Review: SKIPPY AND BITSY’S ALL-STAR TV CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA at The Bent

It’s all in good (and a little naughty) fun at Skippy and Bitsy’s All-Star Christmas TV Extravaganza on “live television”. This is a tv special you might have run across while surfing cable access tv, or in an SNL Christmas skit from the 1980s where it’s live and it’s a trainwreck, and there ain’t nothing you can do about the disaster happening around you except punt and hope for the best. These are big broad characters who are the butt of the joke. It’s silly, and it’s good stupid fun with a touch of genius here and there.

Written by Terry Ray & Jane Guy, they play the titular characters, our hosts, and are married to each other. Skippy (Terry Ray) is 1980s Liberace gay (the costumes!), and a shamelessly horny bastard too, lusting after all of the male performers. Bitsy (Jane Guy) remains blissfully clueless. 

In fact, Bitsy lives in her own little world where she is famous, and famous people are clamoring to be on her tv special. She also believes her husband is straight. While the entire production is a silly review played strictly for guffaws (which are heartily rendered by the audience) Guy gives us a very thoughtful, believably clueless character, never losing her childlike belief that she lives in this perfect world. It’s a very nice performance that survives the madcap beautifully. And she can tap dance up a storm too!

I feel like I have seen Ray play this character before, or a version there-of - an overtly sexualized, over-the-top gay man with zero chance of passing as straight. That does, however, give Guy’s Bitsy an extra layer of cluelessness. 

Steve Rosenberg does a good job as the drunken announcer with a thing for Bitsy, and Travis Creston Detwiler plays the toady stage manager Tab with gleeful twinkiness. Every character is a caricature of some 1980s trope, reminding us of the garishness of that time, when sexual innuendo was the standard, and the queer community was less defined.

Favorite moments were Bette Davis and Jan Brady (Eric Seppala) and the triplet song, as quadruplets.

All in all it’s a holiday romp, it is not - by any stretch of the imagination - meant to be serious nor does it have a message. What is it? Another patron summed it up well, “It’s good fun on a Tuesday night.” 

Skippy and Bitsy’s All-Star TV Christmas Extravaganza now playing at The Bent 12/18 & 19.

Directed by Terry Ray

CAST

Skippy - Terry Ray

Bitsy - Jane Guy

Fritz - Steve Rosenbaum

Tab - Travis Creston Detwiler

BarBARa Streisand, Biddy Mavis & Jan Brady - Eric Seppala

Brenda Lee-ish, Robert Goulash - Mark Reis

Nancy Sinatra and Rose Marie - Jaci Davis

Choreography - Jane Guy

Video Projections - Grant Guy

Set Design - Jason Reale

Lighting - Mariah Pryor

Costumes - The Cast

Props - Jane Guy

photo credit: Kayla Gordon Photography

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