Reviews
Playhouse's hokey world history packs a big bang of fun
Philadelphia Inquirer
Douglas J. Keating
Here's the deal. You've gone to Act II Playhouse in Ambler to see a show called The Big Bang, but you find that you are in a swank New York apartment attending a backers audition for a proposed Broadway musical that, surprise, has the same title as the show you've come to see.
And what an ambitious musical it is! It aims to cover the history of the world from it's origins of the universe until almost yesterday; will cost $83.5 million; will have a cast of 318. But since these two guys who hope to put on the showdon't have monet to hire actors to preview it for potential backers, they announce that they, with only the help of a piano player, are going to perform a sampling of numbers themselves.
And off they go, taking the audience through the funniest, most spirited and downright goofy 80-minute survey of history we've ever seen. By the time the "audition" comes to an abrupt end, you wouldn't give these "producers" a cent for their ridiculous historical epic, but you'll certainly be glad you invested in a ticket at Act II.
In other words, The Big Bang is a big hoot. The songs around which the absurd historical vignettes are built have lively music by Jed Feuer, but most entertaining is their unfailing wit: Boyd Graham, who also wrote the comical book puts the songs in context, is a top notch humorist.
Local actors Tony Braithwaite and Ben Dibble are terrific as the egar-to-please producers. Braithwaite has made a reputation as one of the area's best comic actors, and dibble, who has heretofore been known as a lead singer and actor, is pretty much his match. Under the able direction of Richard M. Parison Jr., they bring unflagging energy and comic flair to a plethora of parts as the "producers" make quick costume changes and morph into zany incarnations of historical characters.
As they zip through history they become Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden and regretting the loss of it, as the title of one of Graham's best songs puts it, "Free Food and Frontal Nudity"; Julius Caesar ignoring a soothsayer warning him in comic Italian accent of the Mafia-like plot against him; Pocahantas and Minnie-Ha-Ha in a Manhattan bar )the Algonquin, natch) lamenting the lack of decent braves to date, and most bizaarely, an Irish peasant at the start of the potato famine holding a spud, looking in its "eyes" and lamenting in song that it may very well be his last potato.
Some of the situations, and the performances of them, are excessively silly, buts that to be expected in such a relentless barrage. Most often this little musical gets Act II's season off with the Big Bang it promises, and very early in the schedule sets an awfully high bar for other theatres to match.
Bang-Up Job
Philadelphia Weekly
J. Cooper Robb
Not since Batman and Robin donned their leotards has there been a duo as dynamic (or campy) as Ben Dibble and Tony Braithwaite in The Big Bang, a marvelously asinine one-act musical at Act II Playhouse. A hilarious parody of the musical theatre business. Bang is similar to The Producers, which starred the last great team in musical theatre, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. But where Broderick and Lane portrayed an unethical impresario and accountant trying to mount a huge flop, Jed (Dibble) and Boyd (Braithwaite) are a pair of entrepreneurial showman seeking investers for the world's most expensive musical. Previewing the production for potential backers, the two play all 318 roles in their proposed show -which covers the entire history of the world. Featuring 17 pun-filled songs by Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham, Bang is little more than a series of silly skits loosely strung together by Graham's meager book. Yet while most shows with this construction are hit-and-miss, here everything works. Whether Dibble and Braithwaite are portraying a pair of Jewish slaves toiling on the Sphinxes, the Virgin Mary and Mrs. Ghandi discussing their son's unusual behavior, or Pocahontas and her friend Mini Ha-ha sipping cocktails in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel, the two display the same easy rapport found in such legendary buddy teams as Abbott and Costello and Newman and Redford. In addition to the spectacular stars, Richard Parison's inspired direction, Karen Getz's choreography and Colleen McMillian's immensely inventive costumes (including a coquettish gown fashioned out of a large tablecloth and two umbrellas) add immeasurably to the production's sense of unmitigated joy. Bang is an instant classic that's so brilliantly stupid it'll leave you amazed at how much fun pure idiocy can be.
"Big Bang" explodes with big belly laughs
Chestnut Hill Local
Clark Groome
It's short. It's smart. It's funny. It'f about the most fun I've had in the theatre in eons.
"It" is The Big Bang, the two person musical that Act II Playhouse in Ambler is presenting through Oct 10.
The Big Bang cast the audience members as prospects at a backers' audition of what is modestly described as "The most expensive Broadway musical ever written. Twelve hours of pure entertainment, shown in four three-hour installments.
"It encompasses the entire history of civilization from the dawn of time 'til the present day. No expense has been spared. Budgeted at $83.5 million, it has a cast of 318 performers, 6,428 costumes, 1,400 wigs, 302 prosthetic devices, and lavish sets."
The backers audition takes place in the Lipbalms' lavish Manhattan apartment. They are away on a two-week trip to Israel, and The Big Bang's creators, Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham, have invited their prospects to an audition at which they will perform all the parts in excerts from the show.
It's really funny stuff. Composer Jed Feuer and author/lyricist Boyd Graham are the authors of The Big Bang, so there's really a good chance they've experienced backers' auditions much like the one we're part of. That touch of autobiography makes it all the more credible. Playing Jed and Boyd are two of the area's best comic actors, Ben Dibble and Tony Braithwaite. They take the many roles they are given in the mythical musical and make each a tour de force.
We start in darkness, just as the real Big Bang happens. It stops in the Garden of Eden, on Nefertiti's barge, in Caesar's bed chamber, at the birth of Christianity, in Rome where Christians were fed to the lions (told from the lion's point of view), in the New World, in the ante-bellum South and at Woodstock ending in a dash through the last half of the 20th century.
The show is filled with puns and double-entendres as well as pointed social comments. In Richard Parison's sharply focused Act II production, Dibble and Briathwaite cannibalize much of the Lipbalm's apartment and use the materials as costumes, wigs and other props to depict their dash through the last four billion years.
In Braithwaite and Dibble, Parison has performers who can do almost anything. They are fine actors, nuanced comedians, accurate mimics, good singers and very appealing companions on our journey through time.
Feuer's melodies are clever and often better than that. Graham's lyrics are sharp and seemingly with an effortlessness that belies their sophistication and wit.
Act II's physical production is immeasurably enhanced by Bradley Helm's set, Colleen mcMillan's preposterously witty costumes and shelly Hicklin's lighting. Grounding the almost entirely through-sung piece is key-boardist Jim Ryan.
Unlike many plays and musicals that go on far too long, The Big Bang, at 80 minutes, leaves you wanting more. It left me exhilarated and in awe of and grateful for the talent that created the show, both off stage and on.
City Paper
David Anthony Fox
If you missed Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane playing a pair of manic producers-or even if you saw them-hurry now to Act II Playhouse to see Tony Braithwaite and Ben Dibble. They are playing two different producers, but similarly create a partnership soon to be legendary.
How lucky we are to have these two showmen, so different yet so complementary! Dibble is wide-eyed (wild-eyed?), desperate to please, and sings like an angel. Braithwaite is an aging altar boy with a hint of naughtiness. (When will someone cast this heavenly sinner in a Durang play?)
Even better, though these two young men have worked together only a few times before, they make a team of astonishing virtuosity.
The show-
The Big Bang is pretty good, too, and not what I expected. Summaries made me think smugly that it was simply a Producers rip-off. In fact, it's not. Though the shows share a similar premise-two producers pitching a sure-to-fail musical-Bang has a different take. These guys, Jed and Boyd, sincerely believe in the show they are promoting (a musical of world history from the dawn of time to the present, budgeted at 83.5 million bucks and sure to cost more). Bang takes place in a single evening, where Jed and Boyd are desperately presenting an audition to potential backers. Tonight, The Big Bang-- conceived in umpteen acts-will be performed by two guys and a piano … in 90 minutes. Mostly, Bang is parody musical numbers, some of them cannily summing up the worst of modern musicals. Much of the humor is pure Borscht Belt, and by the end of the evening, no ethnic group goes unslighted.
Most of all, it's a chance for Braithwaite and Dibble to milk every drop of comic potential. The accents fly like an explosion at Berlitz; the quick changes (costumes are improvised from household items) are miraculous. And when the two fellows sing, the house comes down.
Not all the bits are first-rate. The best sequences- Nefertiti, where Braithwaite channels an imperious Diana Ross (!), or Pocahontas and Minnehaha dissing the dating scene-are priceless. But even when the material flags, Braithwaite and Dibble, our theatrical alchemists, turn it into gold.
Kudos also to the other characters in the show: on-stage musical director Jim Ryan, who summons an orchestra from his electric piano, and set designer Bradley Helm, who manages on a shoestring to evoke Park Avenue, and have it come apart at the seams in the most hilarious way. (I'm not saying any more-you'll have to see for yourselves.) The piece is directed with manic energy by Richard Parison Jr.