvy skill, especially when they switch from the sunny show-stoppers of Rodgers and Hammerstein to the dissonant tongue-twisters of Sondheim. The predictable humor, though, never quite explodes: There's an obligatory dream ballet in the Rodgers and Hammerstein segment, heavily influenced by "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel."

The bloated, hummable work of Lloyd Webber and the stripped theatricality of Kander and Ebb provide the most fertile ground for sophisticated stupidity. While the show takes jabs at the derivative, repetitive nature of Lloyd Webber's music, with its "wretched recitative," it approximates his big-budget spectacular scenery with two hooded stagehands and fake fog. The Kander and Ebb sequence allows for some ridiculous faux-Fosse moves, choreographed by director Pamela Hunt and executed with particular comedy by the less-than-lithe Craig Fols. It also features a hilarious paean to prostitution sung by the consistently funny Bogart.

The affectionate spoofing of "The Musical of Musicals" is obviously made by and for theater-lovers who have at least a passing familiarity with the works being mocked.

You don't have to be a show queen to enjoy the show, but it wouldn't hurt.

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! Music by Eric Rockwell, lyrics by Joanne Bogart, book by Rockwell and Bogart, directed and choreographed by Pamela Hunt. York Theatre at St. Peter's in the Citigroup Center, 619 Lexington Ave. at 54th Street, Manhattan.