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Don’t Tell Mama – September 13 & 20
First presented back in 1997, “Max and Maxine” follows the careers of an aging lounge act doing its desperate best to remain relevant and hip. Theatre veterans Bryan Scott Johnson and Jennifer Perry have fun playing the over-the-top duo, along with musical director Gary Adler, during a return engagement at Don’t Tell Mama.
Max and Maxine land on stage with their big game-show smiles, outfits of spangle and glitter, and plodding, ridiculous choreography—all of which got them raucous laughs and applause from a large and adoring audience. Johnson adopts a smooth vocal style for Max that suits this kind of satire; with a wild mane of red hair, Perry’s Maxine is brassy in personality and voice, a marriage of the worst excesses of Kathleen Turner and Kathie Lee Gifford. Adler, perpetually sober and dragging on a cigarette, makes a nice comic foil for the team as pianist Shecky Sheckenstein.
The conceit of the act is that as the show rolls on, the carefully crafted façade of the old pros slowly deteriorates, leaving the two nearly at each other’s throats, à la George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the music in tatters. All of this is done with often hilarious results.
The patter is purposely cringeworthy, as when Maxine introduces “Fever” (Eddie Cooley, John Davenport) by saying, “It’s the kind of fever that sneaks up your skirt and spanks you on the bottom.” She then launches into an overbaked rendition, complete with screeches and breathless punctuations of the title word. After her solo, Max comes back on stage and asks, “Hasn’t she aged incredibly?” These are the kinds of barbs the two trade back and forth, their geniality barely masking a cutting hatred of each other.
Best of all is their medley from Phantom of the Opera, which offers a whole beginners’ workshop of mistakes: botched lyrics, jazz stylings (including scat), and notes that are just off-pitch enough to be noticeably bad even to the novice listener. When Shecky is offered a musical solo, he suddenly seems to have lost a few fingers. Likewise, their take on “MacArthur Park” (Jimmy Webb) is certainly unlike any musical (I use the word very lightly) presentation anyone has seen before. Incidentally, for pros like Johnson, Perry and Adler to purposely make mistakes for comic effect is quite a difficult feat to accomplish.
“Happily Married Man” (Gary Adler, Ira Gassman) makes a terrific comic solo for Max, which seems like a somewhat crude but honest valentine to the joys of marriage, but, with its clever ending, becomes something else entirely. Max also scores with a story about being the dresser for Johnny Mathis, before he launches into “Misty” (Johnny Burke, Erroll Garner) with perfect imitative skills of the crooner. Johnson also contributed a few of his own songs to the show but, unfortunately, the targets of those songs seem too obvious and lacking wit. (If they had been introduced as songs Max had written, well, that might have worked in their favor.)
There are also several effective sight gags, as when Maxine emerges from behind a screen wearing a hideous, flowered-print, sleeveless dress, unzipped in the back—or better yet, when the screen itself falls while Maxine is changing outfits. Even waitress Randy Lester is brought into the act for a few big laughs. Director Martha Banta moves the show along at an appropriately frenetic pace with many visual treats.
If there is criticism to be made, it is that this kind of satire is hard to maintain for an entire hour, even when well done. The problems of the two main characters—that he is a closeted gay man, and that she is a drunk who gets more drunk as the concert goes on—are rather obvious and one-note after about forty-five minutes. The show would benefit from a few surprising character revelations. For example, they could do more with Jerry Herman’s “Bosom Buddies” to make it less predictable.
Outside of that, when Max and Maxine land the laughs, they hit them big-time. An evening spent with this dysfunctional couple is certainly an evening of memorable and often audacious entertainment.
Kevin Scott Hall performed in cabaret clubs for many years and recorded three CDs, including “New Light Dawning” in 1998, which received national airplay. He also worked at the legendary piano bar, Rose’s Turn, and has taught cabaret workshops and directed shows since 1995. Kevin earned his MFA in Creative Writing at City College of New York. He is an adjunct professor in the Theatre and English departments at City College and Borough of Manhattan Community College. His novel, “Off the Charts!” was published in 2010, and his memoir, “A Quarter Inch from My Heart” (Wisdom Moon), in 2014. Kevin writes a monthly column and entertainment features for Edge Media Network, writes reviews for BistroAwards.com, and freelances for other publications.
