When I was a child there were a few things you could count on, and one of them was that (in the days before VCRs – and yes, honey, I AM that old) if you waited long enough The Wizard of Oz was going to be on TV at some point that year.  Back in the day, TV had that kind of power . . . it could make you wait expectantly for something and then give you the big reveal – making your heart beat faster for that one joyful night.

Seeing Friends Of Dorothy – An Oz Cabaret was a little bit like that and . . . I have a feeling that – just like the hallowed movie – we haven’t seen the last of it.  Dorothy is a Fringe Encore if I ever saw one.  So, while the show has packed up its rigging and its pasties, sit tight.  Here’s a little breakdown of what will certainly come around again:

“Toto,” Dorothy (Rita MenWeep a.k.a Jessica Silver) says to her iPod – crammed with play lists of the band famous for songs like “Africa” . . . “I don’t think we’re in Starbucks anymore!” Poor Dorothy, she got swept away, not in a huge Twister big enough to carry away a house, but rather in a tiny, tidy-bowl sized twister that swirled her through the toilet that she was doomed to clean, had it not, instead, transported her to this magical Land Of Bras.  But Poof!  Just like that the tiny twister took this sister away from her minimum wage job and into the glittery world of burlesque.

First on the scene to welcome her is Glinda (Miss Mary Cyn)  who is swathed in a puff of stuff  . . . but not for long.  Seems clothes just don’t stay on a gal in this Cool New Land.  Glinda sticks around just long enough to strip off the candy pink confection she arrived in, and to give Dorothy some good advice.  Seems the Wicked Bitch of the West (Bianca Del Rio) is looking for the Ruby Pasties (which somehow made their way onto Dorothy’s  . . . dainties) and if Dorothy knows what’s good for her she’ll  . . .well, you know the story.

Soon Dorothy is carried off to dreamland courtesy of a Munchkin (Veruca Honeyscotch) who then dances on the Aerial Silks to a driving Annie Lennox tune.  Sweet Dreams indeed!  Ending with a death defying drop that had the audience gasping in unison as if on cue, this is one Munchkin who knows how to represent – more than just The Lollipop Guild.

So, as Dorothy moves through this strange but exciting land it’s the usual gang of suspects – Scarecrow (Jenny C’est Quoi) does a fun striptease from atop her perch amid the corn, Tin Man (Schäffer The Darklord) entertains with a foul mouth and a nasty attitude (“I am the Tinman . . . who the hell are you?”) by breaking it down for us via a 100mph rap that – if you can follow it – does a great job of  telling the Tale of Dorothy Gale.  And of course there’s The Cowardly Lion (Sizzle Dizzle) who removes her clothes to the A-Team Theme Song.  Cute.  It’s right about at this point in the show that Gypsy’s “You Gotta Get A Gimmick” popped into my head (Once I was a Schleppa, Now I’m Miss Mazzeppa . . .) and I thought “Wow, this is SOME gimmick!”

The Wicked Bitch does her best to strut and sneer and vamp delightfully, when she’s not introducing the next act.  I mean, summoning her minions.  Flying monkeys (Harvest Moon and Mr.  Fantastic) doing a beautiful routine on the static trapeze and more stripping – courtesy of The Wizard -but not really the Wizard (Ambrose) himself round out much of the middle.

When the gang manages to thwart The Wicked Bitch – not with a pail of water but with something much more frightening to a carefully made-up drag queen – there is rejoicing all over the land, including the joyful Gate Keeper (Go-Go Harder) who does a neat little strip of his own.

In the end, Dorothy realizes that she never wanted to go home anyway, The Land of Bras is where she wants to be . . . and as she strips down to her magical Ruby Red Pasties it’s clear that she’s where she belongs.

Fun from start to finish, with just the right mix of kitch, drag, burlesque, circus, and glam this is one wild ride over the rainbow that doesn’t disappoint.  Keep an eye out, this one will be twisting its way back into town again soon – count on it.

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Friends of Dorothy: An Oz Cabaret
Conatus Productions
Writer: Rita MenWeep, Scot Marshall
Director: Megan Doss

www.conatusproductions.com
VENUE #7: The Ellen Stewart Theatre @ LA MAMA

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• Wasabassco Burlesque – Celebrating Seven Years And Still Going Strong
• Burlesque Blitz – The Strip Down Before The Count Down
• “It’s A Wonderful Day To Be A Woman!” In Jurassic Parq (Fringe Festival 2010)
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“A Jurassic Parq with a ‘q’,” is how the narrator who calls himself Morgan Freeman (Lee Seymour) — although he looks nothing like the actor — presents the show to the audience. “‘Q’ is for the question.” The dinosaurs will tell us the true story.

A baby-Velociraptor (Brandon Gill) is being released from a lab into a peaceful community of female dinosaurs (yes, you may remember in Jurassic Park they were all females … until they mutated) who are happily inhabiting their island paradise much like Adam and Eve before they committed the original sin – or perhaps like a bunch of Eves since there are no Adams. The matriarch community is lead and watched over by a pastor – a Velociraptor of Faith (John Jeffrey Martin) who favors the creationist theory that all dinosaurs were created in a lab.

The dinosaurs happily sing together “It’s a wonderful day to be a woman,” – until a terrible thing happens. T-Rex 1(Tara Novie) discovers that something is wrong with her. She’s grown a weird “hose” as she describes it. Her friend T-Rex 2 (Natalie Bradshaw), still a female, fusses over her, all in vain. The narrator Morgan Freeman steps in to explain ominously: “It’s the frog’s DNA.”

No one, even the pastor Velociraptor of Faith can explain what possessed the T-Rex 1, but Dilophasourus (Jay Frisby) whispers to the baby-Velociraptor that the pastor has a sister, Velociraptor of Science (Mary Ellen Ashley), who she banished from her sight – and who may have the answer. Baby-Velociraptor embarks on his quest for Velociraptor of Science, while the chaos starts tearing apart the peaceful predators’ community. The cursed T-Rex 1 completes her metamorphosis and becomes a male, accidently mating with Dilophasourus who happens to be nearby. The still female T-Rex 2 tramples in at the wrong moment. “Don’t move,” T-Rex 1 whispers to Dilophasourus. “If we don’t move, she can’t see us.”

But even a dinosaur can’t stand still forever so T-Rex 2 discovers the cross-species lovers and goes berserk. In her wrath, she runs across the small annoying human vehicle and crushes it to pieces. The saga continues as baby-Velociraptor returns with the Velociraptor of Science, who challenges the Velociraptor of Faith’s creationism and insists that science is the answer. Unfortunately the sisters’ are bound to never resolve their arguments: the furious humans shoot Velociraptor of Faith.

No matter how hard you try you can never predict the next twist and turn of this laugh out loud show. Although all the characters in the play except for Morgan Freeman are females, the actors are not. Jurassic Parq does not discriminate by gender. Velociraptor of Faith is played by a man, the mutated T-Rex 1 by a woman. The costumes – consisting of tights and short wrap-around skirts – are as hilarious as the lyrics. The stone hedge props “get you in the mood” before the show even begins. The synopsis of the play said “you should probably see it drunk,” – and you certainly should. Booze boosts your fantasy like nothing else. Especially when it comes to frog’s DNA.

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Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical
Writer: Emma Barash, Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo
Director: Marshall Pailet
Choreographer: Hayley Podschun

1h 20m
www.JurassicParq.blogspot.com
VENUE #7: The Ellen Stewart Theatre @ LA MAMA

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• They’re Baaaaaaaack! The Best Of Fringe Festival 2010 Returns For Fringe Encore
• Dream Of The Marionettes Is Still Very Much A Dream (Fringe Festival 2010)
• The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival: A Festival Of Brightness In The Eye Of The Storm (Fringe Festival 2010)

Shine Mionne (Cass King) runs her operation on a corset string, but she stands by her ideals: a true edgy burlesque show with no glitzy Broadway feel. The roof leaks, lights break, the performers don’t get paid sometimes, but everyone is family and a star, including the real big girl Lucy Von Doozy (Andra Boo Green), a little wildcat Feral (Roxie Moxie), who hisses and bites along with the janitor (John Woods) who never says a word.

Shine is busy changing stocking, gluing on pasties and avoiding calls from Chad-The-Douche-Bag, a financial officer from a Nuntucket bank, who is chasing her to collect late loan payments, when two newcomers show up at her door: an aspiring actor Frankie (Scott W. Abernethy) who claims being hired at a party last night and an NYU student Grace (Gemma Isaac), who is writing her senior thesis on “the challenging dominant gender convention of the 20th century alternative performance modalities” and wants to be an intern. “You don’t have to pay an intern,” she tells Shine, and gets hired on the spot. No sooner does Frankie find himself sweeping floors that horrified Grace pops out of the changing room in a costume made of pink balloons that, once popped, reveal silvery pasties the burlesque girls glued on her to start her burlesque internship. Of course, the two fall in lust with each other – and with Lucy Von Doozy, who teaches Grace how to be a strip star: “Everyone is sexy, everyone is a star. What makes us powerful is who we are.”

But even the fresh young juices can’t rejuvenate Shine’s troubled operation – the shows don’t sell and it’s clear that she can’t run her troupe the old-fashioned way. So when Richard Suit makes his second appearance (Shine threw him out the first time), she is inclined to listen to his proposition. The two strike a deal: she directs, he produces, she handles the talent, he takes care of advertisement – and they split the profit. That may sound good, but soon Richard starts coming up with his own ideas: Lucy’s too fat, the soundman is incompetent, and the show needs a midtown facelift. “This is burlesque, not a Broadway production,” Shine declares as she ditches Richard’s new numbers done in the best traditions of Britney Spears. “But your Wall Street types will run away the moment Lucy takes off her first glove!” Richard insists. Shine’s phone bursts out with Chad (the douche bag) custom phone ring – and she finds herself cornered. Will Shine and Richard manage their irreconcilable differences or will the last burlesque standing crumble to be consumed by urban gentrification?

Written by Cass King, John Woods and Sam Dulmage, The Shine Burlesque truly shined once it got over a few minor technical difficulties with uneven sound, a few wrong cues and sometimes uncooperative props (which, given the fact that Fringe only gives the performers 15 min to set up, is totally understandable). The saga is compelling, the costumes hilariously ostentatious, the lyrics funny even if sometimes silly, and the pasties tantalizing. If you enjoy striptease with a story to tell, definitely see it after a coupla drinks – and your burlesque experience will be completely authentic.

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SHINE: A Burlesque Musical
Writer: Cass King, John Woods (The Wet Spots) and Sam Dulmage
Director: Roger Benington
2h
www.shinemusical.com
VENUE #7: The Ellen Stewart Theatre @ LA MAMA

Click on a date for ticket information:
Fri 13 @ 8:15Sat 14 @ NOONMon 23 @ 9:45Thu 26 @ 2Sat 28 @ 2

Related Posts:

• Happy Birthday Mom – Her Daughter Would Not Have Approved (Fringe Festival 2010)
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• Dancing Into India – Being Becoming (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Snow White Zombie: Apocalypse – The End Is Nigh In Fairy Tale Land (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pulp Shakespeare – The Bard Would Be Proud (Fringe Festival 2012)