GAY PEOPLE'S Chronicle

SECTION B

February 11, 1994

Ev

Out

Richard Stegman, Howard Crabtree and Ron Skobel (left to right) are three of the Whoop-Dee-Doo troupe performing in Greenwich Village.

PHOTO: GERRY GOODSTEIN

Gay musical review is campy, charming and sentimental

Whoop-Dee-Doo Actors' Playhouse, NYC

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

Whoop-Dee-Doo, a gay musical extravaganza, is the invention of costume designer and actor Howard Crabtree. It is a campy, draggy, good-spirited evening of light entertainment performed by an engaging ensemble of seven cute boys plus a comic duo, Crabtree and Stanley Bojarski, whose comments and quibbles between the songs and sketches serve as a glue that holds the piece together. This musical review was conceived and developed by Crabtree with Charles Cantanese (producer), Phillip George (director), Dick Gallagher (composer and writer), Mark Waldrop (lyrics and writer) and Peter Morris (writer and actor). Although I'd have liked the music to be better and the lyrics wittier, they serve as adequate vehicles for Crabtree's extravagant, imaginative and amusing cos-

tumes.

Bojarski plays a queeny comic diva to Crabtree's ingenuous and sweet "not-sostraight" man. The running gag has Crabtree as a Ziegfeld showgirl in elaborate period costumes, accompanied by bare-chested chorus boys (Richard Stegman and Cleveland native Ron Skobel), interrupted by

Bojarski as he begins a number.

The majority of the sketches or songs seemed based around Crabtree's costume inventions. In "Teach It [the skeleton in your closet] How to Dance," three elegantly dressed "invisible" men, faces blanked out by body stockings and wearing Claude Rains dark glasses dance with miraculously invisible partners, ingenious blue gowns whose movements convince you that you are in the presence of ghosts. "Tough to be a Fairy" is set in a Fairy Bar inhabited by creatures in droll headpieces and wings. Tinker Bell lies morose in a Rolling Rock bottle. For the Act I finale, "A Soldier's Musical," the soldiers are dressed as potatoes carrying asparagus weapons. They are confronted with a new recruit who is a fruit (a banana). He proves to be a valiant fruit, and the Act concludes as fruits and vegetables join forces. Act II opens with a turnof-the century outing, "A Perfect Day," in which the ensemble wears various shades of white; and four of the men are in high Gibson Girl drag. Since it's queer, the drag queens pair off as do the four men. In "As Plain as the Nose on My Face," David Lowenstein sings the part of the nose to a chorus "girl" Kleenex. Ron Skobel is given an elaborate electrified sign costume for his number, "My Turn to Shine." The 9-

inch red on-off switch is on the crotch: erect being the on position. For Whoop-DeeDoo's finale, "Less is More," Crabtree creates a dazzling display of showgirl costumes for the company out of trash: plastic trash bags, wrapping paper and ribbon, plastic bottles, laundry detergent boxes, newspaper, etc.

Each act contains one elaborate dramatic sketch. In Act I this is "Nancy: The Unauthorized Musical," featuring Keith Allen as Nancy Reagan, accompanied by three bellhops who play all the other parts by changing hats. In Act II, "You are My Idol," is a mock anthropological extravaganza about a South Sea island whose natives have created a cult around a box of American pop culture material that fell from an airplane. It culminates in the appearance of their "goddesses": Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, and Bette Davis. The gowns and wigs, made of ratafia, are utterly hilarious.

There are solo numbers for almost each actor. I especially enjoyed Michael West as a teenage Elizabeth Taylor fan singing a patter song, "Elizabeth," that uses her ten married names. West also did an amusing Liza Minelli in "The Magic of Me." David Lowenstein had a torch song "Blue Flame,"

in which he sings the lament of a moth whose caterpillar friend grew into a butterfly and flew away. Alan Tulin sings the pain of a gay teenager in gym class, "The Last One Picked," and Richard Stegman, the show's poster boy, has the proud and stirring, "I Was Born This Way."

Whoop-Dee-Doo is a celebration of an aspect of the very traditional gay sensibility that is campy, bitchy and sentimental. It harks back to the secret bars and revels of the closeted 1950s. Its charm now partly lies in the fact that it looks back, not in anger, but with affection, from the viewpoint of a present that seems to have changed for the better. The seven younger men are cute, energetic and talented. One senses that the older pair, Bojarski and Crabtree, are lovingly passing on traditions. WhoopDee-Doo is an enchanting entertainment and a perfect vehicle for Crabtree's astonishing and amusing costume designs.

Whoop-Dee-Doo is playing at the Actors' Playhouse at 100 Seventh Avenue South in New York's Greenwich Village. Performances are Tuesday-Friday at 8:30 pm; Saturday at 7 pm and 10pm; and Sunday at 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm. Tickets are $30. For reservations telephone 212-691-6226. ▼