Katie DeShaun as the female T-Rex in a Stephen Schwartz-style Jurassic Park ballad “Set Me Free." (Photo by Jim Dooley)
Katie DeShaun as the female T-Rex in a Stephen Schwartz-style Jurassic Park ballad “Set Me Free.” (Photo by Jim Dooley)

The Revue

Reviewed by Joseph Klink

The Colony Theatre

Through March 27

Recommended

With an unmatched eagerness to return to theater, we may easily begin to romanticize our more questionable former decisions and experiences on the stage. Still, we braced ourselves and made them work. But were they ever, really, going to work?

The Revue, a new musical created and written by Jim Dooley, gives us a high-energy look into the room where the chaos of creating theater happens. A director and producer are trying to save their theater with a sellout show. They are surrounded by piles of scripts that they have turned down in the past, because each one is a musical parody of an iconic work of cinema or theatre. Purely out of financial need, they dare to take another look. Before we can even consider what should be turned into a musical, a team of four, fully committed, performers appear center stage with a single song from each script. The songs, and their deliveries, are wild.

Dooley, an Emmy-Award-winning composer, has teamed up with Troubadour Theater Company Founder Matt Walker to present a “Dynamic Plot.” The opening and ending of the show remain fixed, while the body consists of interchangeable “modules.” These are the different parody scripts that The Director (played by Walker) and The Producer (Rick Batalla) are considering. Dooley has composed songs for each of these plays, and it’s conceivable that no audience will see the same show twice. They take the simple concept of “what if,” they dial it up to an 11, and then they throw it at the wall and be damned if it doesn’t stick. The Alto (Tiffany Daniels), The Soprano (Katie DeShan), The Baritone (Travis Leland), and The Tenor (Isaac Robinson-Smith), are the vehicles for this ride, and they are supported by a single well-played piano, accompanist Ryan Whyman, and a strong, well-executed production and design team. 

This show is very accessible, particularly for a musical, because the references are so well rooted in popular culture. At a time when audiences have been shut inside for so long, overwhelmed with the weight of the world today, light-hearted works such as these provide a space for people to recognize the ridiculous and laugh. We can laugh at our creations, we can laugh at ourselves for trying, and we can laugh at taking ourselves too seriously.

The Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third Street, Burbank; Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 3 pm.; thru March 27.  Running time 90 minutes (no intermission). www.TheRevueMusical.com