Of Mines and Men

Hasty Pudding Theatrical #135

Book and lyrics by Michael McClung '83

Music composed by Frederick Frever '83

Directed by Michael Pereival

Music supervised by Peter Mansfield

At the Hasty Pudding Theater through March 23

Look there sa collection of little people over there.

A Hasty Pudding alumnus addressing has Champaign this at last night's opening night of the party.

OPENING NIGHT at the Hasty Pudding Theatrical one big coming out party for the campus's bourgeois gent. I dxedo they quall champagne and hobnob at gala parties before, during and after the performance. They speak of friends and women and money mostly money and several spill champagne on their dates blouses, because it is fashionable. They are in large part the affiliant of the Hasty Pudding past and present. One day they will be Lee or perhaps John DeLoreans but tonight, by showtime, many are besotted. All are happy. Staggering penguins in Cambridge, it is a surreal scene.

They come to the Pudding for several reasons. Some come for the 50 cases of champagne rumored to be provided for the occasion up form 18 last year. Some come, too, to be with their old school buddies on friendly turf. Many come to forget about problems--the economy, the double-digit unemployment that brings lumpertd me throats of the proletariat, the hell of the Mideast and Literature and Arts B-16.

But mostly, truth be told, they come for the show. Times may change, and the Dow Jones average may never cross 1100 after all. But for a month late every winter, year in and year out, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals will provide quality theater, uproarious theater relaxing theater.

This year's production. Of Mines and Men, is as sharp as any Cleverly written and performed, it retains the best parts of Pudding shows past--the quick action, smooth choreography and blunt but nonetheless--their tendency to dissolve midway through to inflict unduly tedious second acts upon audiences who stick around only for the theatrical's famed kick-line finale. And it continue to provide just enough of the Harvard and Pudding in-jokes that Pudding goes relish. This year, for instance, there is a musical reference to Chem 20 and narcissistic puns like: "oh, Gustave, let's not he told nasty," aren't we pudding the cart before the horse?"

OF MINES AND MEN is about money, a 10-degree smit from the past two productions. (Serf's Up and Sealed with a Oudhe both concerned the successful exploitation of peasants by royalists.) The first Western in the Pudding's history, Of Men appropriately concern gold, as a corps of ludierotis converge on Collier's Bluff, a gold-fevered California mining town. As the play's opening number, which had audience members nod in appreciation, succinctly observes:

Gold!!

Hooray for money!

Yippee for gold!

Hooray for money!

Three cheers for cold, hare cash!

Yippee for gold! Hooray for money!

Build up a private slash!

The plotline, though as irrelevant as usual t the rest of the proceedings, goes basically as follows. Heroine Angela Mercy's adlun Issacs) arrives in Collier Bluff to claim the untapped mind. The Patco Strike"--that belonged to her late her late father, Evan But Yuvantsum (Michael Rapposelli)--who incidentally something like A. Barilett Giamstti. Angela and Gustave acquire allies for her, the wimpy hotel proprietor Heat A. Nytheguy (John Stimpson) and heroic intervener Dwight Turheto. (Brooks Whitehouse): for him, mistress Helen Highwater (Terry, Ray, Robinson, town marshal Annie Gitchergun (Rick Reynold) Festus Gunnsinawest (Jonathan Isham). and old flame Micheal Loud (Chad Hummel). But rifts develop, and fortuitous break up the quest for Angela's fortune. Sex is also at them.

But nobody comes to the hasty Pudding Theatrical to see plot. They come to see singing and dancing and grown men dressed as women. The singing, on the whole, is quite many of the show's female numbers suffer from cracking. The exception is Robinson who as Helen the show with his her (dare I say sensual!) "Strip Robinson and Stimpson who as Nytheguy succes putzy exterior with relatively forceful singing, stand out for genuine acting amid the puns.

And, no surprise, those puns are are as plentiful and pun gent as ever Consider the following.

"You've heard of the Bible Belt will this is the Chastity Belt."

"You sure these girls are a claste"

Yes--all over the place."

Occasionally the theme shifts

"I'll give that back stabber a cut, and then I'll have the edge."

"My neck is killing me, Did you ever wake up with a jerk?"

"I didn't are for his Lavantis mens."

The jokes fall flat now and again. Heath after encountering mass hissing for a pun, turns unpleasantly to the audiences and says. You think that's joke' Look at your date. But such gattes are more than offset by other yuk yuks meluding one American Express gag that deserves to be kept quiet.

THE PLOT evaporates into a series of one seene after intermission, but the second and concluding act is mercifully short enough to avoid killing the fun. The audience is growing a little impatient by now, waiting for the Theatrical's can-can forte, and people begin to shout at the actors in mid song and mid dialogue "Funnler. Louder!" one person yells. "You're so sexy great legs, Rick!" shouts out another Moments later. "Take it off" becomes a back-row rallying cry. another patron with high alcoholic content loudly observes to Gustave that he is fat. But the overriding chant is Rick-line!" The audience is turned on by a long and superbly choreographed lead-in to the show's footwork finale, and 12 Holyoke St. shakes when the hirsute legs go up.

By this time, things have gotten pretty much out of control in the audience, anyway. Numerous bottles of bubbly have been carried into the house after the intermission, and there is much merriment Behind me, a sloshed woman loudly asks her escort to explain a pun "What's that mean--penis?" At one poirt, cries of "Freshman Mixer" and "Buzz Aldren!" go up. In the center section, guest-of-honor Steven Spielberg, the Pudding's newly crowned Man of year, looks mildly bewildered. E.T., after all never had too deal with alumni.

Things get ugly once. During the intermission hobnobbing session, scuffle breaks out, as a roaringly drunk patron takes on in rapid succession a woman, her escort, a bouncer and numerous gallant penguins. The Cambridge cops pull up, and, after a messy struggle shove the man, his mouth bleeding, into the squad car.

Inside the Hasty Pudding, though, it's business as usual, which is to say surreal. Patrons crowd up against the window and wave good-bye to their incarcerated comrade. A couple happily necks in the window, breaking occasionally to beckon farewell, too. A woman taking in the scene shrugs without surprise. "It's the Hasty Pudding, is know.." she says. "I guess we're competing with the Loeb Ex."