Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song Off-Broadway Reviews

Though Broadway, with its vanities and oddities, is in many ways an easy target, hitting satirical bull’s-eyes is hard. Expecting Alessandrini to be as consistently sharp and catchy as the best musicals he ransacks is unrealistic. Even if the music direction by Fred Barton is, as always, top-notch, the show’s staging is rudimentary, the pacing of its mere 90 minutes erratic and pocked with potholes. As such, it’s probably a good thing that last summer’s planned production of “Forbidden Broadway on Broadway” didn’t work out; the scruffy, sarcastic, bare-bones revues that this franchise is modeled on no longer have a home there.

Naturally, in a production that sprints through so many songs and shows in a mere 90 minutes, some numbers provide fewer laughs per bar of music. A finale spoofing “Suffs” doesn’t quite stick the show’s landing. A framing device using “Back to the Future” is a bit of a nice try. Mr. Alessandrini has to work with the material he is given. It’s not a coincidence that among the few weak spots are sendups of some flimsy or forgettable shows of recent seasons, like “Six” or “Water for Elephants.” The paradox of the “Forbidden Broadway” franchise is that the bigger and better shows make for bigger and better targets. In any case, it is an unalloyed pleasure to have Mr. Alessandrini back in form, committing merry musical larceny with flagrant and funny abandon.

Forbidden Broadway is a goof, but a virtuosic and stylish one, with infectious comic verve and lyrics that range from wittily inspired to boldly dumb (rhyming “earplugs” with “queer drugs”). It’s Mad Magazine with jazz hands; Saturday Night Live with people who can actually sing and dance; the antidote to hate watching; and a much-needed immunization for the season.

Maybe it’s not my cocktail. I say this as someone who enjoys parodies, but Merrily We Stole a Song veers into self-congratulatory smugness. It's not that I don’t disagree with its comments on the crisis of Broadway biz leaning on cushy nostalgia and high prices (criticism that isn’t new), but these complaints, seemingly lifted from theatre Twitter, can only roll out so long as lyrics before they dry out.

This mix works best when past and present exist side by side (by side), such as when Danny Hayward performs the song “Wilkommen” from “Cabaret.” He is first an elegant Joel Grey in 1966 (“You would adore/Our catchy score/and beg for more”), then strips off his tuxedo to portray Alan Cumming in suspenders and black cap (“My show was dark/As a black hearse/But scream in pain/Eddie Redmayne/Is even worse”), then strips even further and sticks on a stupid party hat and yellow kitchen gloves (“I’m Eddie Redmayne/And I have no charm/I will repulse you/Sniff my underarm – and lick it.”) As in most of the funniest parodies in the show, it’s the costumes designed by Dustin Cross and wigs by Ian Joseph most likely to provoke a laugh-out-loud reaction.