Bush Comes to Shove

Bush is Bad is such an obvious title that we went to see this musical political parody at The Triad with very low expectations for cleverness or wit. We were pleasantly surprised: Joshua Rosenblum’s sharply satiric songs provide plenty of laughs, and the three-person cast (plus Rosenblum at the piano) is a very talented bunch.

Subtitled “The Musical Cure for the Blue-State Blues,” this revue is not an equal opportunity offender. On the contrary, it wears its bias proudly. And while it’s not going to change the minds of anyone who supports George W. Bush, it will certainly entertain and give succor to the rest of us who still can’t believe that he was re-elected. Indeed, this very sentiment opens the show as expressed in the song “How Can 59 Million People Be So Dumb?”

One of the revue’s highlights is the very funy German operatic parody “Das Busch is Schelecht.” It’s performed by the consistently hilarious Michael McCoy, who turns everything he touches into high-stepping comedy, including his take on John Ashcroft ( “Beaten by a Dead Man”). Broadway veteran Kate Baldwin, who’ll be leaving the show at the end of this month, has her best moment as Laura Bush singing “Sure, You Betcha, Georgie,” and Neal Mayer is wonderfully animated in “The Gay Agenda.”

Some of the material falls flat, but much of it is flat-out funny. We roared at “In His Own Words,” a song that strings together some of the most incredibly stupid things G.W.B. has said. It’s so funny that we were crying — and, no doubt, that’s exactly the response that Rosenblum and company are after.

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Pardon My Spanish

It was inevitable that the success of Jackie Mason’s Broadway gigs would eventually spawn different brands of ethnic humor on the Great White Way. Instead of making fun of Jews and Gentiles, the four comedians of Latinologues spoof every Spanish-speaking ethnic group (except actual Spaniards) while also taking swipes at Anglo-American attempts to understand the largest single minority in the United States. Jokes bathed in ethnic stereotypes splash across the footlights of the Helen Hayes, gently kidding Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Argentineans, et al.

It’s said that, in the not-too-distant future, Spanish will be the first language of a majority of Americans. There are moments in Latinologues when it seems as if that time has already come. Rather than pay off a joke in English, the four stars of the show occasionally toss off their zingers in Spanish. (We could tell they were zingers because the large Spanish-speaking percentage of the audience would explode with laughter.) If you don’t understand Spanish, you’re going to miss a handful of jokes; fortunately, there are plenty of others to go around.

Eugenio Derbez, Rene Lavan, and Shirley A. Rumierk give polished performances under the direction of Cheech Marin, but Rick Najera is the one to really keep an eye on, in no small part because he also wrote the show. True, not all of the material is first rate; too often, the targets of humor are easy marks. But when Najera starts to link the skits so that we see the connections between various characters and events, the piece becomes richer and displays some cojones.

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Slam-Drunk

Critics live for those moments when the lights go down, a singer puts it out there, and you know right away that you’re hearing something special. This happened to us at the Encore when we took in San Francisco-based singer Terese Genecco’s show Drunk With Love: A Tribute to Frances Faye. There’s just one performance left, on Wednesday, October 19 at 10:30pm, and you shouldn’t miss it.

Faye, who died at age 79 in 1991, didn’t have it easy. She was a lesbian when lesbianism wasn’t chic, and she suffered from a variety of injuries and illnesses that would have stopped most other people in their tracks. According to Genecco, one injury was so damaging that, for eight years thereafter, Faye had to be carried on stage in order to perform.

In Drunk With Love, Genecco is aided and abetted by a kick-ass band that she brought with her from the West Coast. More than her knowledgeable and engagingly expressed patter, what makes this show so special is the way she effortlessly delivers Faye’s signature style. The up-tempo numbers have a unique vibrancy; such standards as “The Man I Love” and “Night and Day” take on an entirely different complexion as hard-driving jazz numbers.

During her career, Faye put her stamp on songs as diverse as “Unchain My Heart” and a combo version of “A Hard Days Night” and “Yesterday.” When Sinatra sang Beatles tunes, he sounded foolish; Faye made these songs her own, as Terese Genecco skillfully demonstrates.

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