Mimi le Duck: Fowl Play

The good news is that Eartha Kitt is once again on the prowl in a new musical that plays to all her delicious strengths.  More good news is that quirky charmer Annie Golden leads a solid cast of musical theatre performers.  The bad news is that the musical that employs them, Mimi le Duck, is a tepid affair that would aspire to be bland.

Golden plays Miriam, a bored Mormon housewife from Ketchem, Idaho who wants more out of life than her current profession of painting pictures of ducks to sell on the QVC Network.  A visit from dead Ernest Hemingway (Allen Fitzpatrick) inspires her to quickly pack up her bags and move to Paris, where she finds an assortment of crazy characters and no plot.  There's the aged former chanteuse (Kitt), the romantic, elderly owner of a bird-themed cabaret (Tom Aldredge), a Spanish Gypsy pickpocket (Ken Jennings) and his snooty artist wife (Candy Buckley), and an oyster shucker with dreams of becoming a cross-dressing detective (Robert DuSold).  Her conservative husband (Marcus Neville) follows her to Paris in an attempt to bring her back from her new life as a duck-costumed cocktail waitress named Mimi.

I'm sure the authors were attempting to be whimsical, but Mimi le Duck lacks the wit and tunefulness to pull it off.  Brian Feinstein's music is pleasant at best and Diana Hansen-Young's perfunctory book and lyrics never take the time to establish a relationship between Mimi and her husband that's worth caring about.  It's not an especially bad musical, just an exceedingly dull one, and star Annie Golden, an extremely likeable actress/singer with a solid belt, must trudge along through unfunny scenes and lackluster songs until her last number, where she at least gets to show off vocally a bit.

Eartha Kitt is better served in a role that gives her plenty of opportunities to be…well, Eartha Kitt.  She lays on that vibrating accent with her patented purr and is granted a couple of torchy solos.  (The show's opening was delayed nearly a week so that the authors could write a new Act II song for her.  Perhaps if they delayed a few more days they might have finished it.)  In one musical scene she tries to train Mimi in the ways of enticing men with sex appeal.  The two of them squeeze the bit for every laugh possible, but receive little support from the script.

The rest of the talented company certainly gives the material more than it deserves.  Director Thomas Caruso and musical stager Matt West manage to add some moments of lightness and humor and the stage sure looks whimsical with John Arnone's collage set, Ann Hould-Ward's colorful costumes and David Lander's brushstroke lighting.

The press material for Mimi le Duck says the show has been rewritten 138 times.  Well, they do say the 139^th time's a charm.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Annie Golden and Eartha Kitt

Center: Annie Golden

Bottom: Eartha Kitt and Tom Aldredge

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