Fringe: Eat, Drink & be Merry: The Skin of Our Teeth

Do they have a Borscht Belt for White Christian Heterosexuals? That's the only place I can imagine Paul Schultz's new musical Eat, Drink & be Merry finding its target audience. The show is full of shecky comedy, inoffensive music, and offensive stereotypes of women and races other than white.

The show (which is unclear as to whether it's trying to be a play or a series of comic skits & songs) begins in The Garden of Eden; our trusty Narrator (Rob Morrison) fills us in on the story of Adam (Sean Jenness) and Eve (Lisa Desimone), as they are tempted by the Serpent (Bob Barth), here reimagined as a slick-talking salesman selling Fruit Plus ("This Fruit"). The twosome leave Eden, and Adam has to hunt for their food with his new friend, the caveman Og (David Gurland)- their attempt at catching deer is unsuccessful ("Oh, My Dear"). They get better, and Adam and Eve invite Og and his wife Henpeck (Tricia Burns), over for a BBQ.

Then suddenly we fast-forward to the 3rd Century Roman Empire, where Cæsar (Bob Barth) throws a Christian (David Gurland) to the lions (Bob Barth again). The lion gets a song-and-dance number about how delicious Christians are ("Christians").
Then forward to the Middle Ages in 1400 where Adam is now a serf. He sings a rabble-rouser called "Serf's Up"; the rabble isn't roused till the Black Death comes and thins out the population ("Plague Blues").
In 1620 Adam and Eve leave for Plymouth Rock and a new life of religious freedom, they run into an Indian named Squanto (David Gurland), and his wife Mrs. Squanto (Tricia Burns), who conveniently speak English because they lived in England. Eve and Mrs. Squanto shake their heads lovingly at their silly men with "The Things a Man Will Do".
Adam and Eve head west in the mid-1800s for the simple Shaker life and farm some grain till it gets destroyed in a hailstorm. Eve suggests that Adam "Take it On Faith", her song interposed with snippets of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" meandering through the accompaniment.
Then we're in Atlanta in 1885 with the birth of Coca-Cola ("Drink the Tonic").
Then we're in the 1950s, the invention of the Supermarket, where everyone is happy because "We Got Enough for Today".

Eve and then Adam fall into a deep-freeze, are mistaken for window displays and get put in the supermarket window advertising fast food till 2009 (it was unclear why the author felt he needed to justify this time jump, since we've already jumped centuries (and indeed from mythology) several times without explanation- though in the synopsis included in my press kit, this would have been where an intermission would go- there is none in this version).
Adam and Eve wake up when they're thrown away and defrost; starving, they come across BurgerTown, a fast-food joint. The employees sing "Eat, Drink and Be Merry", about how plastic fast food is, strange, because Adam then takes a job with BurgerTown. Adam and Eve get a television. Eve goes to a fancy semi-French restaurant with her new friend Vanessa (Gabrielle Lee), as Adam goes to a high school cafeteria to sell them BurgerTown's services in lieu of the slop dished up by the Lunch Man (David Gurland), who sings in alternating verses with the Fancy semi-French waiter Francois (Tricia Burns) that "Everybody Wants to Dine With Us".
Adam goes to a strip club/Steakhouse where the host (Rob Morrison, taking a break from narration) sings "New York Strip", as poor Burns and Lee do some perfunctory dance moves, in food-and-drink inspired costumes. The song is about how the food in such establishments is secondary to the erotic entertainments (ironic, since I'm told The Hustler Club in NYC includes one of the finest steakhouses in the city- although the author was the former food editor of the Daily News, and apparently heterosexual, so he might know better than I).
Eve decides Adam is getting too fat watching television, and goes "Looking for a Miracle" with the help of Rev. Prod Sparkleton (Bob Barth), a diet guru who uses gospel and an electric cattle prod on the women who attend his services.
Eve thinks the now-corpulent Adam needs to eat "This Fruit (reprise)". She consults her Magical Negro friend Vanessa, who explains that Eve needs to cook some collard greens to make sure her man stays trim. Vanessa sings "One Kind of Love", which I suppose is about food, I wasn't quite sure.

The first act is full of mindless skits which draw some limp chuckles; the second half of the play almost has some things to say as it gently ribs modern food culture, but the satire has no teeth.
The music is not theatrical; most of the songs are catchy, perfectly good pop tunes, but don't move story or illuminate character.

Though the scenes move swiftly through time, the sexual politics never seem to evolve past The Flintstones, with all the female characters being Nagging Shrews, Strippers, or Supportive and Diet-obsessed Wives (who of course stay at home and cook for their men). There are cringe-worthy references to Jews and Muslims, and an offensive Asian stereotype as part of a television commercial (which are performed live by the cast).

The cast does a fine job attempting to liven up the material; Barth and Burns are especially winning.
Costumes by Joanne Haas especially impress, with perfectly cartoonish outfits for every era she's called upon to evoke.

Eat, Drink & be Merry
Book, Music & Lyrics by Paul Schultz
Produced by Rosetree Productions, as part of FringeNYC

Minetta Lane Theater
18 Minetta Lane
Thurs. aug 20, 5:30 p.m.
Fri Aug 21, 10:30 p.m.
Mon. Aug 24, 3 p.m.
Sat. aug 29, 7:45 p.m.
Sun aug 30, noon.

some mp3s at www.myspace.com/eatdrinkmerrymusical

Photo Credit: Jason Specland

1. Lisa Desimone as Eve and Sean Jenness as Adam
2. Gabrielle Lee, Bob Barth as Lion, and Tricia Burns
3. Tricia Burns as Exotic Dancer, Sean Jenness as Adam, and Gabrielle Lee as Exotic Dancer