Lypsinka’s Passion Play

The beauty of John Epperson’s performance in The Passion of the Crawford is that he’s doing it not as Joan Crawford but as Lypsinka. Yes, the voice he lip-synchs to is Hollywood’s own St. Joan, but the style is all his own as expressed through his famous alter-ego.

While most celebrity impersonators get their laughs by capturing the broad strokes of their targets — the obvious mannerisms, the vocal tics — Lypsinka garners huge laughs with the subtlest of gestures, pauses, and stares. The comedy of this show doesn’t come from Epperson/Lypsinka being Crawford; it comes from sly statements of attitude about the late film star. Briefly put, Epperson nails Crawford to a cross in a show that is at once cruel and comic.

The intermissionless show largely consists of lip-synching to a tape of an actual Q&A session with Crawford (Steve Cuiffo appears as “The Interviewer”), but there are a few head-scratching moments when the format suddenly breaks and leaps to a Christmas scene. Here, Cuiffo and Epperson suddenly assume different personas for a five-minute segment that doesn’t work. Otherwise, The Passion of the Crawford is consistently catty, clever, and mesmerizing.

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The Apple of Our Eyes

This past weekend’s Encores! presentation of The Apple Tree confirms that, if this were an earlier age, Kristin Chenoweth would be starring in a new Broadway musical every other season. Overflowing with talent, this vivacious and versatile actress could command a legion of fans that would never tire of seeing her perform. As it is in our own age, her fans just can’t get enough of her.

Simply put, Chenoweth was simply sensational in this 1966 Bock-Harnick musical. Here is a comedienne with a vocal range that could match the Alps, an exceptional singer who is absolutely hilarious — and let’s not forget that she’s also adorable, beautiful, and sexy. The Apple Tree needed a star of her magnitude to make it work, and it worked like musical theater magic.

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Fully Baked and Ready to Serve on Broadway

Under the heading of “better late than never,” we caught the handsome Paper Mill Playhouse production of The Baker’s Wife just before it closed last weekend. This lovely little musical on a human scale boasts a great score by Stephen Schwartz and a sweet book by Joseph Stein.

The original production of The Baker’s Wife closed during its pre-Broaday tryout tour in 1976. Some Broadway producer should have the guts (and the money!) to finally bring this show with a hard-beating heart into a small Broadway house. If they could get the impeccable Paper Mill leads — Lenny Wolpe as the baker, Alice Ripley as his wife, and Max Von Essen as the young man who tempts the baker’s wife — they would have a potential hit on their hands. At this point, however, we can just say thank you to the Paper Mill people for doing such a great job with the show.

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And The 2006 Tony Award Goes To…

Subtle it ain’t, but Tonylust: The Broadway Bloodbath of 2006 is a satiric one-act sketch at The Duplex that’s full of spiky fun. In this battle between two producing teams to garner the Tony Award for next year’s Best Musical, the insider jokes come fast and furious. There are characters modeled after, among others, a certain New York Post theater columnist and some well-known producers, plus plenty of tart comments about such real-life people as…well, we won’t give it away!

To call the acting broad would be an understatement, but the performances are never boring. The comedy is very much hit-and-miss, but just when you think the show is getting away from the troupe of five actors, they come up with something that makes you laugh out loud. There’s nothing sophisticated about Tonylust yet, as he proved with Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway, author David Bell writes with great humor and a genuine knowledge of the New York theater scene. Christopher Borg directs the comedy with the apparent intention of making it loud and fast; he succeeds, even if this is not always a virtue.

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[To contact the Siegels directly, e-mail them at siegels@theatermania.com.]