The Von Pufferhutte Family Singers! (the musical)
I saw three more fringe shows ths week.
Thursday night, I saw The Von Pufferhutte Family Singers! (the musical). I'd really liked this group's shows the past two years (I Like Nuts! and Captain Squishy's Yee Haw Jamboree!), so was looking forward to a very silly musical. I did get that, but I was somewhat disappointed in the show overall. The plot involves a family singing group who believe the Von Trapp family stole "Edelweiss" from them and come to America to become famous and get revenge. The family all gang up on one daughter (Goldfnger Von Pufferhutte) who keeps being referred to as ugly and stupid (and who non-family members address as "little boy", all despite her being a perfectly attractive young woman) and part of the plot has her running away and kidnapping Liesl Von Trapp. By the way, several of the other characters have equally silly names - Mom is Cookie Monster Von Pufferhutte, the other daughter is Octopussy, and one son is Ronald Reagan. Father is Helmut and the other son has the normal name of Klaus, but he carries around a pickled dead baby, named Heinz, in a jar of formaldehyde. (That name is one of the subtler jokes in the show, which mostly hits you over the head with its humor.)
The show worked best in its musical numbers - starting from the opening "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Not Be Famous" and continuing through "The Von Trapps are Hideous Demons Out of Hell", The most appalling song is "You Can't Un-eat a Baby" and the best is the Mexican number "Quiero te que mueros (I Wish You Were Dead)", sung after they adopt honorary son Pablo Neruda to take Goldfinger's place. Unfortunately, the material between the songs often dragged. It was still a reasonably entertaining show, but not up my expectations.
As for the performances, the most notable was Jesse Terrill's as Pablo. That may be because he is one of the few performers with serious acting credits. (He played Mortimer in The Fantasticks at Arena Stage this season, for example.) There weren't any notably terrible performances. I just would have liked there to be a bit more there there.
Thursday night, I saw The Von Pufferhutte Family Singers! (the musical). I'd really liked this group's shows the past two years (I Like Nuts! and Captain Squishy's Yee Haw Jamboree!), so was looking forward to a very silly musical. I did get that, but I was somewhat disappointed in the show overall. The plot involves a family singing group who believe the Von Trapp family stole "Edelweiss" from them and come to America to become famous and get revenge. The family all gang up on one daughter (Goldfnger Von Pufferhutte) who keeps being referred to as ugly and stupid (and who non-family members address as "little boy", all despite her being a perfectly attractive young woman) and part of the plot has her running away and kidnapping Liesl Von Trapp. By the way, several of the other characters have equally silly names - Mom is Cookie Monster Von Pufferhutte, the other daughter is Octopussy, and one son is Ronald Reagan. Father is Helmut and the other son has the normal name of Klaus, but he carries around a pickled dead baby, named Heinz, in a jar of formaldehyde. (That name is one of the subtler jokes in the show, which mostly hits you over the head with its humor.)
The show worked best in its musical numbers - starting from the opening "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Not Be Famous" and continuing through "The Von Trapps are Hideous Demons Out of Hell", The most appalling song is "You Can't Un-eat a Baby" and the best is the Mexican number "Quiero te que mueros (I Wish You Were Dead)", sung after they adopt honorary son Pablo Neruda to take Goldfinger's place. Unfortunately, the material between the songs often dragged. It was still a reasonably entertaining show, but not up my expectations.
As for the performances, the most notable was Jesse Terrill's as Pablo. That may be because he is one of the few performers with serious acting credits. (He played Mortimer in The Fantasticks at Arena Stage this season, for example.) There weren't any notably terrible performances. I just would have liked there to be a bit more there there.