For three decades, Heritage Square has delivered the most consistent fun at any Colorado theater, hands down.
If you’ve been, you know that. If you haven’t, “Everything Old is New Again” is the perfect opportunity to find out why.
This is more than just a night of greatest hits. It’s a surprisingly personal retrospective that whisks audiences through a long and phenomenal success story.
The seven primary performers have logged 124 combined years at Heritage Square, and many in the audience have been beside them all along. Although longer in tooth and wider in belly, they still perform each show as if it’s their first. Their love for one another and what they do is evident in every pratfall, bad joke, silly segue and gorgeous melody.
We open in 1973, with T.J. Mullin remembering his audition for the legendary William Oakley at the then-Heritage Square Opera House. That was 33 years and more than 10,000 Mullin performances ago. Next we get a brief taste of the melodramas that marked the 1970s, when audiences booed villains and “ahhh-ed” ingénues. Heritage Square always has relied on a (winning) formula, but revisiting the old days shows just how drastically that formula has evolved. The emphasis now is on pop-music revues and adaptations of classic stories.
Every cast member gets to relate his or her own story, most touchingly Alex Crawford describing how he met Mullin in 1976 as a 20-year-old dishwasher at a sister theater. He’s been at Heritage Square since ’84, “and that skinny 20-year-old is now a grandfather of six,” he says.
Most bits are familiar – director Annie Dwyer slaps Rory Pierce and says, “That’s for being a lousy lover!” He returns the favor and says, “That’s for knowing the difference!” Mullin and Crawford have a field day showing why they are Denver’s top comedy team. Dwyer reprises alum Bryan Foster’s long-gone (for good reason!) tradition of snatching and downing multiple shots right out of patrons’ hands. Dwyer, of course, also leaves her (lipstick) mark on some poor bald guy’s head – though oddly, we don’t get to see anything from her renowned repertoire of bubble-gum tricks.
We learn how Mullin took over in 1987 and renamed it the Music Hall. Then it’s a sensational roundup of old favorites – the Crusty Mountain Boys, an updated “Who’s on First,” Johnette Toye belting an astonishing “Summertime.” Randy Johnson takes on Mullin for “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” – with dueling accordions.
There are lots of celebrity impersonations such as Fat Elvis, and while Crawford may not look like the Man in Black, he’s a black man whose voice is closer to Johnny Cash’s than Joaquin Phoenix’s. And the incomparable Dwyer electrifies the room belting Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.”
In between, the cast talks openly about growing older together as a family, facing rheumatoid arthritis, torn rotator cuffs and bad knees. They reference Heritage alums like recent Oscar nominee Amy Adams.
Upon exiting, two regulars showered the actors with hugs (one told Kira Cauthorn, the knockout newcomer, “Oh, we’ll grow to love you too, honey”), at the same time a first-timer remarked in disbelief, “I had no idea how fabulously talented they are.” This lovefest lasted long after curtain for some – but not for Crawford.
“I’m going home to ice my knee,” the grandfather said.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Everything Old is New Again”
DINNER MUSICAL|Heritage Square Music Hall, 18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden|Directed by Annie Dwyer|THROUGH SEPT. 10|7 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays (dinner 2 hours before)|2 hours, 30 minutes|$31-$36 (with dinner) $23-$26.50 (without)|
