At midsummer, no one wants to think to hard or be presented with moral dilemmas. Know Theatre of Cincinnati often deals with such matters, so it's nice to see them relax with a new show, What's the Point?
Truth to tell, the point of this musical revue is mostly to evoke smiles and laughter, perhaps with a bit of lighthearted social commentary. The 16 or so songs that make up What's the Point? are by composer Alan Cancelino and lyricist Hector Coris, both based in New York, where the show premiered in a cabaret setting about a year ago. Know's staging is only the second time the songs have been offered publicly, so this is kind of a workshop presentation. Coris is dropping in to see how it works, and he and Cancelino will present the material again in New York in September.
What's the Point? uses a model established by revues that were popularized during the 1950s and '60s that commented on popular trends and society in general. Contemporary subject matter makes it relevant to today's audiences, with musical vignettes about cell phone addicts, modern parenting, the lack of datable straight men and so on. The material is full of double-entendre. ("I Played With Myself," for instance, is a song about a lonely boy who had to occupy himself and grew fond of his own company.)
The show is happening in Know's Underground Bar and performance space, with café tables for a small, closely seated audience.
The stage has an upright piano — Michael Flohr, the musical director, is handling piano accompaniment, although on the night I attended veteran player Terry LaBolt was at the keyboard — and that's about it. The focus is on the humor evoked by the cast of three: third-season regular Liz Holt, 2006 CCM drama grad Dan Davidson and current CCM drama major Ben Newell.
Know's Artistic Director Jason Bruffy directs.
Holt, who really knows how to sell a song, is the most fun to watch. She opens the show with "Legs," an amusing number supposedly written for an alternate (and perhaps more cynical) version on The Little Mermaid. She follows that with an up-to-the-minute take on "My Cell Phone," confessing that her phone has the potential for all sorts of technical wizardry but she doesn't know how to simply call someone.
After that, she and Newell pair up for "A Baby Like That," playing a set of parents who see all the flaws in other people's babies and only perfection in their own. It's telling, although the baby-faced Newell hardly looks eligible to be a parent. (His youth, however, is perfect for the guilty smiles he evokes singing "I Played With Myself.")
Davidson has the best comic presence of the three, although he's prone to pushing things a bit too far. He has a fantasy about a "Flight Attendant" (played by Holt) that ends up with a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance routine, and his rendition of "My Moment (The American Idol Song)" might be the high point of What's the Point? as he starts off with a mousey presence and gets grander and more over-the-top with each passing second.
Newell's best moment comes when he sings about his frustration regarding being the "Straight Guy in a Gay Show" (he ends up wearing a boa and a tiara), a number that's the flip side of one Holt rendered earlier, "A Real Straight Guy," in which she bemoans the scarcity of eligible men.
Newell also shows a nice comic flair with "Telenovela," about watching a Spanish-language soap opera that he's entranced by, even if he can't quite follow it. I also liked his "dashing" portrait of "Dirty Sanchez" as Davidson sings "Beware of D.S." to the repeatedly victimized heroine played by Holt.
There is a thread of gay material running through What's the Point?, including "That's Why We Love the Zoo," which is about a dimension of wild animals few of us have ever imagined. There's a whiff of politics from "Lady in the House (Pelosi's Song)," with a tap-dancing Holt portraying the Speaker of the House. Contemporary relationships and the mechanism by which people connect are satirized in "E.Harmony-Dot-Com," which uses clever vocal harmonies to underscore the theme.
You get the drift, I suspect. If you don't find a number to be amusing (and a few of them do fall flat), all you need to do is stick around for what's coming up next. It's a swift 55 minutes of material that's likely to have something for everyone.
Performances are offered on a somewhat unusual schedule: Fridays and Saturdays at 9:30 p.m., then Mondays and Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. Since the show is happening in Know's bar area, you can come early for a drink, enjoy one during the show and stick around to party afterward. Perhaps that's the point.
