A Long Time Ago…The Eighties Strike Back
A Long Time Ago…The Eighties Strike Back
Written by Simon McDonald
Directed Simon McDonald and Michael Knight
Starring
Orange Venue
Penguin Point Productions
The 2016 Orlando International Fringe Festival
Orlando, FL</strong>
By now the opus of Star Wars parodies is nearly as large as George Lucas’ bank account, but people still find comedy gold tilling this tired asteroid belt. Penguin Point did this show, or at least one with the same title, a while back to poor notices. I’m happy to report this production still shows a few rough edges, but sounds funnier, flows better, and offers genuine laughs even though you still have to wear your Jedi Knight undies to get it all. Three elements pull together here. First, they lean on some very clever 1980’s song parodies to pull the show along. “Video of the Killer Death Star/ Video Killed the Radio Star”, “C3PO is Plated Gold / Centerfold” and “We Built Cloud City / We Built This City” all work much better onstage than here in this review. Next, all of the players were recast with principles from other movies of the same era. Marty McFly (Chase Ray Livingston) took over for Luke, Madonna (Lauren Anne Anderson) covered Threepio with her pointy bra, and George Lucas (Simon McDonald) played Obi-Wan. This added a layer to the parody that helpfully gave the writes more places to land gags. And finally, this show stuck to its own path to create a story line; it edited out long stretches of comedy-free drama and popped off sight gags and laugh lines at light speed. Familiarity with the Star Wars universe helps but isn’t mandatory; there’s plenty of energy and motion to entertain even the least sci-fi savvy patron.
This commentary was prepared from a technical rehearsal.
This show was presented as part of the 2016 Orlando Fringe Festival for show times, tickets and more information please visit . http://orlandofringe.org/
