Amphigorey

Commonweal, August 14, 1992 by Gerald Weales

AMTF's other mainstage productions this year were the premiere of Amphigorey, with music by Peter Golub and book and lyrics by Edward Gorey, and a first Philadelphia production of the Skip Kennon-Tom Cone-Ellen Fitzhugh 1982 musical Herringbone. Golub notwithstanding. Amphigorey is pretty much Gorey's show. A group of talented revue performers either recite or sing previously published Gorey material as they move through black-and-white sets, by Gorey of course, which suggest his celebrated drawings. The costumes, surprisingly not by Gorey, also recall his drawings. At the risk of bodily injury at the hands of confirmed Goreyites, I must admit that I have never been enchanted by his macabre cuteness. Even so, against my expectations, I found the show amusing if, inevitably, dangerously repetitious.

Herringbone, which calls itself "a one man ten character revenge tragedy vaudeville musical," is about a boy who is possessed by a dead tap-dancing midget and who achieves success while his two selves war within him. It is a pleasant enough conceit, if your state runs to black comedy, but its real reason for existing as a stage piece is that it is an occasion for a virtuoso performance by an all-purpose actor. Unfortunately, B.D. Wong did not quite pull it off in the AMTF production. Wong's excellent work in M. Butterfly, which had disguises of its own, makes him seem a natural for Herringbone, but although he is personable and has worked in a number of musicals, he never seems to be dancer, singer, quick-change artist enough to lift the work above the ordinary.

AMTF is always more than its main shows. This year again there was a cabaret series, which I did not have a chance to see. More important, there was a new series called CrossCurrents, works-in-progress designed to bring various forms of popular music into the theater. I was reminded by the management that they were not yet ready for review, but I want to describe them enough to indicate the healthy variety in the new program. I saw three of the four offerings. Fur on the Belly, with music by Geri Allen and text by Beth Coleman and Laurie Carlos, will finally consist of three sections named after the colors of the stoplight (only one section and part of another were presented) in which a young black woman (played by a vocalist and two dancers) faces the choices before her. Bobos, by James McBride (music) and Ed Shockley (book and lyrics), is a cautionary tale about a boy who responds to peer pressure - laughter at his cheap tennis shoes (bobos) - and gets sucked into the world of drug-dealing. The most interesting thing about the production (Mark Somerfield's wonderful set aside) was that it marked the formation of the Rainbow Musical Theater Company, a youth ensemble put together from all across Philadelphia which will presumably continue to exist and to perform. Welfare, based on the Frederick Wiseman documentary of that name, is an opera with music by Lenny Pickett, a libretto by David Slavitt (the words derived from the Wiseman movie), and a video component, filmed by Wiseman on the spot, which allows the very talented company to be seen and heard on stage and on screen at the same time. Although Welfare is technically a work-on-progress, it had the look of a finished piece about it and, for me, it was the most impressive offering of this year's AMTF.