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Show Elicits Childlike Laughter, Fun
By James Scarborough
“Drac in the Saddle, or You’re So Vein,” playing to an overflow crowd at the spittoon-less saloon, I mean The All American Melodrama Theater in Shoreline Village, puts the trance back into Transylvania.
It’s a rapturous trance of fun, of stories and skits without partisan lessons or morals, without the earnest though pointless lesson plans of talk radio and self-help books on tape.
The company wants to show us that it’s okay to excavate that inner child out of the detritus of credit card interest payments, not enough sleep, and long, slow commutes — and be entertained, cajoled and amused, mindlessly or otherwise. It’s time to laugh at silly puns and double entendres, at delightful sight gags, at juggling derring-do that will knock your socks off. Now you know that you can have chilidogs and Guinness or Diet Coke for dinner.
Yes, it’s perfectly alright to sing- and clap-along to songs about right and wrong and Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong (a grown-up’s version of Highlights Magazine’s Goofus and Gallant cartoon series) and to applaud, if not admire, damsels who won’t even kiss their swain before their wedding day.
You learn that you should always burst out into song on the occasion of someone’s birthday, that you should always be good humored when the actors wander quixotically into the audience, ad-libbing magnificently, even if you’re one of the objects of their wit, even if, because you just haven’t quite mastered that business casual look, you win the scariest costume of all, in these scary economic times: an investment banker.
There’s a story, all right, marshmallowed in between the giggles and guffaws. It’s one of those inventive tales that combines vampires and the Wild West, the same way we combine cell phones with everything except a self-destruct switch.
It’s set at the Hidden Valley Ranch. There’s drought, unscrupulous real estate dealings (a banker’s named Phil D. Coffers), no viable source of income, not to mention a dastardly vampire, Dracula (Gary Clark) masquerading — Happy Halloween! — as the uncle (he dismissed the real uncle to the realm of the un-dead) of sweet, innocent orphan Alice (Laci Oldham), have clouded the future.
Drac’s the impediment to the marriage of true minds, that of Alice and our Hero, Dusty Roads (Ren Lescault), although we baseball card collectors know that Dusty Rhodes was a baseball player from the 1950s. Old World (i.e., she knows a vampire when she sees one) Claire (Dawn Stahlak) has raised Alice and is about to raise some cain because, in spite of her various old lady, Old World ailments, she hankers for the succor of a man.
It ends well, as well it should. At the wedding, let’s throw Anne Rice, authoress of “Interview With The Vampire,” at the happy couple, for this is not the dour storyline of the undead, it’s the happy-ever-after narrative of the hormonal, with-a-pulse, living.
A vaudeville show follows. Among other treats, we’re regaled to Transylvania Six Five Thousand, a hilarious Trick-or-Treat scene, Harpo Marx-like Lindsay Benner’s wonderful The Book of Love interactive juggling routine, and a non-stop patter of jokes.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday. The show runs until Nov. 23. Tickets are $16-$18.
The Theater is located in Shoreline Village.
For more information, call 495-5900 or visit www.allamericanmelodrama.com.
It’s a rapturous trance of fun, of stories and skits without partisan lessons or morals, without the earnest though pointless lesson plans of talk radio and self-help books on tape.
The company wants to show us that it’s okay to excavate that inner child out of the detritus of credit card interest payments, not enough sleep, and long, slow commutes — and be entertained, cajoled and amused, mindlessly or otherwise. It’s time to laugh at silly puns and double entendres, at delightful sight gags, at juggling derring-do that will knock your socks off. Now you know that you can have chilidogs and Guinness or Diet Coke for dinner.
Yes, it’s perfectly alright to sing- and clap-along to songs about right and wrong and Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong (a grown-up’s version of Highlights Magazine’s Goofus and Gallant cartoon series) and to applaud, if not admire, damsels who won’t even kiss their swain before their wedding day.
You learn that you should always burst out into song on the occasion of someone’s birthday, that you should always be good humored when the actors wander quixotically into the audience, ad-libbing magnificently, even if you’re one of the objects of their wit, even if, because you just haven’t quite mastered that business casual look, you win the scariest costume of all, in these scary economic times: an investment banker.
There’s a story, all right, marshmallowed in between the giggles and guffaws. It’s one of those inventive tales that combines vampires and the Wild West, the same way we combine cell phones with everything except a self-destruct switch.
It’s set at the Hidden Valley Ranch. There’s drought, unscrupulous real estate dealings (a banker’s named Phil D. Coffers), no viable source of income, not to mention a dastardly vampire, Dracula (Gary Clark) masquerading — Happy Halloween! — as the uncle (he dismissed the real uncle to the realm of the un-dead) of sweet, innocent orphan Alice (Laci Oldham), have clouded the future.
Drac’s the impediment to the marriage of true minds, that of Alice and our Hero, Dusty Roads (Ren Lescault), although we baseball card collectors know that Dusty Rhodes was a baseball player from the 1950s. Old World (i.e., she knows a vampire when she sees one) Claire (Dawn Stahlak) has raised Alice and is about to raise some cain because, in spite of her various old lady, Old World ailments, she hankers for the succor of a man.
It ends well, as well it should. At the wedding, let’s throw Anne Rice, authoress of “Interview With The Vampire,” at the happy couple, for this is not the dour storyline of the undead, it’s the happy-ever-after narrative of the hormonal, with-a-pulse, living.
A vaudeville show follows. Among other treats, we’re regaled to Transylvania Six Five Thousand, a hilarious Trick-or-Treat scene, Harpo Marx-like Lindsay Benner’s wonderful The Book of Love interactive juggling routine, and a non-stop patter of jokes.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday. The show runs until Nov. 23. Tickets are $16-$18.
The Theater is located in Shoreline Village.
For more information, call 495-5900 or visit www.allamericanmelodrama.com.
