Ten Bucks’ ‘Big Bang’ flirts with risk, risque

You’ve just settled into your seat. The lights haven’t even gone down, and here’s some chatty fellow with a tray of pastries welcoming you to the theater. He’s not doing this because he loves you. He wants your money – and not for the petits fours. He and his partner are collecting investors for the biggest musical ever on Broadway – millions of dollars, hundreds of actors, thousands of costumes and wigs. Welcome to “The Big Bang,” a condensed version of the history of the world, from the formation of the universe to rock ‘n’ roll. You’re gonna love it.

But since they haven’t yet hired the 318 actors, the guys do a scaled-down version of their show. In under 90 minutes, they sing of the world’s history from Satan in the Garden of Eden to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.

And the investors? That’s where you come in. “The Big Bang” is also the name of the three-man musical Ten Bucks Theatre Company presents through Nov. 6 at Brewer Middle School Auditorium. Strictly speaking, this is not an interactive event, although if you sit on the aisle, you may score one of those pastries. (That’s a tip.) But the audience may get a sense of just how wacky producers can be when they try to woo producers.

The show originally played off-Broadway in 2000, and has become a bawdy favorite of adult theaters and cabaret venues around the country. No group, gender or era is spared the razzmatazz raunchiness, ethnic humor, bastardized accents and general stereotypes of writer Boyd Graham, who partnered with composer Jed Feuer on the script. Consider this one line, sung by Gandhi’s mother to Jesus’ mother: “I don’t know why you’re so hyper. My son still wears a diaper.”

Funny as it is, the show is a tremendous risk – financially and thematically – for Ten Bucks. I prefer, however, to think in terms of theatrical risk, which is at the heart of every performance regardless of material. Given the demands of the downtown humor in “The Big Bang” (this is truly a New York piece), the unrelenting score (there’s more singing than speaking), the mountain of props (everything on Caitlin Harrison’s rich set is a potential costume or prop) and near-frontal nudity (hey, it’s Eden), this show is an extraordinary undertaking for a small theater.

But Ten Bucks had been steadily building a community theater repertory for comedy, and this one makes its mark thanks to three strong performances. Anyone who has ever seen Dominick Varney in a comic role knows he has never met a campy role he could resist. As part of the show’s two-man hack producing team, he’s: Adam, Satan, Nefertiti (with a hip swivel that’s bound to make the girls jealous), Napoleon, a Southern Belle, Paddy O’Gratin, Shanghai Lil and Eva Braun. The man changes characters the way most people change clothes. Plus he has a versatile and entirely pleasant singing voice that easily moves from rap to rock to ballads to falsetto and opera. Even when he lip-synchs (as a nun), he hits the right note.

None of the fun would be possible without his partner in crime and rhyme, Joshua Schmersal, himself a talented singer and energetic performer. Although he holds up his end of the musical-chairs costume game – Eve, Caesar, a Christian-eating lion, Attila the Hun, Christopher Columbus, Queen Josephine and Tokyo Rose – his part is – if you can believe it – slightly tamer but no less crucial to holding the show together.

As the “orchestra,” pianist Phillip Burns alertly and jauntily nudges the show forward. Even when the accents are off or when the rapid-fire rhythms blur the words, Burns keeps the neurotic pacing in check.

“The Big Bang” is a hybrid of “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged),” the Three Stooges, Comedy Central, Gilbert and Sullivan and, yes, “The Producers.” Varney, who also directed, has localized the story to Maine, turning the script’s urban setting into a country cottage owned by Stephen and Tabitha King. The shift mostly works. The show may not appeal to everyone and you may find yourself as breathless as the actors by the end. But for a mere $10, you get what every investor wants: a big bang for your buck.

Ten Bucks Theatre Company will present “The Big Bang” at 8 p.m. Nov. 4 and 5, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 6 at Brewer Middle School Auditorium. For reservations, call 884-1030. For information, visit www.tenbuckstheatre.com. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.