Philly on Sunday

The Old City Philadelphia was great today, a beautiful sunny Sunday - almost 70 degrees. The top picture is Independence Hall, from the back, moments before I stepped in horse poop. The bottom, the tomb of the unknown soldier in Washington Square, dedicated to those who fought and died in the Revolutionary War. I enjoyed my little history lesson time this afternoon.

Ticky, ticky, tock, Bankok/What a sight and what a city
More, though, I enjoyed the Philadelphia Theatre Company's world premiere production of Christopher Durang's Adrift in Macao. My first impressions: "Brilliant. Silly. Putting the comedy back into musical comedy." A takeoff of the film noirish classics, the musical boasts zany presentational insanity. Everything from a maltese falcon to smuggled diamonds, opium, McCarthy-ism, an undercover agent, a drag queen, and full audience-participation sing-a-long, Durang and Peter Melnick's magical new masterpiece receives a first rate production by the PTC.

In a delightful, laugh-out-loud show, it was difficult to choose a highlight. However, I did, just for you. At my first glance at the playbill, I was distraught [no, really!] to see Michael Rupert without a song to sing. Luckily, he was too. 3/4 of the way through the show [about time for an eleven o'clock number], he was left onstage alone in a blackout. He called up to the booth, asking for lights, pulled sheet music from his pocket, handed it to the conductor and explained to the audience... the authors didn't develop his character enough to provide him a song, so he took it upon himself to hire another composer to write him a song, which he sang, which was about the fact that he didn't have a song. It was Durang and Rupert at their best.

Michele Ragusa, too, was great, although channeling the great Donna Murphy... her Dorothy moment ["I wanna go home, I wanna go home"] brought the house down.

Music direction to a "t" by Fred Lassen; witty, funny and genius choreography by Christopher Gattelli and slick direction by Sheryl Kaller makeAdrift in Macao an absolutely winning combination of theatrical brilliancee. My thoughts? GO SEE IT. SEE NOTHING UNTIL YOU SEE THIS SHOW.