STAGE REVIEW : ‘Twistory’--Brash Gamble That Pays Off

The Monrovia Center Theatre, which normally plays it safe with well-known revivals and other theatrical chestnuts, has taken an adventurous plunge into original musical theater with “American Twistory,” a knockabout satire.

The brash and spunky show is staged in the theater’s Cabaret. Patrons sit around tables in a nightclub setting whose murky, threadbare decor belies the sunny talent up on the stage.

Seven larky performers (four women and three men), accompanied by a four-piece band led by pianist-conductor Jim Grady, twist icons and epochs of American history into Silly Putty.

Conceived and developed by composer-arranger-producer Kevin Kaufman, the chronicle stretches from the Puritan era, with the barbed song “The Scarlet A’s,” to the Year of the Woman, with the vivacious Reena Phillips belting and hoofing the show’s hit number, “Woman’s Revolution.”

The cast, appearing in the MCT’s first professional Actors Equity 99-seat production, is the show’s strong card, turning the alternately clever and not-so-clever book material into a jaunty musical variety diversion.

In fact, producer-lyricist John Everest’s sketches, although hooked to the theme of U.S. history, essentially embody a revue format rather than the structure of a conventional musical book.

Although the ensemble work enjoys a seamless fluidity, with each of the performers swerving in and out of the spotlight, Phillips figuratively and literally hurtles the musical into a glittery, brassy realm that gives the show its gloss. Tall, leggy and deliciously animated, she looks as if she has just high-stepped out of a Bob Fosse Broadway show. Every production such as this needs a sexy, electrical charge, and Phillips, despite the fact that she is always in character, supplies that current.

Other cast members are not far behind. Among their many chameleon-like faces, Richard Hendricks humorously mimics John F. Kennedy and George Washington. The doll-faced Sharon Murray is hilariously nasal-voiced. Bret Shefter is a stiff-upper-lip, dueling Alexander Hamilton. Lisa Stanley uncorks a pesky Mary Todd Lincoln. Dirk C. Zwiebel comically segues from Colonial preacher to marching soldier boy (through all our wars). And Tracy London deftly glides from an Irish immigrant to Helen Gurley Brown.

The company’s timing and comic discipline, with their wacky array of period costumes, invariably makes the material look fresher than it probably is. Even the deliberately corny jokes are hammy-funny. And each of the stars sing and dance with sufficient zest (under Terry Barton’s choreography) to perk up the lounge lizards in the back of the room. Credit for the swift pace goes to Director George Boyd, who squeezes 24 numbers into a musical knot.

Monrovia is lucky to have such cutups, who hail from all over greater Los Angeles. The San Gabriel Valley has become something of an opportunity zone for the clutch of Hollywood talent who can never find enough acting work in their own back yard.

Now if the MCT would just spruce up the joint and make the room more inviting--a paint job, flowers, anything--the amenities would be complete.

“American Twistory,” Monrovia Center Theatre,” 120 E. Lemon St., 8:30 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, Ends Nov. 27. $12.50-$15. (818)303-9521. Running time: 2 hours.