Editor’s note: The is a reposting of our review of Boulder’s Dinner Theatre’s 2007 production of “Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical,” which has been brought back by popular demand for a run Sept. 3-Nov. 8, 2008. The phone number and web site in the information box below are good for this production as well.
It’s great that Boulder’s Dinner Theatre continues to make such a wide range of risky programming choices – from the seminal, award-winning “Ragtime” to the contemporary populism of “Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical.” Odd as it sounds, both qualify as nothing BDT audiences have seen before.
But there have to be worthier endeavors, and greater artistic challenges for BDT’s unparalleled ensemble, than a stinker like “Mid-Life.”
I really don’t know why commiseration musicals about aging are all the rage, but I’m fairly certain they’re supposed to make you feel better about the whole depressing business.
“Menopause the Musical” used gimmicks, clichés and emotional manipulation to put smiles on audiences’ faces – and millions of dollars in producers’ bank accounts. These shows are expensive and exploitative pep talks, but their appeal to a built-in audience base is obvious.
“Mid-Life!” ought to go those shows one better, because brothers Jim and Bob Walton incorporate the woes of men into their script. But “Mid-Life!” plays out as one extended complaint set to unremarkable music. It’s a series of sketches that do little more than state the obvious: What a drag it is getting old – no matter your gender.
We already know from its distaff predecessors that menopause and mammograms are harrowing for women. “Mid-Life” points out that receding hairlines, rectal exams and late-night peeing ain’t so special for men, either. But there’s little else offered here to give us communal insight or comfort. It just acknowledges one reality of aging after another.
Some might say in comical ways. Some. But comedy is in the ear and experience of the beholder. The old guy behind me laughed at every single thing; I got progressively more despondent; and the teen next to me looked like she wanted to hang herself.
The one distinct and rare pleasure of seeing “Mid-Life” is the opportunity to see six of our most beloved actors step out of their musical theater costumes, put on everyday clothes and, to the extent possible, get real.
This audience feels a special connection to Scott Beyette, Alicia Dunfee, Barb Reeves, Bren. Eyestone-Burron, Brian Norber and A.K. Klimpke, who have hoofed more than 100 years among them at BDT. It’s fun to see them get the chance to do something completely different. It feels more personal.
They work mighty hard to elevate predictable and occasionally crude material that, like so many aging body parts, doesn’t quite rise when it is supposed to. Listening to outrageous prescription side effects made for a funny “Saturday Night Live” sketch – four years ago. Seeing parents taken advantage of by a grown brat, or listening to gals carp about lousy husbands, or seeing a beautiful woman desperate to get pregnant by a random man at a bus stop – that’s not a barrel of laughs. It’s kind of sad. There’s even a song called “I Quit” that might as well be called, “I Give Up.”
There are a couple of genuinely funny moments, like when Eyestone-Burron gets stoned at a reunion, and later in the short-fused throes of menopause. But the score is nothing special. “Weekend Warriors” is a weak knockoff of a “Full Monty” tune, and “A Trip to the Doctor” just made me squirm.
Then there’s the penultimate song, a sad lament about how parents slip away a little more each day, followed by a self-pitying finale that ends things melancholy rather than mirthful.
Hopefully this will be the last of the string of musicals that celebrate a change of life that, let’s face it, no one really wants to celebrate. What’s next? “Colonoscopies! The Musical”?
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical”
MUSICAL COMEDY | Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, 5501 Arapahoe Ave. | Directed by Jim Walton | THROUGH OCT. 27 | 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 7:45 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 1:45 and 7:45 p.m. Sundays (dinner 90 minutes before) | $34-$53|303-449-6000 or
