Whiskey Business

Hasty Pudding Theatricals 141

Directed by Donald Brenner

Written by Ted Hennessy '88 and Ronald Corcillo '88-'89

At the Pudding through March 21

FOR Joel Goodson, prostitution was as risky a business as he could devise. This year's Hasty Pudding Theatricals show flouts the law with as much brevity and even more contraband booze. Whisky Business keeps the spirits flowing, especially when the crowds is as blasted as the cast is pretending to be.

For the 141st time, a crowd of foam-padded and balloon-busted Harvard men are attempting to prance and pun their way into your heart--if you can spare the $15-$17.50 ticket price. Men making fools out of themselves in this burlesque show carry on a Harvard tradition as outmoded as final clubs and Radcliffe college. But these vestiges of the past are still worth visiting at least once during your time here--to understand how far the rest of the school has evolved.

This year's show drags spectactors into the age of speakeasies, gangsters and Prohibition. The plot is simple. Booze is forbidden, boobs are not. Action turns on the antics of three main groups--bar-goers, cops and mobsters. The only beer joint in town not run by the mob--Cafe Ole--offers stripteasers to serve up the mixers. The plot centers around an attempt to save the bar, first from getting busted by the Federal Bureau of Prohibition and then from a "hostile takeover" by the mob.

Two barmaids--Amanda Pleasme (Michael Starr '90) and Sheila Lowitt (Donivan Barton '91)--start the show in the finest Roaring Twenties fare, in a dazzling tap dance that sends their fringes fluttering and foam chests bouncing. A Sam Spade archetype, detective Sam Antics (Jason Tomarkin '91), lets the audience in on Cafe Ole's reputation as "a joint where nobody just says no."

The beginning of the show is a clear indication of what is to come, as dazzling individual performances and choreography carry through an other-wise weak script. Most lines fall flat, devoid of the slapstick well-known to shows past.

The Whiskey Business script, written by Ted Hennessy '88 and Ron Corcillo '88-'89, was rejected last year in favor of the hit, Saint Misbehavin', and was rejuvenated for this year's production. It should have been scrapped twice.

STILL, the balloons bounce on. After an introduction to Cafe Ole, the action moves to a living room done in Italian kitsch, with marble busts of pizza chefs. Gangleader Don Ianmarie (Andrew Gardner '89) attempts to allay his Italian mama's concerns with some of the evening's best lines, "Mama mia, calzone, Lamborgini, genitalia, guapo..." He explains that her lust for fine cuisine was handed down from "Grandpapa Domino" and "Great Aunt Regina."

As the mob plans its attack, the authorities are planning a coup of their own. "This could be one of the biggest busts this decade," Agent Tess Toster-one (George Zlupko '89) declares. Two sidekick Marx brothers, police underlings for Tess Tosterone, offer little humor and merely scurry in and out of the way. However, the chief agent's wonky son. Tom Collins (Jon Blackstone '90), is hilarious.

In a spin to the usual boy-wants-to-be-ballerina plot, Tom Collins aspires to be a florist; Mom insists he become a cop. Hence ensues a barrage of typical Pudding groaners about tulips, mums and pansies. Agent Tess Tosterone leads a deft rendition of the song-and-dance, "Police Don't Eat the Daisies," with her brutal kicks and clumsy spins.

Scrawny Tom Collins is sent to infiltrate the Cafe Ole, where he soon bares his argyle cardigan breast for the woman of his dreams, barmaid Ginny Tonic (Ted Stimpson '89). His polyester pelvis gyrations and saddleshoe pirouettes team with his outstanding voice to make the "I Copped a Feeling" number shine. If not for Collins and the choreography, the lyrics of the number would put the audience to sleep.

The show's other male role, Sam Antics, is a dashing hero and makes the most of the alliterative, inadequate lines he is stuck with. Sam Antics and Tom Collins deliver two of the productions's best performances, and two of the only great voices.

The plot takes its inevitable twists, through bars, bust-ups and lusts, and crashes in for a sappy finish. Absurdities crop up, but are short-lived. The tradition of tortured humor fizzles. But the foam bobs on.

WITH the lagging script, the show could have easily been over before the fat lady sang, but certainly not before the fat ladies bustled about the stage. In line with a nickname for the 1920's--the Age of Red-Hot Mamas--stellar performances by Agent Tess Tosterone and Mama Reeglands (Adam Schwartz '89) make the Pudding show bearable.

Mama Reeglands is a six-pack of breasts--they are all over, on her hips, her bottom, her stomach. The ones on her chest are reputed to be the largest over in the Pudding's history, and they often seem to move all on their own. Her performance is all in her appearance--with her faint moustache, one long eyebrow, and house-sized black lace dress--but even better is her body language. Shaking her groove thing, or two, comes natural to Mama, as she forcefully swats a bat and lurches her hips in the "Mobster Mash" number.

Agent Tess Tosterone combines the physique of the Incredible Hulk with the character of Saturday Night Live's "Pump you up" boys, Hanz and Franz. She has the voice and the lines for the job: "I tell you now and you remember later, but believe me now." Zlupko's stage presence and oafish dancing perfectly suit Tess, who is at one point aptly called "Zuberwench."

The sidekicks produce some of the show's lewdest gems. Flapper waitresses Trixie deTrade (Sherwin Parikh '90), a Joisey homegirl in a clingy jade satin mini and fuschia bikini top, and Sheila Lowitt, with sinister eye makeup, deftly trade bedtime barbs. When Trixie is scared by Sheila's desire to be a thespian, Sheila wonders, "How can you be so shallow?" "My boyfriend says I'm deep," Trixie retorts.

Sandy Nista (Erik Anderson '92), the mob leader's girl, has the show's sleekest figure and offers some of the snidest repartee.

The bouncer Lefty Liton (Dean Shapiro '91) plays a Communist whose character is well-suited to the Pudding clientele, even though his delivery may be lacking. Instead of hawking the Worker's Vanguard, he proffers "Uprise and Shine, the official journal of the social climbers' party."

While Mo Rocca '91 was the ideal nerdy Seymour in the Pudding's production of Little Shop of Horrors last semester, his twangy whine and flightiness are ill-suited to Cafe Ole proprietress Fanny L. Hall.

Some of the show's best groaners come when the characters pair off at the end. Tom Collins offers his bride to be "roses on the piano," but Ginny Tonic thinks he'd prefer "tulips on your organ."

The obligatory Wellesley and Hasty Pudding cracks are worth passing over, but Dartmouth is hit with a few zingers. Amanda Pleasme delivers the finest: "We'll get more worked up than a Dartmouth man in a petting zoo."

STILL, much of the show's banter is as boring and subtle as this exchange between a blitzed Senator Bedderly (Nevin Steinberg '89) and Agent Tess Tosterone: "You're drunk," she says. "And you're ugly," he retorts. And don't forget fat, an insult which finds its way into every other joke.

Most of the songs fail to get off the ground, with dull lyrics and unexceptional voices. Fancy footwork by the cast and snappy musical scores redeem a few numbers, such as "Police Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Soldier Soul"--the greatest twisting and shaking of the night.

The problem with most of the songs--and most of the show--is that the words fail the actors. Although seductress Amanda Pleasme swivels her fuschia panties and star-covered chest, nothing can be done to make her lyrics stand out in "You've Got My Vote." Typical of her lines are snoozers like, "You've got my vote/As long as I'm able/And when it comes to love/My motion's on the table."

THE main actors can take credit for whatever zip the show contains. Luckily, this year their efforts are aided by some outstanding professional choreography, set design and costumes. Fat budgets can buy the best.

Choreography by Karen Pisani Pastore is well-suited to the fumbling characters and their falsies. Swinging grenades and twisting necks make "Soldier Soul" the best revue of the night. A close second comes when the same characters, in baby blue and bright orange mountaineer outfits reminiscent of Heidi, perform the Ritzcracker ballet. Tess Tosterone's pliet and her son's leaps steal the show.

Swift jiggling in Cafe Ole to the tune of Pee Wee Herman's "Tequila" and a cardboard car chase scene are also clever choreographic touches. And the cast carries off the patented kickline finale with the Pudding's usual burlesque verve.

The Roaring Twenties satin and fringe are a dazzling but understated use of the $30,000 costume budget. The best duds of the night came in Act II, when the speakeasy clientele and the cops don camoflauge outfits and wellplaced grenades. In the night's fashion coup extraordinaire, Agent Tess Tosterone sports black leather bodice, camo cape and the most lethal weapon of all--metal breastcups with fold-out knives--better known as "Ginsu chest."

The finale begins in rather dull trench coats, but it culminates in the night's finest costuming moment--with the actor's bodies more to blame than the costume designers: the revue dancers bare all but their skin-tone bodysuits and pink-feather fans.

The sets are well done and a vast improvement on last year's efforts. Cafe Ole's backdrop features ornate Art Deco design of marble and gold, and a city layout as good as Batman's Gotham. The best set is in the Metal Shop Nightclub, with its eerie flourescent green ghouls and cage fashioned from Flinstone-style dinosaur bones.

The production throws in some neat effects, like Mama Reeglands barging down the aisle in search of a new son, and a demonesque loudspeaker announcer hissing the name of the heavy metal club's band, "Satanica, satanica, satanica..."

UNFORTUNATELY, the sets and the stars are not entirely enough to redeem two-and-a-half hours of still-born lines. If you get as drunk as the patrons of Cafe Ole and really enjoy jiggling foam, maybe you won't notice.