STAGE REVIEW : ‘Forbidden’ Is a Delicious Poke at Broadway Hits

The best parodies draw blood when they bite.

“Forbidden Broadway 1989,” an Off-Broadway road show at the San Diego Civic Theatre through Sunday, aims for the jugular and makes you smile at each naughty nip. This takeoff on current Broadway musicals, composers and stars, presented by San Diego Playgoers, should also seem quite familiar to local audiences. Most of the targets have played here recently; most of the rest--such as “Starlight Express”--are on their way.

“Forbidden Broadway” is a delicious chance to see critiques of those shows set to music. The production proves for once and all that if imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery, it can also be the sincerest form of revenge.

Scalpers get scalped in “I’ve Got The Show Right Here,” sung to the tune of “I’ve Got The Horse Right Here” from “Guys and Dolls.” The commercialization of “Les Miserables” is mocked in “These Are a Few of My Souvenir Things,” to the tune of “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.”

Stars get lampooned: Joel Grey and Carol Channing for refusing to let go of “Cabaret” and “Hello Dolly!” respectively; Liza Minnelli, here dubbed “Liza One-Note,” for her vocal limitations and gushy familiarity with the audience; Richard Harris for a more intoxicated than intoxicating performance in “Camelot” (“I wonder what the king is drinking tonight?”).

And just to make sure everyone is thoroughly offended, creator Gerard Alessandrini turns on the composers whose melodies he uses in this show--and nails Andrew Lloyd Webber as the “Phantom of the Musical” and Stephen Sondheim, who laments his lack of popularity in “Send in the Crowds,” sung to “Send in the Clowns.” Sondheim is also brilliantly satirized in “Into the Words,” a takeoff of “Into the Woods,” in which creations such as Sweeney Todd and Little Red Riding Hood bemoan the difficulties of wending their way through the dark complexities of a Sondheim score.

The set is appropriately minimal--a grand piano on stage and a falling chandelier for “Phantom.” The costumes, by Erika Dyson, are clever parodies in themselves; the best is the too-short “Annie” costume for a chain-smoking actress who hasn’t worked since she outgrew the part and is hoping for a sequel.

If there is a soft heart under “Forbidden Broadway” barbs, it is reserved for the corps of the unknown actors, to which Alessandrini himself once belonged.

It is the actors, after all, who have to put up with the shows in which they must dress like felines and trains in “Cats” and “Starlight Express” respectively; it is the actor who has to sing one song, then die in downbeat musicals like “Les Miz”; it is the actor who must watch over and over again as a film actor seizes the part he or she created on Broadway and translates it into film: “Don’t cry for me, Barbra Streisand,” sings the actress dressed up as Evita as she accuses the star of stealing the film version of the part (though isn’t Meryl Streep signed for the role?).

To pull off sympathy for the unknown actor on Broadway, however, one needs a blast of unknown talent playing myriad roles from Streisand to Harris and Grey to Minnelli.

The four-person ensemble did just that, beautifully. Linda Strasser’s rendition of Streisand brought down the house, as did Nicholas Augustus lampooning Harris. Jill Patton and Strasser were terrific as a dueling Rita Moreno and Chita Rivera, sick of being confused with each other, singing “My name Is Chita and Not Rita” to the tune of “I Like to Be in America” from “West Side Story.” Kevin Ligon created an indelible Joel Grey.

Musical director Brad Ellis provided fine piano support, although his attack of no-talent auditioners--”I’m Sick of Playing Their Songs”--seems among the most forced of the numbers.

Given that this show’s voice is that of the struggling actor, the question all this clever carping leads to is, in light of the inevitable frustration, why do actors keep trying to make it on Broadway?

Alessandrini anticipates the question and answers it in one word: “Ambition!” sung to the tune of “Tradition” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Maybe you would have preferred to have them answer that they did it for love, a la “A Chorus Line.”

Ambition, though, is the answer that draws blood from the final sacred cow--the oft-sentimentalized troupers who keep the heart of theater ticking. It’s a dazzlingly wicked finale to a little gem of a show.

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY 1989’

Concept, parody lyrics and direction by Gerard Alessandrini. Costumes by Erika Dyson. Choreography by Roxie Lucas. Musical director is Brad Ellis. With Nicholas Augustus, Brad Ellis, Kevin Ligon, Jill Patton and Linda Strasser. At 8 p.m. today-Saturday, as well as 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday. At the San Diego Civic Theatre, 202 C St.