Slut: Almost Like Being In Love... NOT!!

"I'm Probably Not Gonna Call" sings the leading man of Slut to the lovely lady he's just spent the night with a mere hours after being introduced. But this isn't some slimy guy who lies and schemes his way into a woman's panties just to treat her like a piece of meat. No, Adam (the exceedingly charismatic Andy Karl) believes in honest relationships, no matter how short-term. His idea of a pick-up line is to tell a woman that he wants to have sex with her right now and to never see her again. It certainly helps when you have Karl's boyish charm and well-toned body, but the point of this funny, tuneful and energetic musical comedy of manners is that there's nothing immoral or shameful about consenting adults who are honest and safe having as many one night stands as they want. Just be truthful about it.

To bookwriter/lyricist Ben H. Winters and composer Stephen Sislen (who wrote additional lyrics), the word "slut", applied to both men and women, is not to be used in a derogatory fashion. It's a happy word free-lovers use to describe themselves and others who choose not to be a part of a world where "awesome Friday nights are turning into awkward Saturday mornings." Instead, they prefer a lifestyle centered around attempts to hook up with other sluts on their favorite night of the week, proclaimed in the show's catchiest song as "Slut-Slut-Slutterday Night."

As you may have guessed by now, Slut is not intended to be a musical to hold close to your heart for the rest of your days. Save your long-term love affairs for Guys and Dolls or South Pacific. Slut is a musical to enjoy one crazy night with and vaguely remember a week from now.

The plot? Okay, are you sitting down? Adam's world comes crashing to the beer soaked floor when every woman he hits on turns out to be someone he's slept with before. Yes, it has reached the point where he's had sex with every hot woman in New York. Rather than face the responsibility of sleeping with someone for a second time and possibly developing feelings for her, Adam steals one of his dad's yachts (dad loses a yacht every time he's divorced, so he won't notice another missing) and begins a quest to have a one-nighter with the hottest chick in every country on the globe.

Meanwhile, his buddy Dan (Jim Stanek), a newcomer to the world of slutdom, has made the rookie mistake of falling for a pick-up, rocker slut, Delia (Jenn Colella). Though touched, Delia has her career to think about and no time for a relationship. The crushed Dan turns himself into the worst kind of slut... the kind that lies to women to get them into bed, and it's up to Adam to return to New York and keep Dan from giving sluts a bad name.

Yeah, it's dumb and just barely achieves sophomoric. But it's also laugh-out-loud funny, high-energy goofiness delivered by a sexy, exuberant cast just out there having a blast. And given the title and subject matter, it's relatively clean and wholesome. Sex isn't dirty or mysterious in this show; it's awesome!

The score is a head-bobbing mixture of pop and hard rock peppered with honky-tonk, blues and showtune. The lyrical high point comes when Harriett D. Foy, as the advice-offering bartender ("You can't throw away a perfectly good bottle of whiskey just because somebody peed in it.") belts out a brassy "Lower The Bar", about the necessity to sometimes settle for less. ("Buy a lamp from IKEA / Full price for Mama Mia") A quick costume change later, Foy and Kevin Pariseau (both are very funny as various characters) are a suburban couple singing of how they keep their marriage happy by having lots of affairs and being open about them.

 Jenn Colella is dynamic as the hard-edged future rock star who incorporates tales of her one nighters into her numbers and is always looking for her next "story-line with feet." Jim Stanek makes a likable nice guy turned over-the-top stud and supporting players David Josefsberg (as a sleazy record producer and a white-boy rapper), Mary Farber and Amanda Watkins (both playing various ditzy chicks) all score some big laughs.

Gordon Greenberg's direction and Warren Carlyle's choreography are both brisk and breezy. Beowulf Boritt's barroom-style set got a big laugh from me as soon as I entered the theatre, and Anne Kennedy shows off the cast in costumes that are sexy without being... if you'll pardon the expression... slutty. Jane Cox's lighting design provides the proper divey atmosphere and includes plenty of quick blackouts to punch up scene-ending punch lines.

Although the main characters of Slut do eventually start recognizing the enriching possibilities of mature romantic relationships, do not expect to leave the theatre with a case of the warm fuzzies. Perhaps the best way to summarize the lesson we learn from Slut is with the words of Woody Allen: "Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: Andy Karl and Harriett D. Foy
Center: Jen Colella and David Josefsberg
Bottom: Andy Karl and Mary Faber