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We are thus integrated into the student body at Roosevelt Jefferson Technical High, where the bespectacled and tongue-tied Principal Bollus (Greg Lucey) has called an assembly to show us training films demonstrating proper deportment in social situations. He is joined by Coach Edwards (Robert G. Kennedy), a bothersome clown to Bollus' bumbling straight man. The movies (based on late-'40s and early-'50s instructional films created by Coronet and Encyclopedia Brittanica) turn out to be a series of theatrical vignettes in which the eight cast members, aided by rapid costume and set changes, play several different roles in scenes like "What to Do on a Date," "Shy Guy," and "Are You Popular?" Between vignettes, Bollus and Edwards dodge spitballs and subdue hecklers as they make announcements.
Once the vignettes begin, the interactivity essentially ends, although this kind of show rewards a cheerful audience that doesn't mind playing along; viewers who arrive grumpy might do well to accept Bud's offer of a surreptitious slug from the bottle. (Bud is played by David Berkson, a San Francisco Shakespeare Festival veteran.) Eisenhower Hour, the latest from the creators of Quiz Bang, a Gayme Show, plays an awful lot like, well, a high school production, performed by an exceptionally clever thespian club. Some bits lose their effervescence and go as flat as warm Coca-Cola, particularly the lackluster ending, but most of this is amusing, if lightweight, entertainment.
The troupe takes predictably corny scenarios and skews them with passing references to the Cold War, school busing, the good girl/bad girl dynamic, and the McCarthy era. Satirizing the '50s is in one sense unnecessary: A lot of viewers under a certain age already find it laughable that people tried to hide behind such transparently false wholesomeness. Fortunately, what the script lacks in ambition the cast makes up for with considerable talent and enthusiasm. There are flashes of physical comedy brilliance, particularly from Erin-Kate Whitcomb as a maniacally zealous high school cheerleader and as a girl helping her big sister get ready for a date in a scene Whitcomb steals with a wonderfully insane performance. Slow-motion and stop-motion sequences with a narrator's voice-over are funny and effective. Rich Baker could spend a little more time on his writing and direction homework; that said, the show's squeaky-clean good fun merits a solid B.
-- Heather Wisner
Out of Dodge
Muddy Little River. Written and directed by Harriet Dodge. Starring Dodge, Kyle Sheldon, Eric Dekker, and Tanya Uhlmann. At Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia (at 16th Street), Call 626-3311.
The ads for Harriet Dodge's brief engagement of Muddy Little River at Intersection for the Arts called the show "post-modern musical theater from the land of cornfields, Camaros, press-board paneling, and the Ronco glass-cutter" -- meaning, not just the Midwest, but also a place and time so unfashionable it's now hip among lesbians. Dodge's character was a masculine-looking woman, Jimmy, who had managed to join the Navy as a man. Jimmy had a self-conscious Midwestern-boy swagger, a Rolling Stones belt buckle, and a fringe of hair at the end of his chin. (Dodge is a co-founder of the Bearded Lady coffee shop on 14th Street.) The show was an extended monologue by Jimmy about a joy ride he took after his girlfriend's suicide. Projected slides and found footage of old American cars on glaring late-'60s back roads set the mood; so did a live banjo-flavored score by Alicia McCarthy, Shanna Banana, and someone called "Prairie Dog."
But the story was cut up by music, dance routines, and a beautifully manic interlude involving sledgehammers, which made it hard to follow. Stripped of its tangents it would have been a simple yarn about grief and new love, but it wouldn't have been a) postmodern, or b) nearly as much fun. The best dance interlude was a duet that Dodge called the "Dream-Come-True Dance," with Kyle Sheldon and Tanya Uhlmann weaving under blue light to a sleepy tune that sampled slowed-down passages of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog." The next duet, involving fuzzy slippers, was a little peremptory and not as strong. To me, none of the interruptions had a clear and obvious connection to Jimmy's tale; but a Beatles song, "Cry Baby Cry" -- sung huskily by Asia D. Sage from behind a red-lit fence -- was a beautiful moment on opening night, and afterward Dodge came on as Jimmy's uninhibited alter-ego, in Jackie O sunglasses and a horrible white and brown dress, passing sledgehammers into the audience for no obvious reason and spouting a theory about God and shit, cosmic justice, and Journey. With wit and raw energy she turned what could have been a pretentious rant into the show's highlight, and then started a dance to "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' " that climaxed in the total destruction of a wooden chair.
On canvas River would have been a cluttered modern painting, with trinkets glued on in piles. It wasn't smooth and stirring drama, but it told a coherent story; and when Dodge got away from a faux-earnest voice her performance as Jimmy was intimate, involving, and sly. "Muddy Little River, that's me," Jimmy said. "Can't see shit, can't see the bottom, all I can do is keep on keepin' on." Even if the play sometimes felt self-consciously muddy, Dodge put in the time and intelligence to keep things swift-moving and fun.
-- Michael Scott Moore
