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Tuesday, December 3, 2002
'Ham for the Holidays' grinds sentimental season into sausage
So where else are you gonna get a line like "We're at your cervix"? Delivered in the Waiting Womb? (Which is an obstetrics/gynecology clinic.)
| THEATER REVIEW | |
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"Ham for the Holidays 5: Cinco de Porko," playing at the Theatre off Jackson, offers a highly specialized form of comedy therapy. It is a spinoff of the "Holiday Survival Game Shows" of yesteryear, an annual enterprise created by the late Alice B. Theatre.
"Ham," like the old "Game Shows," is satirical and irreverent. It is full of gay and lesbian humor. Its mastery of pop culture -- TV, music and celebrity gossip -- is awesome.
Some sketches aren't terribly funny. The songs are essentially jokes. The material is not built to last. But "Ham" keeps coming back, refurbished, year after year. Its creators, Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt, offer a kind of astringent silliness that is especially welcome during a time of year that can be thick with icky sentiment and contrived reverence.
Choreography by Sandra Singler, scenery by Craig Wollam, lighting by Patti West, costumes by Ken Powers and wigs courtesy of Platt, Powers and Jason Rummel combine to assure an all-around effect of gaudy tackiness.
Koch and Platt are joined onstage by their veteran collaborators, Andrew Tasakos and Bruce Hurlbut. In addition to acting and singing, Hurlbut is the show's musical director. In the Waiting Womb number, he is a singing obstetrician. Koch is a nurse who emphasizes the jolly aspects of mammograms, pap smears, exam stirrups and speculums. Who knew these little horrors had jolly aspects?
"Ham's" best material represents group efforts. "Barrista Boot Camp," set in a SB TullyBuck's cafe, gives a grueling version of Seattle's goody-goody coffee culture. A spoof of reality TV, "Conniver," is shot entirely in a doublewide mobile home. It mauls the puffed-up pretensions of "Survivor" and its ilk.
Tasakos' solo number as a "Kitty Clairvoyant" who is psychically attuned to felines dead and alive, is funnier as an idea than it is as a performance reality. A supposed Sequim Gay Men's Chorus holiday special, "Streisandaganza," assumes an interest in diva idolatry and snippy erotic chitchat that is far from universal.
But non-universality is a given. "Ham" is definitely not calculated for mass acceptance. For fanciers of eccentric goofiness, however, the show is an essential tradition.
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