What About Bacon?

GUTENBERG! opened on Friday night as part of the NY Music Theatre Festival. After our run in London earlier this year, we went out and hired Broadway actors (Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos) to be Bud & Doug this time around.

And for the first performance, the Producer cameo role was played by...ANDREA MARTIN!

Our first review came out this weekend on Talkin' Broadway - a website mostly for show queens to bitch and chat about shows.

Gutenberg! The Musical!
Theatre Reviews by Matthew Murray

Perhaps the single greatest understatement of this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival is spoken by Bud Davenport late in the first act of Gutenberg! The Musical!: "History doesn't always happen like we think." Indeed it doesn't. And in the case of Gutenberg!, playing at the Sage Theatre, that's a great thing in more ways than one.

In devising the ostensibly bound-for-Broadway musical, writers Bud (music and lyrics) and Doug Simon (book and lyrics) admit that biographical information about the inventor of the printing press was scant, which led them to insert a few details of their own. This, however, is perfectly in keeping with the genre of historical fiction: "It's fiction... that's true!"

But while it's fairly likely that Johannes Gutenberg did not employ a doting grape-stomper named Helvetica and that his mortal enemy was a monk (with mutilated genitals) determined to keep the Word of God his own private domain, all of this stops mattering mere minutes after the start of Gutenberg!, which was actually written by Anthony King and Scott Brown: It's not love of Gutenberg that drives the hilarious Gutenberg!, it's love of musical theatre itself.

The show, you see, is a backer's audition that Bud and Doug (played by Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos) are presenting with hopes of interesting Broadway producers. So what if these two incurable nerds can't act, sing, or dance? They have desire to spare, and - after a fashion - no end of cleverness.

How to change Gutenberg's grape press to a printing press in a blink of an eye? A construction-paper flipping sign, of course. How to convey crowd scenes with a dozen people or more? Baseball caps, each inscribed with the appropriate character's name and stacked on the head or held in the hand as necessary, are the logical solution. (Those caps, by the way, which can stand in for everything from feces and dead babies to a stage-filling kickline, are the show's most delicious running gag.)

Musically, Gutenberg!'s score pays rickety tribute to Bud and Doug's favorite musicals, apparently British pop operas: A street-gossip song is done as a rap, complete with nerdy-cum-hip dance moves; the first-act finale finds Gutenberg, the Monk, and Helvetica singing overlapping rock solos on three separate rooftops. Say what you will about Bud and Doug, but their creativity is truly (and sometimes regrettably) limitless.

So is that of King and Brown, Fitzgerald and Shamos, and director Dave Mowers, who keeps all the insanity in check (if just barely). The show they've all created is breathlessly zany, but also oddly touching: So totally do Fitzgerald and Shamos dissolve into Bud and Doug that there's no trace of the artistry these two superb young actors always demonstrate in their work. All you see is the joy of these two working stiffs who really want to beat the odds.

They might go over the top in presenting Gutenberg as a laid-back surfer dude or the Monk as a redneck truck driver with mutilated genitals, in taking asides to the audience to explain their own personal philosophies ("God and stuff don't mix"), or in their insistence to decry anti-Semitism at every turn, and if you occasionally sense their awareness of their inability to win this particular battle, they're obviously having a great time, and they want you to have a great time, too. That might not count for much in the real world show business, but it's everything here. As they admit near evening's end, "It's not just the success that matters - it's the dream."

While their dream is a laugh-out-loud one, it could use a bit of clarifying: Though Gutenberg! runs just about an hour and a half (including an intermission), it's perhaps seven minutes too long, and the second act doesn't build quite enough on all the raucous unpredictability of the first. Even if Bud and Doug, like King and Brown, still have a way to go, they're already ahead of themselves: Bud considers Elton John's shows the ne plus ultra of musical theatre, but with his own work of hysterical fiction, he and Doug are already giving Sir Elton a real run for his money.

Of course the review was followed by the requisite bitchy discussion, including this thread:

magicmanst: Dead on. This show was one of the most charming shows I've seen at any NYMF. And the special cameo by Andrea Martin was to die for! Bravo!

VanSchenck: You said 'Dead on" - I say Deadly. It was a very clever conceit done in by the overweening smugness of its two creators.

treforclwyd: Ha - and you have a sense of humour, VanSchenk? "Guttenberg" is the funniest thing I've seen in years - laughed from beginning to end. Andrea Martin was hilarious!

This exchange was followed by fisticuffs, a load of sass, and of course, much more overweening smugness from me.

The Carpetbagger Report

I'm not really trying to turn this into a political blog, but Andrew Sullivan posted this entry in his blog today - a discussion of Thomas Friedman's recent op-ed in the NY Times - and it so sums up what I think the Democratic talking points should be in this election that I wanted to repost it.

I'm also posting this on all kinds of different message boards: Bass Fishing, Plushies, Dianetics, The Perfect Turkey Sandwich, etc. The word will get out!

As Sullivan would say, the money quote (from Thomas Friedman):

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, and let’s have an unprecedented wartime tax cut and shrink our armed forces. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but let’s send just enough troops to topple Saddam — and never control Iraq’s borders, its ammo dumps or its looters. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but rather than bring Democrats and Republicans together in a national unity war coalition, let’s use the war as a wedge issue to embarrass Democrats, frighten voters and win elections. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism — which is financed by our own oil purchases — but let’s not do one serious thing about ending our oil addiction.

Dear Democrats,

Please stop arguing about this war on the President's terms. The discussion has never been about whether or not we should fight terrorism. It's about how we should fight terrorism. So every time the Repubs try to paint this picture of you Dems being soft on this fight, laugh in their face, call their claims ridiculous, and change the subject to how we need to start fighting this war legally, responsibly, ethically, and morally.

That's the high ground. That's how you're different.

Oh yeah - and formulate a detailed plan on how exactly to fight this war legally, responsibly, ethically, and morally. That would be helpful (and, honestly, it's pretty sad you haven't done it already).

Sincerely,
Anthony King, non-political blogger

The Burning Bush

There was an AP article today with the headline, "War Turns Southern Women Away From GOP." It's mostly a fluff piece about how even southern people don't like the Iraq War. Of course, because of the media's obsession with "equal spin," the article concludes with a pretty amazing quote:

Still, some Southern women remain stalwart supporters of the president and the Republican Party. At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, substitute teacher Clydeen Tomanio said she remains committed to the party she's called home for 43 years.

"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord," Tomanio said. "I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through."

She continues, "I was subbing a class last week and one of the kids asked me how we get these watermelons for the festival. Well, I told him, "These watermelons were placed here by God.' God just loves to place things! He's so busy! Praise you, Republican Jesus. Praise you."