Bridesmaids Parody is Pure Silliness

By Patrick Hurley

“The Unauthorized Musical Parody Of” series has been raucously entertaining audiences at Rockwell Table and Stage for the last two years. Their most recent parody is of the 2011 film Bridesmaids. And while the show doesn’t illuminate anything that movie didn’t, it does goes a step further and adds in musical numbers, which are pop songs.

The show’s plot is point for point the same as the film. We’re following down-on-her-luck Annie (Natalie Lander) as she tries to navigate being Maid of Honor to her best friend Lilian (Molly Stilliens), and especially as she tries to navigate around a terrible sort-of boyfriend, Ted (Michael Thomas Grant), and Lilian’s rich and awful new friend, Helen (Aynsley Bubbico) who seems hellbent on destroying Annie and Lilian’s BFF status. And so we watch as Annie makes mistake after mistake eventually devolving into a party-crashing nightmare.

The choice to make a parody of a comedy is a strange one, particularly one where the raunchy humor worked as well as it did cinematically. But that’s way beside the point for this particular show. This is a Cabaret-style “highlights from Bridesmaids, featuring Top 40” I suppose, and the high energy cast certainly keeps it entertaining.

Directed by Tony Award Winning Actress Marissa Jaret Winoker, the show tries to amp up the raunchiness of the film, but fails to capture the beautifully blissful vulgarity of the films iconic wedding dress scene. When toilet humor is raised to the artistic level that the movie reached, it’s just so hard to compete. In every way imaginable this is a show that is drenched in silliness. The concept, the songs, the heightened performances, everything. But hey, they have a full bar and restaurant, so come hungry and thirsty and “Reaaadyyy to paaarttyyy”, and enjoy the nonsensical silliness of it all.

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The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Bridesmaids

By Kate Pazakis

Directed by Marissa Jaret Winokur

Through September 17

Rockwell Table & Stage

1714 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles.

Tickets are now on sale at www.rockwell-la.com.

 

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Curious Incident is a Theatrical Wonder

By Patrick Hurley

Theatricality and complex narrative have rarely aligned as staggeringly brilliant as they do in the highly sensorial production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, based on the novel by Mark Haddon. playing now at the Ahmanson Theatre.