As an unusually warm Milwaukee summer slides into cooler fall nights, the hottest show in town these days is Gutenberg! The Musical! A tag line in the show’s press release says it all: “They (don’t) have a cast, an orchestra or a clue.” What it does have are two naive, would-be musical creators, Bud and Doug, who believe they have created the greatest musical comedy of all time. They are staging a backer’s audition to find money to finance the show’s Broadway debut. Talking directly to the audience, they tell us that if we don’t know the person sitting next to us, he/she “is probably a wealthy producer (in search of his/her next project)”. And they believe – with all their hearts – that Gutenberg!is destined to be a hit.
What makes Gutenberg! such a treat is its gentle spoof of musical comedies. The more one knows about how musical theater is created, the funnier it is. The endearing Bud and Doug attempt to re-enact the entire show, using labeled caps to identify each character.
The show is set in Schlimmer, a German village, in 1450. The ramshackle village, which seems to be teeming with rats and stinky garbage, is inhabited by a mostly illiterate population. The need to read is illustrated in the show’s prologue. A father mistakenly gives jelly beans to his sick child instead of medicine, with deadly results. This is the first of many Monty Python-esque vignettes that comprise Gutenberg!
The show originally was work shopped at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival. The first two-act version opened in London in 2006. Since then, it has won numerous awards, including the 2007 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. The show also won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, and the playwrights won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical (both, in 2007).
The Stackner Cabaret’s intimate setting, with the audience seated around small tables, is ideal for Gutenberg!. The actors can easily pick up on any reaction from the crowd, and they do.
Veteran actor Gerard Neugent and relative newcomer Eric Damon Smith play the show’s creators (Doug and Bud) and also the 30-member “cast.”
Delicate comic timing is a key to Gutenberg’s! success, and director Laura Gordon ensures non-stop laughter throughout the show. In fact, the more ridiculous the characters, the funnier the scene. Thus, we are presented with Johann Gutenberg’s would-be girlfriend, Helvetica (brilliantly played by Damon Smith) and the town’s earnest Beef Fat Trimmer (Neugent). Damon Smith is entrusted with the show’s villain (Monk), while Neugent takes on the role of Gutenberg.
The score is a winner despite its intentionally awful lyrics. The music works quite well, as the audience is treated to love songs, an 11th-hour number, and a “charm” number. Doug (Neugent) explains to the audience that such a song is created to allow the audience to relax from a musical’s relentless pace. Charm songs have nothing to do with the plot, he says. To prove it, the two men warble through a tune called “Biscuits.”
Not to be missed is the expert musical direction of Paul Helm, the show’s onstage piano player. Helm also is entreated to sing along, and in one memorable scene, he portrays a singing rat.
With a black backdrop as a set, the production highlights the clever costumes of Rachel Laritz and the understated lighting by Charles Cooper. The show is funny, clever and flies by at less than two hours running time. Don’t expect to learn much about the history of the printing press or its creator, Johann Gutenberg. The guys are having too much fun to bother with details.
