By Matt Robinson
Whether you love Broadway or think it is headed in the wrong direction, an evening with the talented twisters of “Forbidden Broadway” is a special treat! So when you combine its creator – Needham’s own Gerard Alessandrini – with what may be the most shape-shifting musical in recent memory – “Hamilton”– the result is sure to be Revolutionary!
Poking fingers and fun at everyone from the supremely confident (except when he is cowering at the feet of the “Yoda of Broadway,” Stephen Sondheim) Lin-Manuel Miranda to such other Broadway behemoths as Liza, Bernadtette, and Barbara, “Spamilton” (which is staged at the Huntington’s Calderwood Pavilion in the South End)points out what is great and grating about both the record-breaking, Kennedy Honor-winning play and the Great White Way world into which it has been thrust. Over the course of this quick-changing revue, mixable maestro Curtis Reynolds and a handful of energetic actors, including dance captain Chuckie Benson, preening frontman Adrian Lopez, a wigged-out Dominic Pecikonis, a Burr-ish Datus Puryear and puppet mistress Ani Djirdiijrian race through reams of rhymes while trying to make sense of the story, the staging, and the scene in which this semi-historical story has made such a sense. Along they way, the up-to-the-moment show begs, borrows, and steals from everyone from Cher to Fosse to Ziegfeld and everything from ”Annie” and “Avenue Q” to “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Willy Wonka” to “Hairspray” and “Hedwig” to “Camelot” and “Spamalot,” mash up “The Lion King and I,” point out that “School of Rock” IS “Something Rotten” and note how the allegedly anti-Disney Miranda started out deeply ensconced “In the Hype” and ended up scoring “Moana” and scoring with “Mary Poppins Returns” and serving as a contemporary Centurion for American Express.
As the mouth marathon winds down, the cast looks forward to the casting of the inevitable film version and winders where Broadway will go next and what show may unseat the reigning King Charles. That may all depend on who lives, who dies, and who tells the story, but in this version, the closing advice is to take inspiration from the “young, scrappy, and hungry” Miranda and “write your own musical tonight.” In the meantime, however, assessing whether other creations will be as entertaining as this one (which has already been extended through April) is strictly Forbidden.
https://www.huntingtontheatre.org
