‘White Way’ Spoofs Broadway Bombs

Aspiring songwriters, take heart. Your musical can’t possibly be as bad as those parodied in “The Grave White Way,” now at Cinegrill in the Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Or at least not as deliberately bad.

Composer-librettist Joe Patrick Ward has devised this agreeable, if mostly one-note, cabaret spoof of Broadway bombs. Unlike “Forbidden Broadway,” which savages real shows, Ward’s revue lambastes imaginary ones, notable only for their complete lack of taste.

In “Wichita!,” for instance, Kansas pioneers sing of their eager attendance at cockfights (where “it’s cock-a-doodle-do or die”). The story of deaf-mute Helen Keller gets an unlikely musical treatment in “Oh, Helen!” And maybe it was the chorus that kept audiences away from the Lizzie Borden tuner “40 Whacks 40”: “Everyone has an ax to grind/No family is perfect so never we mind.”

Ward’s pungent couplets keep you smiling even though the songs and setups tend to blend together after a while. The five cast members--Kirsten Benton, Kay Cole, Craig A. Curtis, Elizabeth Anne Smith and Robert Yacko--have strong, clear voices. Under Larry Randolph’s direction and Ward’s piano accompaniment, they also have a lot of fun with the material.

If only real duds could fizzle so entertainingly.

* “The Grave White Way,” Cinegrill, Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Aug. 14-15, 22, 29, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 29. $15. (213) 466-7000. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.