The Spectacle: You want musical numbers? Geyer's rendition of "The Wages of Sin" is a show-stopper, although the song sounds suspiciously like "Light of the World" from Godspell. St. Clair does a great job with the show's obligatory torch song, "Agent Provocateur."
You want snazzy backdrops? One scene is played in front of the Grand Canyon. "The Wages of Sin" is delivered in front of a chapel decorated with stained-glass tributes to St. Elvis, St. Cher, St. Frank (Sinatra) and St. Wayne (Newton). The finale happens at the Hitch `n' Run Marriage Parlor/Ditch 'n' Run Divorce Parlor (Mottos: Wedding for Good Dough/May Divorce Be With You).
You want flamboyant, outlandish costumes? Come on. We're talking about The Pudding. This is what they do.
Funny Wordplay: Celery cuts. Roll models. Oil of Ole. Either ore. Jocular straps. Gambling through the woods. Getting chaste around a convent. Serving alcohol to miners. Javerbaum and Rosetti dig this kind of joke. Don't like puns? Stay home.
Meta-Humor: This Pudding show never lets you forget you're watching The Pudding show. "I feel like breaking into an orchestrated song with lots of choreography," Henderson says at a particularly romantic moment. Searching through Grump's office in the dark, the characters happen upon...a nine-piece band. When Jeannie Ality reveals that she is in fact Prince Spaghetti, the response is automatic: "A man dressed as a woman? Silliest thing I've ever heard."
There are lyrics about intermission, lyrics about the finale. There's an unsubtle reference to Pudding People of the Year Jodie Foster and Michael Douglas. There's even a joke about the Pudding's annual spring break trip to Bermuda.
Don't like this blatant postmodernism? Stay home. I happen to think it's pretty cool. It gives the audience a weird relationship to the spectacle. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that I already have a weird relationship with this spectacle. It was written in my apartment last summer. But it's still a kick-ass show).
THE SHOW is not perfect. Some of the musical numbers suffer from Saturday Night Live disease: great comic ideas that peter out by the end. The choreography is underwhelming. Composer Randall Eng's music has some memorable moments, but not enough of them. Even some of the dialogue falls flat. (Example: "I could never lie in your presence. I can only lie in your arms.")
But you don't go to The Pudding show to see perfection. You go to have fun.
Don't like having fun? Stay home.
Michael R. Grunwald '92 was Editorial Chair during 1991. It is Crimson tradition for the outgoing Ed Chair to review the first performance of the annual Hasty Pudding show.