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A CurtainUp Review
Glee Club


Get back into your place, get your face in your music, and shut those gaping asswounds you use as mouths.— Ben (the music director)
Glee Club is the kind of sketch comedy inspired play you can't help but laugh along with. Glee Club's not about substance, or storytelling, or even mocking the now-popular TV show. You might leave the theater humming the song, or still laughing at a one-liner. You probably won't be pondering these character's lives or upcoming singing engagements. But a quick-and-dirty one-hour comedy event is always enjoyable.

Placed in the fictional town of Romeo, Vermont (has playwright Matthew Freeman been hanging out with playwright Annie Baker?), the play opens at the start of the town's all-male Glee Club rehearsal. Director Ben (Stephen Speights) is anxious; soloist Hank has yet to show up. In the meantime, we meet the other six members of the club — a rag-tag, woodsy bunch. There's Paul (Steven Burns), the possible/probable serial killer; Fred (Bruce Barton), the overzealous (undertalented) glee member; Hank (Tom Staggs), the soloist, who may be derailing his voice by changing his life; and a handful of other characters who all simultaneously seem too ridiculous to be real, yet feel oddly familiar.

The gist of Glee Club goes like this: This hokey community glee club is to perform one original song at the nursing home of their most important donor. The problem is, they can't get through more than a few bars before Ben (also the ditty's writer) stops them in disgust. At each pause, the group — with their wacky personalities — seem on the verge of chaos. Worst of all, Hank can't seem to get his supposedly angelic voice to cooperate, creating a series of hysterical desperate maneuvers on the part of the other group members and director.

Playwright Freeman excels at the ridiculous — the unsubstantiated anger, the freakish thoughts said aloud, the amazing desperation. And it's these factors which make Glee Club the fun ride that it is. The more "straight-ahead" dialogue, however, is at times clunky, feeling a little too much like filler in between the wacky. All eight actors are charming and specific. They have clearly dedicated themselves to making each character have a full story, and this brings out the best in each performer.

Glee Club is most certainly a crowd-pleasing comedy. Pair that with a crowd-pleasing song (spoiler-alert: you do, eventually, get to hear it through), and you've got yourself a fun evening.

Glee Club
Written by Matthew Freeman
Directed by Kyle Ancowitz
Cast: Bruce Barton (Fred), Stephen Speights (Ben), David DelGrosso (Nick), Carter Jackson (Greg),Steven Burns (Paul), Robert Buckwalter (Mark), Matthew Trumbull (Stan)and Tom Staggs (Hank)
Sets: Robert Monaco
Costumes: Jonna McElrath
Sound: Kyle Ancowitz
Lighting: Wheeler Kincaid
Graphics: Bruce Goldstone
Stage Manager: Susan Sunday
Blue Coyote Theater Group at the Access Theater, 380 Broadway, 212 868 4444, www.smarttic.com
From 3/3/10; opening 3/6/10 closing 4/3/10
Wednesday through Saturday @ 8pm.
Reviewed by Amanda Cooper based on 3/3/10 performance
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