Twinkie and the Beast
Playwright: Tony Lewis. At: MidTangent Productions at Hydrate, 3458 N. Halsted. Tickets: www.tix.com; $10. Runs through: April 29
Soul One
Playwright: Travis Hughes. At: Clock Productions at National. Pastime Theater, 4139 N. Broadway. Phone: 773-327-7077; $15. Runs through: April 30
Here's a look at two new musical comedies: MidTangent Productions' Twinkie and the Beast and Clock Productions' Soul One.
Like author Tony Lewis' two previous drag queen-filled musical spoofs centered around Snow White, Twinkie and the Beast takes aim at the Chicago queer scene through a fairytale filter and an overlay of outrageous costumes.
I would have liked more spoof songs derived from Disney's 1991 animated feature Beauty and the Beast (one fun lyric change from the song Belle becomes "slutty town, filled with slutty people"), but the crowd whooped it up when more Top-40 fare by the likes of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry appeared in the mix.
MidTangent is to be commended this time around by featuring more live singing instead of lip-synching. (It's too bad it was almost all for naught on opening night since the sound system was having so many problems.)
Loren Agron is cute enough as "Swell," the virginal hero holding out for true love (despite being an extreme porn connoisseur). The Beast is a cursed drag queen (Omicah House, in Grumpy Hangover mode again) who lives in a Roscoe Street house that is filled with odd objects who used to be human.
If the leading couple are ho-hum with their characterizations, it's the supporting cast who have the most humorous moments. Aaron Michael Elm is funnily fey as the enchanted Poof, while Andrew Kain Miller gets plenty of laughs as the high pizza-boy-turned-Doobie.
Although not as clever as Lewis' first foray into the genre with Snow White and the Seven Drag Queens, Twinkie and the Beast still provides plenty of over-21 laughs as a great fun-time vehicle to kick off a night of barhopping.
Clock Productions bills the world premiere of Travis Hughes' Soul One as a musical, but someone should tell them that two songs do not a musical make.
Soul One disappoints as a plodding episodic slog that comes across as blatant rip-off of not only Mel Brooks' 1981 film spoof History of the World: Part I, but also Al Brooks' 1991 reincarnation film, Defending Your Life.
Soul One starts off well with a great Behind the Music-style video introducing temperamental rock star Jack Straw. However, it all goes downhill when Straw visits a quirky therapist who helps him regress to past lives as a way to find answers to his myriad of problems.
Hughes offers few reasons to care about his characters throughout their various incarnations, nor is his comic writing zany enough to maintain interest through the historical-era pile-up. The large acting ensemble does what they can to bring out the humor, but they're thwarted at every turn by the poorly structured writing. Soul One is definitely one to skip.