The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: The Big Gay Jamboree

By Ross

With great fanfare, and a pretty amazing projected vista, courtesy of the majestic work of designer Aaron Rhyne (Public on Broadway’s for colored girls…), The Big Gay Jamboree, wakes up sassy and with the gayest funniest spring in its step. Being trapped in a classic kick-your-heels-up-high musical is not the newest structural choice for a show, just look at the two seasons of Apple+’s “Schmigadoon!“, and to be fair, one of its source materials, Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon. But as directed and choreographed by Connor Gallagher (Broadway’s Beetlejuice; RT’s The Robber Bridegroom), this creation, with a book by Marla Mindelle (Off-Broadway’s Titanique) & Jonathan Parks-Ramage (“Yes, Daddy“), and music & lyrics by Mindelle and Philip Drennen (Charlie and Doggy and…), starts off hilariously strong in its “Where the hell am I?!” kinda formula. And finds the silly raunchy BDSM sexiness in its quest to return.

It’s a hangover on effervescent steroids, delivered with the utmost enthusiasm by its leading lady, Mindelle, the woman at the shared helm of the off-Broadway hit, Titanique, and a determined and talented cast, giving it their all. Destined to be embraced by a camp-tastic group of followers who worship Mindelle and her brand of sassy brash silliness, this Big Gay Jamboree flies forward on a hilariously large dose of speed, diving in deep with all the corny complications of this deliciously dirty treat. It’s definitely not as wonderfully perfect as her silly unsinkable mega-hit, Titanique, but it’s no sinking lifeboat either. Filled with sexually ridiculous innuendoes, particularly well churned out in the Bareback Town Anthem, and “I’m trapped in purgatory” silly sentiments, it embraces its premise with utter sexually fluid glee, flinging itself forward with pure joyful abandonment.

So “rise and shine, sisters,” and smell the celebration that hangs in the air. It’s Stacey’s big day here in “Bareback, Idaho“, whether she likes it or not, and whether she knows what it is or not, and her four sisters (Amanda Lee, Jillian Mueller, Marla Mindelle, Olivia Puckett, and Natalie Walker), in the mode of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, are primed and ready to get her to the church on time, regardless of any protests. Mindelle as Stacey, gives it her all, laying out her hungover dilemma in record time within the first few minutes of the first song. She stumbles and falters about, wondering how she finds herself surrounded by the musical version of the 1940s. She knows she went on a bender last night, vexed and upset with her boyfriend, Keith, usually portrayed by SNL‘s Alex Moffat, but played this go-around by understudy Brad Greer (TNG’s Jerry Springer: The Opera), who should have proposed, but, in epic rich-tech-bro behavior, did not. Regardless, this is not the world she thought she’d be waking up to. A massive headache, yes. Attached to a non-commital boyfriend that she has given up her musical hopes and dreams for, yes. But not this. Not at all.

But as she looks around, she starts to see something with more clarity through the brain fog. And it isn’t just the super-sexy Clarence, portrayed deliciously well by the gorgeous Paris Nix (Broadway’s Beautiful), who opens the door to an avalanche of pop-culture references that fling themselves far and wide, far and away outside of just classic musical territory. As played out impressively on that small Orpheum Theatre stage, designed to perfection by the scenic sensation, dots (Broadway’s Appropriate), with superb lighting by Brian Tovar (Public’s Wild Goose Dreams) and a solid sound design by Justin Stasiw (Broadway’s Lempicka), the formula for ridiculousness just keeps churning out the jokes one after the other, barely giving you a chuckle-free moment in this parody extravaganza, even in that meta-muddy head-scratching ending.

Beyond the hilariously delivered Chorus Line solo, The Big Gay Jamboree, just keeps high-kicking theater and sexual references out into the adoring audience, baffling her sisters with a song “in the style of contemporary musical theater” and thrilling us all with her pure enjoyment of the moment. Jennifer Lopez, surprisingly, gets her “Céline “Fu**ing” Dion” preoccupied focus in the later half of this 100-minute-long sensation, digging into the pop sensation’s bad career choices and a fictional J.Lo musical that resembles a certain other pop sensation’s Broadway bio-show, Hell’s Kitchen. With Stacey playing “The Block” to Jenny and her roots, she books the ridiculous show but then gives it up. All for the guy. It’s as completely silly as it sounds, but also hilarious. So on her quest forward and back, down a symbolic yellow brick road through a dangerous forest to the enchanted castle, Stacey pulls it all together, including a band of disheartened characters that would make Dorothy proud.

It begins with Clarence, who wants to be freed from the confines of being the one black man in town who is forced to only sing gospel songs for eternity. Afterward, she quickly ropes in one of her sisters, Flora, portrayed fantastically by Natalie Walker (MCC’s Alice by Heart), who has her own sexual awakening to work through. She beckons us magnificently in with her Marilyn Monroe campy call to action as she whips out her number about BDSM being her new best friend. Walker couldn’t be more fabulous in the role, finding ferocious delight in her newfound slutty awakening, and is quickly matched and joined by the “monster” of the forest, Bert, played outrageously well by Constantine Rousouli (Off-Broadway’s Titanique) in a pair of cut-off shorts that might make you blush with excitement.

Kicking those heels and delicious legs up high with abandonment, there’s a super ridiculous Sound of Music parody song around super stereotypical gay men that sorta stalls the super effervescent formula a tad, as it feels a bit too super obvious, playing a bit too hard into the laps of all of us gay men sitting in the Orpheum Theatre, downtown. But it does make me laugh, I will admit, even though it shoves a bit hard on the words; “dick,” “serve,” “yas,” “twerk,” “PrEP,” but the crowd does gulp it down happily, along with all the other jokes about gay life and the obsessive world of musical theatre, both of which I must admit pokes true for me and many of the audience member’s existence.

And in that formulation of misfits and outcasts looking for their way out of the 1940s, The Big Gay Jamboree, which I’m hearing was originally a film script that got lost in Margot Robbie’s production company’s purgatory development hell until it was reborn as an off-Broadway musical, is playful and sweet in a slutty singular sensation kinda way. This is solely due to the power of Mindelle’s impossibly strong Titanique-induced comedic pull, and on that interpersonal projected passion, we are not let down. I am surprised that she hasn’t given herself many opportunities to vocal shine in this musical, but the way she can work a room is forever astounding, especially when she pulls up an unsuspecting audience member for some cell phone help and camaraderie.

It seems she was made for this type of banter and parody, and in The Big Gay Jamboree, she flings herself into the material with an abandonment that we can only pay further homage to. It doesn’t rise as high up as the formidable Titanique, but really, how could it? So, leave your high floating expectations behind, cause if you go in with hopes of Titanique II, you might find yourself sinking down into the depths of the sea, cause you couldn’t fit on that floating door with Kate (yes, I can’t let that go). But this potty-mouthed musical does find its fabulously freaky formula inside the ridiculously funny overtures of parody and the love of musical theatre. So grab a few cocktails, and get yourself downtown to take in The Big Gay Jamboree, but just not so many that you might find yourself waking up in your own musically-themed purgatory about returning to your passion and getting yourself away from rich tech-bro idiots who can’t see a good thing in front of them, even if they high-kicked them in the face. Or maybe that does sound like a good time, if Mindelle is there to guide us all the way to the gates of Oz.