Our opening song features six glamorous, Adam’s-appled beauty contestants claiming to be “Natural Born Females.” They’re not, of course – but they are killers.
They include Miss Bible Belt, Miss Deep South and even Miss Industrial Northeast, and they are among the six zany contestants vying for the crown of Miss Glamouresse in Theatre Group’s genial, gender-bending new spoof, “Pageant.”
You might think it’s almost too easy, too dated – or just too sad – to keep satirizing the horrifying beauty-pageant circuit, especially post-JonBenet. But as the great new film “Little Miss Sunshine” also sweetly shows, our pop culture-fueled need for skin-deep validation remains as pathological as ever. So too, then, is our need to gently mock the bizarro and damaging world that champions it.
“Pageant” was a preposterously campy, off-Broadway phenom in 1991-92. Believe it or not, it was conceived by the same guy (Robert Longbottom) who went on to direct the riveting, carnival-themed musical “Side Show” for Broadway. Then again, that was another show about freaks on display.
In the surprisingly not raunchy “Pageant,” audience members are picked as judges while our six contestants vie in hilariously absurd competitions. For example, the very funny talent program includes a roller-skating accordionist.
In the meet-and-greet, Miss Deep South (Todd Black) expresses her desire to fight cancer where it begins – “in the home.” Miss Industrial Northeast (CJ Hosier doubling as Consuela Manuela Rafaella Lopez) explains how she attends beauty school by mail and practices on the girls at the detention center where she works. Miss Bible Belt (Richard Clark) lists her hobbies as “praying and fasting.”
The “girls” each get a turn pitching for primary sponsor Glamouresse, whose products include “facial spackle” and “roast beef red lipstick.” The final competition is a musical-chairs “beauty crisis hotline,” where each girl takes a question from a caller, such as, “What kind of makeup should a new mom wear in the delivery room?”
It’s all harmless fun, and while director Steven Tangedal elicits many great comic moments, it’s not as good as it likely will be in time. It’s a bit hit and miss. The whole thing should be coming off as more rowdy, unbridled fun than it is, but it lacks comic confidence in some spots and is sloppy in others.
Oddly, it’s the guy playing a guy who seems most uncomfortable. Our emcee Frankie Cavalier (George Pulver) is a likeable guy, but the actor was very nervous on opening weekend. And any hint of inhibition will doom a show that depends on outrageous one-liners and perfectly timed, vaudevillian physical comedy. But Hosier, Black and Preston Lee Britton (as Miss Texas) are having an absolute blast, and Clark’s “Bankin’ on Jesus” is the highlight of a fairly nondescript score.
It seems Longbottom’s intent in casting men to play these women was not to produce a drag show, but rather to effectively heighten the artifice of the beauty circuit.
The unseen queen of this staging is costumer Shelly Bordas, who had the unenviable task of finding dozens of ostentatious gowns and women’s bathing suits to fit grown men – not to mention, in one case, size 15 high heels.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
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“THE MAN HIMSELF” Boulder’s Ami Dayan performs his new off-Broadway-bound political cautionary tale on the same bill with his familiar children’s story, “A Tale of a Tiger.” “The Man Himself” is about a disenfranchised man who finds a home within the bosom of evangelical extremists 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11-13 and 17-19 at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins. $10-19 (719-235-8944).
“DANCING GIRL” Denver’s Thordis Simonsen is back again with her dramatic monologue, subtitled “An American Woman’s Greek Village Odyssey.” It’s about how she discovered a Greek village in 1982 and made a home for herself in the community. 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays though Sept. 10 at the Victorian Playhouse, 4201 Hooker St. $15 (303-321-5403).
“THE MUSIC MAN” After nearly five months, Boulder’s Dinner Theatre’s hit musical is about to enter its final week. 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 1:45 and 7:45 p.m. Sundays (dinner served 90 minutes before) through Aug. 19 at 5501 Arapahoe Ave. $27-$53 (303-449-6000)
-John Moore
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
RUNNING LINES WITH … RICHARD CLARK: One of the featured actors in Theatre Group’s silly beauty-contest satire, “Pageant,” talks with Denver Post theater critic John Moore. listen at denverpost.com/theater
“Pageant”
MUSICAL PARODY|Presented by Theatre Group|Written by Bill Russell and Frank Kelly (book and lyrics) and Albert Evans (music)|Theatre on Broadway, 13 S. Broadway|THROUGH SEPT. 16|7:30 p.m.Fridays and Saturdays, some Thursdays|1 hour, 45 minutes|$25|303-777-3292 or theatregroup.org
