Ruthless
Ruthless By Joel Paley and Marvin Laird
Directed and Choreographed by Roy Alan
Musical Direction by Chris Leavy
Starring Kevin Kelly, Heather Alexander, and Jasmine Forsberg
Winter Park Play House, Winter Park FL</strong>
Somewhere between the Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s bustier and Joan Crawford’s ghost is the rancid heart of Sylvia St. Croix (Kelley). She barges into the peaceable life of Judy (Alexander) and her stage struck daughter Tina Denmark (Forsberg) and disrupts all Judy’s well intentioned parenting strategies. Sure, Tina can sing a dance a bit, but her real strength lies in a brutal ability to back stab her way to mediocrity. Like Harry Potter needs a stint in Hogwarts to sharpen his native talents, St. Croix is ready to train Tina on the fine points of making the headline on Entertainment tonight. No treachery is too Shakespearian – class mates are thrown under the bus and her drama teacher is blackmailed, and out of this machinations Judy comes to a horrible realization: She, too is talented, and by the second act she morphs from June Cleaver into Norma Desmond. Is there a happy ending? Depends on whether you get your love and affection from a fickle public, or if you just own a cat.
Darker than your average WPPH feel goodness, “Ruthless” throws all the worst elements of Hollywood into a blender and pours out a margarita of misery for the Demarks. Kevin Kelly never had so much fun in drag, and his audience vamping was a scream. Alexander offers a comic version of a 50’s house frau at first, but comes into her own when she’s zombified by fame. As for Miss Forsberg, I’ll just say I hope she doesn’t turn into a real life Tina lest a director or lighting designer drop something heavy on her during a solo. Supporting this emotional suicide pact is an over top Cami Miller as Lita Encore the critic with a flamethrower pen and a subdued Janine Klein as the grade schoolmarm and the reporter from “Thespian Today”.
All this dancing and vamping takes place on what is clearly the most elaborate set Tommy Mangieri has ever built for this space, the costumes look spectacular, and where would we be without Chris Leavy’s piano and Sam Waters on percussion? We’d be humming to ourselves thought great songs like “Born to Entertain” and “I Hate Musicals”, that’s where. Is there a moral? I’m sure there’s one in there somewhere, but when everyone has a heart two sizes too small it’s hard to recall. I’d go for the bloodshed and advise my children to aim for a job in Iowa.
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