BWW Reviews: Stray Cat's THE TOMKAT PROJECT Is Satire on Steroids - A Well Done Roast!

Stray Cat Theatre strikes again with a compelling, uproarious, and perfectly incisive staging of Brandon Ogborn's The TomKat Project, the quasi-fictional accounting of the very public and stormy relationship between Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and David Miscavige.

If you've seen Alex Gibney's daring and hair-raising HBO documentary about the Church of Scientology ~ Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief ~ you've had a front-row preview of the controversy and allegations surrounding the enterprise's activities and its influence, particularly those of Mr. Miscavige, the Church's ecclesiastical leader, on some of the major celebrities, if not institutions, of our time. Having learned some lessons about how far to push the envelope on the Church, the playwright (smartly portrayed by Brady Weber) advises the audience at the show's outset that "the following scenes are based on rumor, gossip, hearsay, theory, fantasy, lies and when appropriate, the Internet."

But, you ain't seen nothing yet until you've been transported into Mr. Ogborn's wacky version of the behind the scenes Tom-foolery related to the 14-year (1998-2012) affaire de coeur of America's transitory lovebirds, Tom & Katie.

Mr. Ogborn has taken one of the more public and notorious episodes in the journal of Scientology dramatics ~ indeed, in the journal of tabloid journalism ~ and turned it upside down and inside out and conceived a hilarious multi-tiered confection of provocative comedy.

First and foremost, he has scribed a lively send-up on the making of celebrity and the mindless complicity of the media and Hollywood big shots in turning straw into gold. Next, he submits the romance as an intrigue of sorts, where nothing in the motivations and causality of the TomKat marriage may be as it seems and where the audience is compelled to keep its collective brains and eyes very wide open. And the icing on this oeuvre, bless the playwright's heart, is the laying bare of the mumbo jumbo and connivances of pseudo-churches.

Directed by Louis Farber, this production is like SNL on steroids, but with a top gun cast, nimbly firing off memorable caricatures of the famous, infamous, and those on the periphery of fame. It's a roast that will leave you breathless with the weight of the fast and furious performances of seven actors who are at the top of their game, playing over fifty distinct roles.

Chris Mascarelli plays Cruise like a fiddle, plucking away mercilessly at the vainglorious actor's vulnerability at one moment and his superficial machismo at another. His recreation of the couch-jumping incident where Tom unabashedly declares his love for Katie in a 2005 interview with Oprah is pound for pound hysterical. Likewise, he delivers the goods in his reenactment of Tom's same-year fiasco with Matt Lauer about prescription drugs. Whether he's fending off advances from male admirers, consorting with Miscavige, or playing the control game with Katie, Mascarelli's Tom is a haunting but comic parody.

Brandi Bigley's Katie is a marvelous contrast to Mascarelli's celebrity psycho. She captures the apparent sweet innocence and vulnerability of the aspiring actress who becomes ensnared in the sinister web woven by the leader of the Church. Like Tom, Katie shares a wonderment as to why they've had such bad luck with the opposite sex.

Enter the leader of the Church, who sees Tom's and Katie's respective need for connection as the key to a glorious opportunity for matchmaking. David Chorley delivers a scathing, jaw-dropping, and hilarious portrayal of a charlatan and puppeteer in action, a needy nutcase wearing the mask of a nefarious tyrant, swooning over Tom and ever-conspiring to control his flock.

Tim Shawver is remarkably versatile and engaging as he switches roles as distinct as Katie's father, Steven Spielberg, and Sumner Redstone, the Paramount mogul who severed relations with Tom because of his erratic behavior.

Chanel Bragg is wildly amusing and spirited in her varied portrayals of such luminaries as Bert Fields, Tom's attorney, and Nicole Kidman, and, especially in her turn as Oprah.

Kellie Dunlap brings an energy to the stage that is vivid and inspired. Whether she is channeling the voice of Suri, Tom and Katie's lovechild in the form of a balloon, or Sharon Waxman, the New York Times journalist who covered the Cruise implosion, Ms. Dunlap is immensely engaging and riveting.

Thank heavens or, more rightly, Mr. Ogborn for a play that courageously skewers the celebrity kebabs and nabobs upon whom, with endless fascination, society dines.

Thanks loads to Mr. Farber and an extraordinary ensemble for an extraordinary staging of this play.

By all means, run to see this show. Every zing will pull the strings of your heart and mind.

The TomKat Project continues its run at the Tempe Performing Arts Center through May 9th.

Photo credit to John Groseclose

To post a comment, you must register and login.