Review: THE BIG BANG at Actors' Playhouse

They're Slapping the Sticks at Actors' Playhouse

LOL runs throughout the house for ninety minutes as two young fellas slapstick a cast of hundreds: singers, dancers, hams, boys and girls, retelling the history of the world. Well, young chaps may be a bit of a stretch as they both started in the music halls of Victorian times. So, yes, their experience is vast and their chops are sharp and if you trot on over to Actors' you're going to be treated to two guys doing what they love. Ken Clement and Nick Santa Maria making you laugh.

The two have written THE BIG BANG, a twelve hour presentation of the history of the world and need $83 billion to produce the show. So they hold an investors' audition in a Manhattan proctologist's luxurious apartment, playing all the roles themselves.

The PC rubber band gets stretched a bit with Free Food and Frontal Nudity with Adam and Eve, Motherhood starring the Blessed Virgin and Mrs Gandhi, A Cantata by The Sisters of the Sacre Bleu, Asian Ladies starring Shanghai Lil and Tokyo Rose. But wait, there are plenty more tales, a schtick fest of funny.

With song and dance you have to have the music so there on stage is the Big Bang Band, better known as the indomitable piano player David Nagy, another veteran of the Victorian Music Halls.

Being an Actors' Playhouse show means the production values are high and this BIG BANG is no exception, especially when Gene Seyffer, Ellis Tillman and Jodi Dellaventure have fingers stirring the imaginative Penthouse Pot. Seyffer designed the set, Tillman the costumes and Dellaventura the set dressing and properties. So instead of scurrying off stage to change costumes, scene after scene, the actors slowly demolish the apartment's furnishings. Instant hats, gowns, shirts and hair as the plush becomes barren. It's funny and it works.

There's broad humor on display here, with every now and then a subtle zinger whisking through the house. Something for everyone? Perhaps not. But if you dig the silly side, step right up for the twenty musical numbers written by Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham back in 2000 and performed so well by Ken Clement, Nick Santa Maria and David Nagy. David Arisco, of course, directed.

"The Big Bang" runs through September 2 at Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. 305-444-9293 www.actorsplayhouse.org

Photo: Nick Santa Maria, Ken Clement

Credit: Alberto Romeu

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