Playwrights: J.S. Blair, I.M. MacIntyre, J.A. Millan, S.A. Moran, C.J. Munch, A.M. Scheffler, I.P. Whalen. At: Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St. Tickets: www.pavementgroup.org; $42.50-$52.50. Runs through: Dec. 16
You have to give credit to the creators and producers of SPANK! The Fifty Shades Parody. They've rushed out a spoof show to financially capitalize on the best-selling literary phenomenon that is E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, which has all but mainstreamed S&M erotic fiction.
But if you see SPANK! at the Royal George Theatre, feel free to accuse the show's creators of being comic carpetbaggers. The largely Canadian creative team is fobbing off what feels like an inferior product on Chicago audiences who can get homegrown (and often better-written) comedy spoofs on a more intimate scale (and at a fraction of the cost) by the likes of the Annoyance Theatre, iO Chicago or Hell in a Handbag Productions.
The first mistake on the part of SPANK! producers was to present the show in the Royal George Theatre's main stage. The show's modest production values and three-person cast look positively dwarfed in this venue, which famously presented the Chicago premiere of Tony Kushner's epic drama Angels in America. SPANK! would have played much better in the Royal George's intimate cabaret space.
And for a show that bills itself as a musical, SPANK! is pretty meager when it comes to songs. Rather than create a new score, SPANK! cribs from other shows like Cabaret and Into the Woods with new lyrics that aren't all that clever.
With a phalanx of comedy writers, SPANK! does take many potshots at James' tale of a young woman who enters into a contractual agreement to be an S&M sex object to a young and attractive billionaireparticularly the bland naivete of the heroine called Tasha Woode here (Michelle Vezilj) and the author "E.B. Janet" (Amanda Barker), whom they imply is little more than a frustrated housewife who writes bad Internet fan fiction.
There are also cutting bits at the phenomenon of Twilight novels and a foray into the 1990s TV sitcom Home Improvement, but SPANK! can't shake its comedy-by-committee feel. Now I must admit that I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, so the narrative that SPANK! spoofs might not be so apparent to me.
Also, to be honest, the three-person cast of SPANK! is often funny and affably engaging (and very impressive when it comes to Drew Moerlein's whoop-worthy sculpted body as billionaire Hugh Hanson). Yet you can see them straining because they're working with what feels like less-than-best material.
Yet you do have to admire the box office ambition of the SPANK! creators and producers for rushing out a Fifty Shades of Grey parody and taking it on the road. It's too bad Chicago comedy troupes didn't write their own Fifty Shades of Grey spoofs first.