"Youth Has Nothing to do with Age".....uh...wtf?

Originally published May 12, 2007

Low Wattage Youth - the Musical

I was given some tix to Electric Youth, the new musical based on the music of Debbie (Deborah) Gibson. Felt it would be a memorable evening, no matter how the show was, and boy howdy was it!

The show was..wow...well, it was...what can I say, I loved it, but not probably the way the creator intended. Her music is still good. I saw her in college and was shocked to find she was really talented. Great singer and I particularly remember her sitting and singing at the piano, and you could tell the girl had some chops.

This musical seems to be made in the general mold of Mama Mia, where these songs are used and a story is constructed around them. However, this show is not Mama Mia..the end result is more like a forced marriage between Footloose and Andy Hardy movies from the 40's. "Come on kids, let's save the barn, and the town."

Barn? Town? Place for Kids to Dance? HUH???? What year is this?

There was a villianess - a bizarre cross between Cruella De Ville and Patty Sheehan. There was snakey nephew of the villaness (also our waiter, who came back to see if we tipped him)
There were some homespun heroes.

There was a line.."what are you going to do...grrrroooowww more wheat??" which got a huge uproarious reaction from the creator's table, but everyone else sat looking puzzled.

There was some inconsistent singing.

There was a disturbing scene involving interpretive dance and something akin to a mob about to destroy Frankenstein, while wielding screwdrivers.

There was a faux lesbian sister in plaid and overalls.

There were gratuitous Wizard of Oz side jokes

There was an amazingly complicated wrap up of all complications in the story, taking place in roughly two minutes, that seemed to pull largely from a Price Waterhouse financial analyst's manual.

There was a dance lift that clunked back to earth, complete with extended pantie shot.

It was MAGIC!

My friend Chris and I were having giggle fits throughout the whole thing. During the Pantie Lift, I became convulsed and almost had to leave. Not just anyone can appreciate such genius. His boyfriend Rob was less impressed, but a good sport. We were enthralled!

To top it all off, "to meet popular demand," Deborah HERSELF was in attendance. She was there for the opening night and wasn't supposed to be back. WELL the masses spoke, and here she was again. She would be taking pictures and signing autographs...it would be the perfect ending to our night!

The masses tonight must not have been as impressed as those at the opening, as a good portion of them left at the intermission.

Those of use who stuck around for the Shake Your Love dance number in the second act, apparently learned with numbered shoe prints stuck on the floor, were not disappointed. After a longish wait in the overheated lobby, we were allowed to enter a secondary room. What would lie behind the door? I was convinced it would be red velvet, gilt chairs and plush rugs, with manservants holding large fans.

I was partially right...there was a worn red velvet curtain and the room smelled vaguely of armpit, which could have come from the manservants.

Rob had his cel phone, so Chris and I each got a pic, and autographed programs. Deborah was so nice, and we had a hard act to follow, as a middle-aged woman in front of us gushed breathlessly about how the show was so wonderful, full of hope and uplifting messages, and how she had spent hours and hours dancing around her room to young Debbie's music.

Unable to top that, I just told her I saw her at Astroworld when I had hair.

That's Four Too Many in that Dress

Here's one from 2008:


Today, a companion and I attended the worst play I've seen since Electric Youth, the Musical.

That has become the gold standard for unintentionally hilarious bad theater, so achieving those heights and being awarded a Debbie is a high honor indeed.

Today's production: Five Women in the Same Dress, as presented by Valencia East Campus.

Awards: 3 Debbies

- Writing

- Acting

- Audience Participation

So the premise of this show is five bridesmaids in a "present day suburb of Knoxville, TN" sit around in one girl's bedroom and bitch. It seemed a decent setup for comedy and there was actually some fun dialogue, but the delivery - eesh.

The best role was the "sassy" girl who was sort of counterculture and bitter. She had a lot of good sarcastic retorts, but they were all sort of delivered with the stage presence of overcooked spaghetti. I was pissed cuz I could have rocked that part! She had some zingers! lol

Sadly, she was the best performer. Other highlights included a rendition of a southern accent that sounded like every sentence was ending in a question. Like "this one time and band camppppp.."

Not to worry, because when the goings-on on stage disappointed, the audience came through. 



1. I Can't Stop Smiling

There was a woman sitting by herself on stage right who could only be described as being "in rapture." She sat at the front edge of her seat sporting a maniacal grin of joy like Charles Gateau in Assassins, and produced a hysterical outburst of laughter at even the slightest hint of humor. I thought she was going to be swept away on a wave of ecstasy, like a Whirling Dervish or something.

No doubt she was one of the following, or maybe more than one:

A. The parent of one of the actresses

B. The parent of the director

C. The Director


2. Just Cuz I'm Old Don't Mean I Don't like a Good F*ck Joke!

An elderly woman with her daughter, son-in law and granddaughter were near us. The show starts with knocking on the door, to which this woman responded, in a not too soft voice "COME IN!!"

More knocking on stage again.

Elderly audience member "COME IN!!"

Oh my. lol

Her granddaughter sort of slumped down.

Now, this show was full of foul language. Not just a sprinkling for effect, but I mean everywhere, constantly. These bridesmaids could make a longshoreman blush.

One told a tale of illicit sex behind the garbage dumpster in a parking lot, with someone else's fiance, filled with blistering four letter words. When she finished, the older lady laughed out in joy "AH HA HAH!"

Damn. Granny got it goin' on.


3. We Need a Little Christmas. Right This Very Minute

Somewhere during the first act, I detected the sound of jingle bells coming from somewhere behind me. JING JING...JING JING...JING JING....JING JING...

Wtf was that?!

JING JING... JING JING....JING JING...

I gradually turned my head to try to figure it out. In the back row sat a woman fanning herself with her program, while wearing a gigantic charm bracelet! It went on forever, and her companions didn't point out that the sound of her bracelet was echoing off the walls. This was uncontrollable giggle fit 1 for me.


4. I Didn't Need That Lung Anyway

Some late attendees came in after the show started and sat right next to me. One was an older african american woman with a gigantic mound of fake Beyonce-style hair. Fierce! She carried a jacket, which she immediately begin putting on upon sitting, which resulted in much stretching of arms in my direction.

She what could best be described as a "loose cough," that sounded like her spleen was dribbling down a basketball court each time she cleared her throat. During the second act, she had a fit, coughing and choking with noises last heard when the bilge tanks were being cleared on the Queen Mary. I started to giggle, then clamped my teeth shut while my whole chair shook. My eyes watered. I gasped for air. I was about to completely lose it and then she got up and left. Whew. I was about 5 seconds from a laughter outburst.

During Intermission we partook of some refreshments at a table in the lobby. My friend went back to get some cheezy-peanut butter crackers from the student attendant, who had now turned the other way and was engrossed in conversation. He held out the dollar to her for about 20 seconds and someone else finally noticed he was standing there. This girls' head whipped around and she stared at him and his outstretched dollar like he was handing her a fresh turd. It was amazingly bizarre. Joan Crawford could not have looked more intimidating if she was staring down a wire hanger. Huh? Weren't you supposed to give money for snacks? Insanity!


Act II - What Were We Watching Again?

Ok, the first act seemed to have basically no plot. It was five girls in bad dresses bitching and cussing. In Act II, however, either a different writer took over or the original one realized he had a lot of shiz to get in in a short time.

Suddenly, we got less bitching and in instead:

Child Abuse
All Gays Have AIDS
Sluts on Parade
Cocaine and Cheap Motel Sex Makes a Great First Date
Lesbians Run Wild
Bald Men Are Pyscho Killers
Male Wingtip Shoe Foot Fetish

WHAT?!!!

My friend turned to me at one point and asked, "is this the same play we were watching?" lol

It was hysterical.

Finally, it looked like things were wrapping up. In a scene that took about 3 years to develop, the girls were all attempting to pose on the bed for a photo. At a slight pause in the conversation, the stage lights went out.

And stayed out.

And scene.

The audience started clapping.

Then the lights came back on and they finished. The lighting tech had missed the cue and the show wasn't over. LOL

There was about 5 more minutes of setting up the photo and bland wrapup.

I told my friend they should have just left the lights out the first time.

LOL

Anyway, bad theater is good theater sometimes, so this was a pretty fun way to start the new year.

And scene.

Riot With a Z

This from the archives of...2006 maybe??

I just got back from seeing LIZA MINELLI in concert in St. Pete. A friend had tickets and the person he was taking had to cancel, so I got to go at the last minute. Now I had no idea what to expect, with her being such frequent tabloid fodder, but I was hopeful.

Well, the audience appeared to be 85% people over 75 and 15% gay men with bad outfits. Actually the bad outfits weren't limited to just them, as there were many amazing and fun sights: the fuschia wild paisley jacket, the red feather boa, the blouse resembling venetian blinds, the "bedazzled" I LOVE YOU LIZA adhered to the back of a shirt....I could go on. In addition, there were so many wigs per square foot, that I imagined a small army of foam heads sitting at home...again...lonely, bald, cold in the night air, and wishing they, just once, could have some fun.

So we discovered we had good seats one seat from the end of the row. It is looking like a great place to leave jackets until this enormous woman (and I mean REALLY enormous) shows up in one of those mumu-type mexican dresses. Suddenly we spent the rest of the concert in the middle seat in Coach, but it was still fun.

Liza came out looking pretty good, sang three songs, then babbled something about don't we all love to meet new people, introduced a 14 year old boy crooner in a poorly fitting suit, and left the stage. The kid then proceeded to sing for about 20 minutes, and the politeness the audience initially showed started to disappear fast. Most of the audience had been trained in public behavior by watching Maury Povich on a daily basis, and having eaten dinner at 3:00, tempers were starting to fray. Before long there were several hecklers and people screaming 'GET OFF THE STAGE!" and "WE PAID TO SEE LIZA!" from the balconies. It was bad. Worse than if Denny's suddenly announced the Early Bird Special was being discontinued bad. I expected canes and wigs to start flying at any moment.

Fortunately, half an hour into the show, we had the INTERMISSION, so tempers were diffused. After the police escorted a few delinquent octogenarians from the audience (seriously) we were ready to get going again.

The next part of the show started with a palpably more skeptical audience then when the curtain first went up, however, Liza came back and now SHE WAS ON FIRE. It was great...REALLY great. She belted songs with amazing depth and volume, she sang an ode to Sara Lee in honor of her weight, she pulled off her fake eyelashes, wiped the makeup off her face with a towel and sunk her soul into the music. It was obvious she needed this performance and fed off of every second of it. She drew strength as it went on, took rest when she needed it with fantastic band features, and then came back in the ring, towel over her shoulders for more. There was humor, there was beauty, there was humility.

An hour and a half later, she closed with her two signature songs, "Cabaret" and "New York, New York." The audience, once ready to disembowl a pre-pubescent boy, was now thunderous in its appreciation. Liza appeared to be completely overwhelmed. Then something quite special happened: People remained standing and became silent. Liza talked about how much this meant to her, how being on stage is where she felt alive, where she had been born, how it didn't carry the barriers that so much of the rest of her life did, and then she began to sing again..acapella.."I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places." Everyone was silent...there was a connection. We were helping someone who's life has held such a destructive combination of peaks and valleys, by simply allowing her to be.....her.

The song concluded and the audience erupted again.

An amazing moment. A great night. I'm glad I went.

A favorite quote, which seems appropriate: "How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’”

-Trina Paulus