"BUTCHER" CUTS IT
SATIRE, as George S. Kaufman once quipped, is what closes on Saturday night.
Not so fast, George: There's a delightful, deadly satire called Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway - taking off from certain show-business happenings - that's running still and running strong.
There was a perception in theater circles last season that Gypsy star Bernadette Peters was treated coolly by Post columnist Michael Riedel, as much for her absences as for anything else.
At the same time, some believed she was received with excessive warmth by Ben Brantley, drama critic of the New York Times.
Here, author David Bell constructs, with slightly changed names, an absurd but hilarious tale of how both writers agree to be impartial about a 2006 revival of Mame that also happens to star Peters.
Vicious, malevolent, nasty theater scribe Morgan ("I get paid to hate") Rydell - no relation, of course, to our very own Riedel - plots to undo Mame.
Brett Douglas, tall and thin but bent with gleeful hatred, is superb as Rydell, who works for a paper called the New York Star, whose editor (a drolly gross Ron Bopst) is shown munching beans.
The critic of the New York Standard - no relation to the Times, of course - is Brian Bradley (a dull Desmond Dutcher), who has a secret plan to undo Rydell in 2006.
Enlivening the action is producer Lesie J. McMahon, a driving, down-on-her-luck producer who takes on Mame.
McMahon (whose name, at least, suggests producer Elizabeth McCann) is brassily, beautifully played by Ellen Reilly.
Also excellent are Mark Ruggiero as an untalented go-go boy for whom Rydell secures the role of Mame's nephew, and Michael Silva as a daffy but shrewd paperboy who serves as our guide through the action and who gets an unexpected promotion at the end.
Director Christopher Borg keeps the action smartly paced and in cartoonish style.
The whole thing most resembles the political satires that Kaufman and Moss Hart concocted in the '20s and '30s. It has the same edgy, tense, funny immediacy.
"The Butcher of Broadway" is likely to amuse anyone who's remotely interested in theater - and who likes to laugh. (Donald Lyons, New York Post - Tuesday, September 16, 2003)
Playwright David Bell is one of New York's greatest, funniest satirists, and Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway is a truly hilarious example of his gifts. He's picked a juicy subject to satirize: The vanities of the New York theater press, specifically the recent feud between Post theater gossip Michael Reidel and Times leading critic Ben Brantley over whether Bernadette Peters was miscast in the current revival of Gypsy. Bell takes that struggle as his starting point, having stand-ins Morgan Rydell (Brett Douglas) and Brian Bradley (Desmond Dutcher) meet in a gay bar (in reality, neither journalist is gay, or at least doesn't spend much time talking about his sexuality, though both are fey in their own way). At this meeting, they make a bet whether one of them can open a Broadway show, instead of closing one. The antics that follow skewer every part of the New York theater scene in wickedly funny fashion. Particularly funny is Ellen Reilly as producer Lesie J. McMahon (a caricature of producer Elizabeth I. MCMann, who has had a few sharp words for Reidep -Reilly brings to mind Bebe, the crazed agent Harriet Harris plays on Frasier, but younger and even more driven and manipulative. Michael Silva as the narrating Paperboy, comments on the action as much with his droll facial expressions as with the witty lines Bell gives him. Mark Ruggiero plays dumb brilliantly as chorus boy/escort Rod Blazer-and he's certainly got the looks and bod the role demands. Douglas and Dutcher are more than equal to their choice comic roles. Dutcher is the hardest working man in Greenwich Village gay theater: He's also playing Rose in the Rose's Turn hit Golden Girls Live! If you follow the New York theater scene at all, yer gonna bust a gut at this one. (Jonathan Warman, HX Magazine, 26 September, 2003)
A Laugh Riot
Laughs rarely come as fast and furious as they do in David Bell’s Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway. For true theatre mavens, this is certainly your cuppa. It centers around Bernadette Peters, beloved by one critic, Brian Bradley (read the Times’ Ben Brantley), played by Desmond Dutcher, and despised by tabloid journalist, Morgan Rydell (the Post’s Michael Riedel), played by Brett Douglas. The two affect an unlikely truce over a projected revival of Mame, starring the controversial diva.
The play then proceeds to lay unapologetic waste to the Great White Way, with a plethora of famous names trashed. I won’’t spoil the fun by repeating any of the jokes, save two. A rapacious Elizabeth McCann-like producer (hilarious Ellen Reilly) blackmails Jerry Herman for the Mame rights, with "‘I have pictures of you fistfucking Michael Lucas at the Black Party!’"
During Rydell’s PBS talk show "Theater Chatter," he announces, "My co-host Susan Haskins will not be with us tonight, as she’s dead. She’s just……dead!" Even I gasped when I heard that one, but later learned that good-humored Haskins, herself, attended a performance, shrieked with laughter at the line and requested a tape to play on her show, Theater Talk. (Riedel was also espied attending an early performance.)
Bradley is naggingly brilliant, nasty to a fault, although Dutcher could do with a bit more nerdy Howdy Doody-ish cluelessness in place of that Brit accent. Ron Bopst is amusingly gross as an editor, Michael Silva winning as an all-purpose newsboy, and there’s adorable eye candy in Dayna Steinfeld’s personal assistant and Mark Ruggiero’s go-go boy turned Broadway juvenile. Christopher Borg’s breathless direction manages to effectively make this a full production on the tiny Duplex stage, more accustomed to would-be cabaret stars trying to wring tears with "Suddenly, Seymour." (David Noh, NY Blade, 3 October 2001)