Gutenberg! The Musical!: Give My Regrets To Broadway

If I'm not the last person in New York to have seen the adorably funny love letter to the creative spirit known as Gutenberg! The Musical!, I certainly must be the last New York theatre critic to review it.  First developed in 2003 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Scott Brown and Anthony King's hilarious salute to those whose passion for musical theatre far exceeds their artistic taste and talent premiered in London a year ago, then hit Gotham in September as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.  An Off-Broadway engagement at 59E59 Theatres has now found a 10-week home in The Village at The Actors' Playhouse.

Presented as a play within a play, we in the audience are actually invited guests at a backer's audition where fledgling theatre artists Bud Davenport (Christopher Fitzgerald) and Doug Simon (Jeremy Shamos) sing and dance highlights from their brand new tuner based on the life of man who invented the printing press.  "Chances are if you don't know the person sitting next to you, he's a Broadway producer," they remind us with nervous excitement.

Since a quick Google reveals that not much is really known about the life of 15th Century German Johanness Gutenberg, except that he invented the printing press and used it create the Gutenberg Bible, Bud and Doug took the liberty of writing their bio-musical as historical fiction.  ("It's fiction that's true.")  In their version Gutenberg is a winemaker who, with the help of his lovesick assistant Helvetica, concocts a way to apply movable type to his grape press.  But an evil monk plots to destroy his invention so that he can continue to guide the illiterate masses into blindly trusting his interpretation of the good book.  Meanwhile, the underlying subtext (yes, there is a subtext) strongly hints at the growing anti-Semitism that would lead to the Holocaust 500 years later.  ("Germans hate Jews.")

Nursing home assistant Doug and Starbucks barista Bud, who play every part in the large production by flicking on and off dozens of baseball caps labeled with their characters' names, seem to have learned everything they know about musical theatre from overblown, power-ballad infused pop rock shows.  And though they have some knowledge of the craft ("Every musical has to end Act I with a really loud rock number.") they can use a little work on their rhyming skills (feces/squeeze these).  Even when they do rhyme correctly their lyrics are of the nature of "The sun is rising in the east. / I smell bread rising with the yeast."

But the charm of Gutenberg!  The Musical! is that Bud and Doug never seem less than a couple of really cool guys with healthy imaginations who do have their clever moments.  There's a child-like innocence about their material and presentation.  This isn't some big corporate moneymaking machine clogging up Broadway with junk.  These are two struggling writers who aren't getting paid anything sacrificing for their art.  Director Alex Timbers never loses sight of the fact that these are the good guys and that they do posses some amount of creativity.

Fitzgerald and Shamos, two skilled comic actors, expertly tone down their talents to the "enthusiastic beginner" level and are both hilariously funny whether overacting, bombastically singing or carefully explaining the inside workings of a Broadway musical like twin Mr. Rogers.

Don't be surprised if you find yourself rooting for Bud and Doug to achieve Broadway success while simultaneously feeling horrified that someone may want to back their cliché'-packed mish-mosh.  After all, by midway through Gutenberg!  The Musical! you may start realizing that what the fictional authors wrote really isn't as bad as some of the stuff that's made it.

Photos by James Abler:  Top:  Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos

Bottom:  Jeremy Shamos and Christopher Fitzgerald

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