The Big Bang
The Lipbalms are vacationing in Israel. They have, or have not, allowed Jed and Boyd to use their penthouse for a backer's audition of The Big Bang, a 12-hour musical history of the world. Audience members at the North Coast Rep are potential investors. Since the authors have only 90 minutes, they race through the centuries, hurdling five or six at a time, and slam on the brakes at Woodstock, ending with a list of names from popular culture and a whimper. The best part, along with Steven Withers's versatile keyboard: the duo ransacks the apartment for props and costumes and always gets a laugh (a pillow, minus the stuffing, becomes Columbus's jaunty cap). The rest of the show's hit and miss and clobber, if you count the racial stereotypes exploited for humor. The original authors, Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham, played themselves. At North Coast, Andrew Ableson and Omiri Schein haven't figured out how good they should be: too polished and the frame tale doesn't work; too amateurish, the songs and impersonations don't. So they're somewhere in between, half into an accent or vocal riff, barely Frank Sinatra and Marlene Dietrich. The result, many of the numbers sound the same, and the overall joke wears out. Both actors, it becomes obvious, could do far better work if asked.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, June 22, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |