‘Roast of the coast’ keeps Laguna Beach sharp

Good satire is like a very sharp knife: You don’t know you’ve been cut until you see the blood.

Great satire, however, is bloodless.

It’s subtle both in content and delivery, making it an effective subversive technique.

Which is why “Lagunatics” has enjoyed a 24-year run in Laguna Beach. People laugh because they get the joke, and it’s on them.

In a town that’s famous for its insular, privileged hand-wringing, “Lagunatics” serves as a healthy, musical mirror on the past year’s foibles.

“We are notorious for arguing about everything in this town,” said chief writer Chris Quilter. “It feels like it’s one of our defining characteristics.”

This year’s show, “Yuge!” opened Oct. 7 and runs until Oct. 30 on weekends at No Square Theatre. For details visit nosquare.org.

While the show will resonate more with Laguna residents, and especially those who stay up on current events, outsiders may chuckle at some of the broad skits and characters. Not all of it is insider politics.

In fact, Quilter said he always tries to steer clear of putting labels on anything — unless it’s funny.

“You want to pick up on what’s going on in the general culture,” he said. “But I don’t want to insult people. I don’t want to draw blood. What’s the fun in it? We get enough of that at the national level.”

Despite the “Yuge!” title, which is a nod to “Doonsebury” and Donald Trump, this year’s show is not particularly political. Quilter and the organizers, including director Bree Burgess Rosen, had to come up with a name for promotional purposes several months before they knew which direction the show would actually go.

Other writers include Bridget English, Rebecca Lyles and Paul Nygro, who also choreographed the show. Roxanna Ward directed the music.

“As we brainstormed the show and as the national elections took shape, we stopped laughing about the national elections,” Quilter said. “Plus, we’re always better when we stay local.”

Some highlights, and those that got some of the biggest laughs, included “The Trolley Song,” “Tourist Season,” “Pokémon Go,” “Oh Kelly Boyd,” “Strangers in Paradise” and several others.

After an opening number, narrator Bill Harris, who also works the Pageant of the Masters, started with some well-crafted zingers, calling the show “the annual roast of the coast, and gluten-free since 1992.”

“We subject every civic issue, large and small, to such intense scrutiny that there is rarely time to get anything done,” he said. “Every couple of years, someone will pop up and promise to build a wall around the town and make Irvine pay for it.”

Soon after, “The Trolley Song” opens with English in a sundress and hat, summer’s glow basking around her while she sings about the trolley.

It’s not long that she loses her luster as overcrowded trolleys pass by her, refusing to pick her up. Finally, she squeezes onto one but is jostled the whole way.

Meanwhile, the clever “Tourist Season” captured every local’s dilemma when confronted by tourists. This time singer Cloe Lovato started with a romantic notion of Laguna, only to have it interrupted.

Riffing off the Pocahontas movie song “Just Around The Riverbend,” and the refrain “tourist season never ends,” Lovato can’t seem to avoid tourists.

“I must avoid all vacation families, tourist season every day, tourists who are in my way,” she sang. “Should I help them cross the street, tell them where they shouldn’t eat, help them find a parking spot, to spend the money that they brought, or do I still hope for that great day when tourist season finally ends?”

The “Pokémon Go” song, set to Frozen’s “Let It Go,” was the skit that brought the audience to overwhelming applause, largely because of the strong casting and singing of Eric Anderson.

“Don’t let them in, don’t let them,” he bellowed, dressed in a makeshift cape. “This doughy slave of technology. But there’s a way to get outside. No longer hide. Poke go, Poke go.”

He then goes outside, hung head low, bumping into people and walking into traffic, because “the sun’s just for tourism anyway.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in a ‘Lagunatics’ show and had a song interrupted by applause,” Quilter said afterward. “People were so delighted by that song.”

Other songs were more pointed. “NIMBY,” for example, had a harder edge, lamenting the lack of progress in the city.

“Who’d like to see a place to ride skateboards? Who wants a store where they can buy weed? Who needs assisted living for seniors? Everyone does, but Nimby,” sang Jay Rechter. “Who’s gonna rent their home for a weekend? Who’s in for canyon artist live-work? Who’s really up for housing the homeless? Everyone is but Nimby.”

That one was set to the 1967 song “Windy” by The Association, which made it briefly to No. 1 on the charts. It’s a bouncy, cloying pop song that helps position the lyrics in relief. In other words, what better way to insult someone than with honey?

“It’s a little bit of afflicting the comfortable,” Quilter said, echoing his belief that the town can take itself very seriously.

Small towns tend to do that to people but at least here they also sing and dance.

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DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.