My final live performance of last year was at the New Conservatory Theatre Center's musical Ruthless! (book & lyrics by Joel Paley, music by Marvin Laird, directed for NCTC by Dyan McBride, with musical direction by Joe Wicht & choreography b Staci Arriaga). It was described as a cult musical, but I will admit to being square enough not to have heard of it, though I was more familiar with the rich loam from which it sprang; there are echoes of The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Gypsy, & references to many golden-age musicals. I probably did miss a few references, as the show is very much a safe place for theater fanatics of a certain vintage, which is not to say it isn't flat-out hilarious for just about anyone with any interest in live theater. Not to give anything away, but the ending reminded me of one of the greatest theatrical creations of all, Hamlet. Only funnier.
The plot starts with a talented 3rd grader, Tina Denmark, who offs her rival for the lead in the school production of an original musical, Pippi Longstocking in the Tropics. I'm not going to recite all the clever lines, which really benefit from the very talented cast assembled by NCTC, but there is a running joke – "You killed over a part in a school play?!?" [response:] It was THE LEAD!!!!" that is worth quoting because it pretty much sums up the driving force of the show & the complications that ensue among what turns out to be three generations of stage-struck would-be stars. (& if you find that exchange funny – as I certainly do – you should seek out this show.)
So here's that talented cast I mentioned: Melissa Momboisse as Tina Denmark, the eight-year-old would-be Pippi; Mary Kalita as Judy Denmark, Tina's mother & just an ordinary housewife (or is she?); Jacqueline De Muro as Lita Encore, savage film critic, hater of musical theater (she has a big star turn titled I Hate Musicals!), & grandmother to Tina; Hayley Lovgren as Miss Thorn, the frustrated auteur behind the Pippi musical & Tina's third-grade teacher; Lucca Troutman in a dual role as Tina's rival for the lead role &, in the second act, as a conniving assistant (named, of course, Eve) to a Broadway star; & J Conrad Frank as the ultra-glam drama coach Sylvia St Croix, who has a few secrets of her own. Frank is particularly funny. I saw him in the lead role of Charles Busch's The Confession of Lily Dare at NCTC last spring (which was, oddly, my first time at that theater, which is a nice little space in Civic Center) & he managed the tricky task (one Busch himself excels at, judging from the couple of movies I've seen) of being able to provoke both wild satirical laughter & genuine depth of feeling. His height is part of the comic effect; he towered above both casts. In Lily Dare I did feel that the surrounding cast was a bit uneven, but everyone in Ruthless! (even the exclamation marks are funny in-jokes!) was up to his level (I should fill out the cast list by mentioned the three "swing" players: Lisa Appleyard, Danielle Mendoza, & Sarah Elizabeth Williams).
Ruthless! turned out to be an excellent way to end a year's performances, & a surprisingly good holiday show, not just because of the little seasonal touches in the set (a small Christmas tree on an end table, things like that), but because it is a celebration of love, at least a certain type of love: the love of theater (on or off stage, all these characters are playing parts & recreating themselves in new roles), the love of the spotlight, the love of giving, giving, giving to the audience (even if they don't always understand or appreciate what they're given). & it's a celebration of family: not just the baroque & sometimes bloody entanglements of the genetically linked, but the created family of those who have the same specialized, not to say rarefied, interests, & who share the same sense of humor. It was in some ways a bleak holiday season; who knew so much joy could come from a musical about advancing in the world by murdering?
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