Musical sendup a hit in Orono Broadway revue packs funny punch

ORONO – Just before leaving for Saturday’s performance of “Forbidden Broadway” at the Maine Center for the Arts, a friend who had seen the show in New York City, where it began 20 years ago, asked if a sendup of Broadway musicals could possibly be interesting to a Maine audience. Interesting? It was more than interesting. It was sold out. The musical as an art form may be rumored to be dead in New York, but it’s alive and kicking here.

So Gerard Alessandrini’s theater revue, which brings several dozen musicals to the stage in about 100 minutes and uses one hotshot pianist and four multitalented singer-dancers performing loving eviscerations of stage shows and stars, was bound to be a hit in this far-flung neighborhood. Indeed, the roadshow of “Forbidden Broadway” packed a punch that kept the audience laughing during episodic roasts of “The Lion King,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Hello Dolly,” “Stritch,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” and “The Graduate” – to name a few victims.

Leisa Mather’s sharp and funny mimicry of Bebe Neuwirth in “Chicago” was augmented by the dance routines of Tom Plotkin and Michael West during a teasing poke at choreographer Bob Fosse. Mather outdid herself later in the show with a diva-rich impersonation of Barbra Streisand.

Becky Barta won one of the biggest laughs of the night with an aging Little Orphan Annie smoking a cigarette and singing, “I’m 30 Years Old – Tomorrow” with an accompanying chorus of “Revive me! Revive me!”

“Forbidden Broadway,” winner of Drama Desk, Obie and Outer Critics Circle awards, does not require a careful familiarity with every Playbill since the 1940s, when the Broadway musical with both a score and a plot was born. For instance, the segment on “Aida,” by Elton John, and “Aspects of Love,” one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s less touted works, were somewhat unfamiliar to local audiences, but the humor was broad enough to be entertaining.

The show didn’t focus exclusively on musicals, but also poked fun at other aspects of the industry. “Can You Feel the Pain Tonight” slapped the wrists of puppeteer and director Julie Taymor for the unwieldy costume designs in “The Lion King.” “Into the Words” acknowledged the difficulty of singing lyrics to the atonal tunes and speedy rhythms of composer Stephen Sondheim. “These Are a Few of My Souvenir Things” (to the melody of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music”) opened fire on mega-producer and Broadway memorabilia king Cameron Mackintosh. And “Bring It Down” showed how wrenching it is to sing some of the more challenging songs, such as “Bring Him Home,” from “Les Miserables.”

“Les Miz,” of course, had the longest running jab, which mocked the famous turntable stage of a show so popular and so tired that it was natural fodder for this team of comic talents. A stand-in for Maurice Chevalier sang (to the tune of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”): “Thank Heaven, we’ve got ‘Les Miz.’ It gets more mis-er-able every day.”

Not every moment in the show was hilarious. But the quick-moving and quick-witted format, combined with extraordinarily supple skills of the actors and of Matt Ward’s exceptional musical direction and piano accompaniment, made the evening a light look and leer at one of America’s – and Maine’s – favorite theatrical genres.