The Pee-wee Herman Show Broadway Reviews

Perhaps the perfect choice to guide the madness and innuendo supplied by Reubens and co-writers Bill Steinkellner and John Paragon is Alex Timbers, head of Les Freres Corbusier and writer/director of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Timbers, who no doubt grew up with the show as I did, gets the humor, knows how to deal with it, and guides with an invisible hand. (Parents should be prepared to have some explaining to do when their kids don't get some of the more adult-themed jokes.)

The first sight of the star of The Pee-wee Herman Show is a trip. Eternally natty in his little red bow tie, young master Herman steps out from behind a curtain to open his beguiling time-warp Broadway romp. The fan-filled audience cheers wildly — they love him enough to marry him! For a moment the clock spins backward: Paul Reubens — who first pranced in character three decades ago — may be a decidedly adult 58-year-old man, but the exuberant, hyperactive boy in the spotlight is an age-resistant, rouged child of 1980-something.

Amen! The Pee-Wee Herman Show is a candy land parade of familiar faces, memes of Christmas Past, and play-along-at-home sketches: Jambi the Genie grants a wish! Pterri the Pterodactyl flies in for a visit! Conky the Robot spits out 'the secret word'! Lick it, and you'll uncover coat after coat of sweet meta-ness, with one great, governing joke at its chewy-center: Pee-Wee Herman (comedian Paul Reubens) is a child in a grownup's body--and now, that grownup is All Grown Up.

If there's a compelling reason for 'The Pee-wee Herman Show' to be on Broadway beyond delivering its gleeful dash of sunny but slightly subversive fun, it's to remind us that things can stay the same in our hearts and heads.

This is essentially an updated version of Reubens' original stage show, which in turn inspired the film 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' and the Saturday morning television series 'Pee-wee's Playhouse.' There's not much of a plot, but the show is overloaded with atmosphere and laughs.

Seemingly unchanged in 30 years, Reubens' Pee-wee is as dangerously uncontrollable as ever, representing the fun-loving yet wild little kid in all of us. The performer skillfully combines a child's enthusiasm with an adult edginess. Whether quoting Bette Davis, making rude noises with a balloon, dancing with his favorite chair, or appearing to fly, Pee-wee is a spiky ball of fun. Reubens also offers a lesson to Back Stage readers in creating and, after a big mistake, re-creating your own career. The rest of the cast play clever parodies of childhood archetypes. Lynne Marie Stewart is particularly sharp as the beauty-obsessed Miss Yvonne. Paragon makes for a delightfully witty, bodiless Jambi.

A big part of why the stage show works isn't Pee-wee, though. It's the puppets and David Korins's set under the direction of Alex Timbers. There are a lot of moving parts here and visual jokes that must be precisely orchestrated: Some of the Basil Twist-led puppets are marionettes — like Pterri — while some are operated by remote control — like Magic Screen — and still others are manipulated from inside the puppet — like Conky. Voices are done from people offstage and Jambi the Genie (John Paragon) spends most of the performance with only his head showing from within a box.

To watch all this live feels supremely familiar and comforting, like eating a huge ice-cream sundae topped by a mountain of whipped cream and exploding sparklers.

Ignoring Reubens’s checkered career, which is irrelevant to the show, here’s the toughest critical call: Is Pee-wee right for middle schoolers and younger kids? There is material that walks the line between naughty innuendo for adults and goofy gags for the children. One masturbation joke (which predates the Florida movie-theater incident) will go sailing right over young’uns' heads. If you bring a nine-year-old to the event, they’ll probably find plenty funny, but just as often, they may ask what Mom and Dad are laughing at. I leave it to you to make that judgment. Pee-wee will never grow up, and for 90 minutes at least, you won’t have to either.

From its Pledge of Allegiance opening to a typically moonstruck ending, 'The Pee-Wee Herman Show' is certain to blast 20-and-30-somethings back to their youth for their very first taste of nostalgia, complete with a 'Penny' cartoon in the middle. Newcomers to the Pee-wee cult are likely to be dumbfounded by it all, but fans of Reubens' whimsical artistry should expect a lot of dandy fun - infinity.

Alex Timbers (also represented on Broadway with the historical mockumusical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) strikes the right overstimulated note in his direction, darting from one bit of business to the next without worrying too much about the flimsy connective thread. Lag time is plugged with shameless filler like an extended balloon gag or an amusing 1950s Coronet Instructional Film on good manners, redubbed with incongruous sound effects.

Mr. Reubens's Broadway debut is, among other things, a comeback attempt, two widely publicized run-ins with the law having forced him into involuntary semiretirement. With $3 million in the box-office till to date, it looks like a success. I'm fine with that: Mr. Reubens has paid his debt to society, and this show, adroitly directed by Alex Timbers, the co-creator of 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,' is good for plenty of laughs. Appearances to the contrary, however, 'The Pee-wee Herman Show' is not really a children's show, so don't bring the kids unless you're prepared to do a fair amount of heavy-duty explaining.

But be warned: The theater is kept at near-arctic temperatures, apparently to keep Mr. Reubens from sweating through his iconic gray suit and white face makeup. A trip down memory lane is nice, but it can also begin to drag, especially when you’ve got your collar turned up, your hands buried in your pockets, and you can no longer feel your toes.

The secret word, we're told early on, is 'fun.' If knowing that makes you want to yell and cheer - and use your outside voice - you are probably already primed to return to the otherworldly inside joke now called 'The Pee-Wee Herman Show.'

The result is a nostalgia trip that will appeal most immediately to those who followed Pee-wee in his heyday - they were well represented at a recent preview, where audience members hooted in rhapsodic recognition each time a character was introduced. But to their credit, Reubens, collaborating writers Bill Steinkeller and John Paragon and directorAlex Timbers recapture the gently subversive goofiness that made the brand work, and add contemporary flourishes.

But mostly this is a straight-up re-creation of the off-kilter world of the original series, which managed to succeed as both a sincere, pedagogical children's show and a winking sendup of one at the same time. It was a remarkable magic trick that won the show an avid following both among real tykes and adults who warmed to Mr. Reubens's kitschy, mildly subversive take on a vintage formula.

Show has been slickly staged by director Alex Timbers, who after a long career in the downtown theater made a dynamic Broadway debut four weeks ago as author/director of 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.' Actors, voices, and video are well integrated; the last include a very funny mock-authentic film on lunchroom manners, featuring a humongous slice of chocolate cake, and a stop-motion clay animation cartoon from Nick Park of 'Wallace and Gromit' fame. However, there are moments -- like when, after almost an hour, Reubens spends two minutes blowing up and deflating a balloon -- when the ninety-minute show seems like it will never end.

Typical scenes concern Pee-wee's love affair with Chairry, the female armchair our boy sits on, embraces and is hugged by; Jambi, the bodiless swami's head that lives in a box; and Pterri the Pterodactyl, who flits about arousing Pee-wee's yearning to fly. The plot, such as it is, hinges on the possible wiring of The Playhouse for Pee-wee's computer, which turns out to be a very bad idea indeed.

Bringing Pee-wee back is an act of courage in defiance of the media’s puritanical twittering; it is also a great relief to his legion of fans, who, on the night I saw the show, were whooping it up long before Pee-wee skittered onstage like a bow-tied water bug, his face clenched in its familiar rictus of surprise and delight.