Out in the Arts

by D. L. Groover

SPRING STAGE

The Radio Music Theatre family highlights the month

In contrast to T.S. Eliot’s words, April along Houston’s bayou is never the cruelest month, especially when the spring lively arts season is in full fragrant bloom.

The Alley features Jean Stapleton in the role of Carrie Watts in the self-revelatory Trip to Bountiful (April 11–May 10), by Texas playwright Horton Foote, and the lilting warm Irish breeze of the two-man Stones in His Pockets (April 18–May 18). Lillian Hellman’s scheming and dysfunctional Hubbard family values are on fascinating display in The Little Foxes at Main Street (through April 13). Down at the Museum of Fine Arts, cinema’s great master Akira Kurosawa is being honored with a continuing mini-retrospective of his treasures (through April 27). Downtown, under its own grand chapiteau, Cirque du Soleil’s traveling Alegria doffs spangled tights and shows off its buff new-age circus acts as it gyrates overhead (through April 13).

Later in the month: Operatic super nova Renée Fleming debuts her waltzing Violetta in Verdi’s Traviata at HGO (April 17–May 4). Elizabeth Futral seduces every Frenchman in sight in Massenet’s equally seductive Manon, also at HGO (April 25–May 11). Mae West sashays her double-entendre anatomy in Dirty Blonde over at Stages Repertory (through April 13). And Dance Salad mixes all sorts of styles together for a satisfying meal of international dance at the Wortham (April 17–19).

But the greatest show on earth happens to be located directly across Colquitt from the bright and cheery Settegast-Kopf funeral parlor on Kirby. This is the home of Radio Music Theatre and its wonderfully silly Young and Fertle, the 14th installment depicting those wild and crazy Fertles from Dumpster, Texas. You can’t miss RMT. Just follow the gales of laughter anywhere near Richmond Avenue.

I must confess that this was my first visit with the Fertles, and it was long overdue. But now I’m happily flapping my wings like a little owl at making their belated acquaintance.

Why is this show so good? Well, the script is a comic gem, inducing non-stop laughter throughout the packed house with wacky tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek humor, a great dash of Monty Pythonesque irony, and down-home social commentary that’s dead-on-target straight to the funny bone. A trio of actors portrays all the loonies, who disappear and appear onstage as if through a revolving door, slamming the sound effects screen door with stopwatch precision. These comedic thespians happen to be the best in Houston theater (Steve Farrell, Vicki Farrell, Rich Mills). They flesh out their characters with a wicked reality that only makes the stage cartoons that much more lively.

The entire show—from introductory countdown clock with a huge pig on it (to remind you to order food and drink), to the incredibly clever song parodies interspersed throughout the plot, to the cheesy airplane that flies overhead dropping a note to the reunion classmates—is so smoothly, neatly produced that you can’t help but have a good time. The whole shebang (through May 3) just pulls you right in. You’re smiling before the show even begins, and you’re still smiling long after it’s over. Where else does that happen? God bless the Fertles!

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