Out in the Arts

by D.L. Groover

HOLIDAY OUTINGS

Santaland Diaries and Season’s Greetings

November 22–December 20

Theatre LaB Houston

Except maybe a puppy, what could be a more perfect Christmas gift than these two subversive comic takes by gay humorist David Sedaris? Adapted by Joe Mantello, these two monologues pummel our favorite holiday with wicked observations and subversive humor, all done in a voice that reassures while it kicks you in the pants.

Santaland relates the wry tale of a bored yuletide Macy’s elf who takes out his frustrations on the innocent kids until a most unusual Santa starts work. The much darker Season’s Greetings spoofs the cheery annual holiday newsletter from the Dunbar family. The picture-perfect suburban world at 714 Tiffany Circle takes a nosedive with a crack-addicted grandchild and a visit by a Vietnamese prostitute who claims her father is Mr. Dunbar.

Bat Boy: The Musical

December 3–January 11

Stages Repertory Theatre

What other show can boast as inspiration that supermarket icon of journalistic integrity, the Weekly World News? In 1992, and continuing in wacky installments ever since, the WWN published the story of the half-boy/half-bat discovered living in a cave near Hope Falls, West Virginia. This is his story, told in a splashy witty musical by Laurence O’Keefe, Keythe Farley, and Brian Flemming. Like all misunderstood monsters, even with his pointy ears, bug eyes, razor-sharp fangs, and fondness for blood, Bat Boy just wants love and acceptance. If you don’t contract rabies, you may die laughing.

PUT A SOCK IN IT

If you were anywhere within a five-block radius of Houston Grand Opera, you heard Maria Guleghina’s Tosca. She has two volume controls: soft and VERY LOUD! She’s her own civil defense alert.

In those thunderous early works of Verdi, there is no one who can compare to Guleghina’s Otabella in Attila or Abigaille in Nabucco. Her immense voice is a worthy accompaniment, a primal element swirling over Verdi’s orchestral storm clouds. But in Puccini’s blood and thunder “well-made” musical drama, with its capital-letter emotions (Lust, Revenge, Jealousy, Love), Floria Tosca—diva incarnate—must still be painted with at least an attempt at truthfulness. (Sardou’s play was written for theater’s great diva Eleonora Duse.) Guleghina is neither a subtle singer nor a subtle actor. She blasts away at whatever she’s singing, pounding you over the head until you submit. There’s no charm in her Tosca; she doesn’t flirt with her lover Cavaradossi so much as bludgeon him into submission. To show emotion and depth of character, she sings louder. In the opera’s sublime second act, lecherous Scarpia doesn’t stand a chance. We half expect this imposing woman to pick him up, windmill him over her head, and toss him out the Farnese Palace.

The New York Times has hailed Guleghina “the Tosca of the decade.” This misguided praise only shows the dearth of good Toscas in the last 10 years. The men come off better, when they can be heard over Miss G’s seismic stylings. Bass-baritone Franz Grundheber, appropriately lustful and evil in song, nevertheless seems too short for the regal G, but chases her around the set with competent passion. The surprise of the evening is tenor Alfredo Portilla’s ardent Cavaradossi, who can’t compete in volume but sings rings around the formidable Miss G. with sweet power and beauty of tone. No one, though, is helped by the lackluster, dirge-like conducting from Antonello Allemandi or the bus-and-truck-tour look of the late enfant terrible opera designer/director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production. Act I’s forced perspective interior of Sant’Andrea della Valle makes the entering congregation look like wayward Fasolts and Fafners from Rhinegold. Not a Tosca to be remembered; not fondly, anyway. And my ears are still ringing.

HOUSTON IN HIS REARVIEW MIRROR

Matthew X. Kiernan, featured in our March issue (“Art on Alabama”), has decided to shutter his Matthew Travis Gallery and return to New York. (Former partner and business co-director Travis Rhodes is no longer on the scene.) His final show, on view through December 20, features four artists, including Richard Fox, who is gay. —Tim Brookover

GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY ORGAN

What has 30 fingers, six feet, the fashion sense of AARP, and the digital dexterity to pull out all the stops and elicit maybe a thousand laughs? How about Eric Lane Barnes’ new musical revue, The Stops, now crooning—purring, actually—through December 20 at Theatre New West?

Barnes, whose previous musicals include Fairy Tales and Fruit Cocktail, is incapable of writing a bad show. Here, a trio of concert cuties, all faithful card-carrying members of NALOG (the North American Ladies Organist Guild), kibbutz, schmooze, and regale us with the musical religious rep of their mentor Dale Meadows, whose church songs run the comedy gamut from “It’s Raining Amen” and “A Cha Cha for Yahweh,” to “Hallelujah Aloha” and the “God Almighty Rap.” When Mr. Meadows bursts out of his closet and his songs take on a fervent profanity with such hilarious hits as “Hello Sailor,” “Fairies in My Closet,” or “I’m a Gay Homosexual Queer,” the three ecumenical groupies aren’t shocked as much as relieved that “so many things became clear.” Their mission now is to sing his songs and pray for his healing. Good luck.

Blonde Baptist Ginny (a resplendent Chris Pool) keeps drinking and shares her appetizer recipe made from Oreos and vermouth. Jewish Unitarian Rose (a funny no-nonsense Robert Leeds) is the pants-suited sensible Mama. And Nazarene Euglena, straight-laced with straighter hair (a dead-pan Michael Harren, who also directs this comic fest), is absolutely adamant they’re all going to hell. Their interaction with each other, with us, all while singing Mr. Barnes’ delectable send-ups, is mighty fine proof that some sort of god does exist, if only the god of musical theater. And he’s smiling.

D.L. Groover writes monthly on the arts for the magazine.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.