Louisville’s own Drag Daddy Productions has carved out an interesting niche for themselves as being the only company to consistently put out original parody musicals. Their latest endeavor continues that tradition with a send up of “The Little Mermaid” lovingly titled “The Little MerGay”.
The story follows a drag queen known as Areola, and her forbidden love with one of the Local Brogays, Bromeo. She makes a deal with her drag mother’s nemesis to become a bro herself in the hopes of winning his… well for the sake of keeping things safe for work, we’ll say his affection.
Isiah Archie as Areola is giving a standout performance in perhaps what is his best work to date! He is very funny and charming, and in excellent voice. Alex Hunt’s Bromeo is also doing wonderful work. He sells the material and brings a lot of charm to what could be a boring character in less capable hands. Diana Rae as Versula is having a ball chewing the scenery and the audience absolutely eats that energy up. I also want to shout out Uhstel H. Valentine as Malapropria, who is delivering marvelous vocals thought out the evening.
I hate to say my biggest issue with the show is the writing. The concept of the show is wonderful, but I think the script could use another round of rewrites. I’m not a prude, but there’s a lot of shock value humor that didn’t have a lot of mileage for me. Something can be amusing and get a visceral reaction, but that doesn’t necessarily make it clever. In the past, Drag Daddy’s shows like Alice in Derbyland and Twinkie and the Beast have done this in a more successful way. A lot of the jokes were kind of surface level low hanging fruit. I do want to reiterate that the idea and the story of the show are wonderful, but the end product could use a bit more polish.
Overall the show is very fun, but at the end of the day I’ve come to expect a lot from this magnificent company. I feel like this one fell a little short of their other shows in this vein. However, fantastic performances and great energy from the cast make the evening delightful and enjoyable.
THE LITTLE MERGAY
Playing Now - November 24th @ PLAY Dance Bar
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