Double-wide pleasure
The title, “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” accurately describes what audiences can expect in this national touring production. You’ll get plenty of big hair, halter tops, gun-toting boyfriends and lines like, “You think those jalapeño Pringles just cover themselves in spray cheese?” In other words, you’re in for a redneck musical fest, set in Armadillo Acres, “Florida’s most exclusive trailer park.”
The show comes to the Bing Crosby Theater for five performances next week, on the heels of its surprising New York success. “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” did a showcase at the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2004 and was an immediate hit, earning a major off-Broadway run in 2005.
“It ends with a transcendent finale guided by Pippi’s brave and plaintive call to ‘make like a nail and press on,’ ” wrote New York Times critic Camille Sweeney.
The New Yorker called it “more fun than a chair-throwing episode of Jerry Springer set to music.” The New York Sun referred to it as ” ‘South Park’ meets ‘Desperate Housewives.’ “
Gossip columnist Liz Smith summed it up as “deliciously dirty.”
Writer Betsy Kelso’s book is apparently not overburdened with plot, but what little of it there is revolves around a love triangle between Norbert, who works in a toll booth; his agoraphobic wife, Jeannie; and a tramp named Pippi, who makes ends meet as a stripper. Armadillo Acres is apparently not big enough for the three of them.
The music, by David Nehls, “slips across the dial of American radio from country to blues to rock to disco to bump-and-grind and R&B,” according to Times critic Sweeney.
The trailer park set and trashy costumes apparently are fun to look at. The New Yorker said “the ingenious set belongs in an art gallery.”
Note the unusual venue, at least as far as touring musicals go. The Bing Crosby Theater is planning to bring in several smaller (in terms of production size) touring musicals in 2008.
The elegant surroundings should make a nice contrast to the double-wides in Armadillo Acres.