Madelyn Claire Lego and Kyle Steven Stocker (Photo by Corran Villalobo).
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
The Jaxx Theatre
Through October 28
RECOMMENDED
If you were a New York theater critic during the 1999-2000 season, you were likely tearing your hair trying to distinguish between the two simultaneous productions of The Wild Party — both musicals and both based on Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 novel-length narrative poem — a work that excited controversy in its day because of its “risque” content but that has since inspired a devoted cult following.
One, with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa and book by LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, played on Broadway. The other, with book, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, played off. Although both received several award nominations, with the Lippa musical scoring several wins, neither could be said to have been box office smashes. Both closed after only a few dozen performances.
The Lippa musical can currently be seen in a hugely ambitious production at the Jaxx Theatre in East Hollywood. (Arrive early or parking may prove impossible.) As far as story structure goes, Lippa’s book is about as deep as a Frankie and Johnny period ballad, while his simplistic lyrics sometimes sound as if they were derived from a rhyming dictionary.
However, for sheer razzle dazzle that rivals some of the big-budget enterprises at the Pantages, just one more freeway exit down the road, this particular production will quite simply blow you away.
The mastermind behind this undertaking is Jeremy Lucas, Jaxx’s artistic director, who not only co-produced, directed and choreographed, but also did the costumes and crafted the sets, along with co-scenic designers Colin Tracy and JD Torres Morabito. Having directed and choreographed the West Coast premiere of Party in 2006 when the principals were already in place, he now gets to reprise the show with his own chosen cast.
And what a cast it is! The superlative performers are headed by Madelyn Claire Lego as the beautiful, disenchanted Queenie, who persuades her obsessive and volatile lover, vaudevillian clown Burrs (Kyle Stocker), to throw this boozy, hedonistic, Prohibition-era party. Whitney Vigil plays Kate, the blowsy former femme fatale who still nurses a powerful yen for Burrs. When outsider Mr. Black (Chris Louis), Kate’s date for the evening, wanders into the festivities and falls hard for Queenie, the scene is set for inevitable tragedy.
In a taut staging, Lucas’s choreography is a fetching fusion of 1920s period dances and Fosse-esque modernism, with an elegiac ballet sequence, performed by Morabito, thrown in for balance. Jamie Humiston did the excellent sound, while Justin Kelley-Cahill contributed the misty lighting, which is crucial to the slightly off-center and surreal ambience.
Music director Adam McDonald, who also conducts the live band, masterfully blends his talented performers’ voices. Torch songs abound, but novelty numbers include amusing turns by Emily Rafala as a lovelorn lesbian on the make and Christopher Robert Smith and Mary Louise Lukasiewicz as a punch-drunk fighter and his squeaky-voiced girlfriend.
This brief run closes on October 28, so book it soon. This is an opportunity not to be missed.
The Jaxx Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., East Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m. thru Oct. 28. www.Showclix.com/Event/Wild-Party two hours and 20 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.
