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The Beastly Bombing: A Modest Little Musical
Need a little boost after the President's State of the Union speech this week?
Looking to combine an evening of nuanced political satire, slapstick humor, Gilbert & Sullivan, and..well, what else do you want?
The Beastly Bombing, billed as "A Terrible Tale of Terrorists Tamed by the Tangles of True Love", commenced its second run at the Steve Allen Theater last weekend. Kitchen sinks aside, writer/director Julien Nitzberg and composer Roger Neill have concocted a deliciously delirious musical of delightful dialogues and sumptuous soliloquies.
Enough with the alliteration already.
Nitzberg, initially known for his punk rock roots and documentary work, has bloomed in full with this deft mashup of all-too-current events and the stylings of comedic musical theater. Neill has developed a jaunty score that flirts with its inspiration but isn't afraid to make fun of itself in the process. The Beastly Bombing communicates an obvious love for the form while evidently nurturing a healthy tendency to carry a gag way farther than you ever thought possible:
Q: The Bush twins on a drug-fueled tour of the N.Y.C.?
A: Check.
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Q: Bomb-toting Skinheads with latent homosexual tendencies competing with Saudi terrorists for the same target?
A: Yeppers.
Q: Half-naked Jesus partaking in a mincing dance with the President?
A: We can neither confirm nor deny.
It's The Mikado meets "South Park" in a dark alley with just a pinch of Kovacs for good measure. Go see it. We promise you'll be ROFLing in the aisles.
Playing Friday and Saturday evenings for seven more weeks at the Steve Allen Theater.
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