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<b>music by Waylen Miki, written and directed by the Rumoli Brothers
Inconvenient Theatre Co., Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto
June 17-29, 2008
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</b><i>An Inconvenient Musical</i>, the Rumoli Brothers’ hit show from last year’s Fringe, is back in an expanded two-act version. It probably the funniest musical to hit Toronto since the original <i>Drowsy Chaperone</i> except that it is crammed even fuller of smart pop cultural satire.
The show is both a send-up of Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning documentary <i>An Inconvenient Truth</i> about the effects of global warming although it actually promotes its message. One dollar of every ticket sold goes to the David Suzuki Foundation. The premise is that Al Gore (played with earnest aplomb by Doug Morency) decides the best way to convey his message is through “the most powerful weapon on earth--musical theatre." This allows the Rumoli Brothers (i.e., Kurt and Brandon Firla) and composer Waylen Miki to make riffs on a wide range of musicals from <i>Annie</i> to <i>Rent</i> to <i>We Will Rock You</i> as well as every possible pop genre from folk to punk.
The story itself is starts out like the Simpsons and morphs into the first <i>Star Wars</i> trilogy. Our hero Gordon Green (Cyrus Lane, a fine singer with a perfect pose of unflappable gravitas) sets out to prove Gore’s thesis that one man can make a difference by trying to stop the evil energy giant Enward run by CEO Cole Powers (a very funny Lee Smart) and three generals (Matt Baram, Chris Gibbs and Sandy Jobin-Bevans) from deploying the Samoflange, the ultimate energy maker and polluter that will kill all life on earth in three years. Along the way Gordon encounters the vegan lounge singer Lesley DiFeisto (Aurora Browne in a fine comic turn) and her <i>Star Wars</i>-esque buddies and falls in love with Powers’ daughter Colette (the charming Ayumi Iizuki) set to spy on him. The funniest scene of a show full of funny scenes is Gordon’s encounter with David Suzuki (in a great impersonation by Chris Gibbs) who advises our hero of how to attack polluters in the rousing number “Kick ‘Em in the Nuts”, seconded by a full array of fuzzy animals.
The set is cleverly composed entirely of Toronto’s now-outmoded recycling bins. All the while a screen at the back displays Kurt Firla’s hilarious slides of pie-charts and videos, the best of which is the animated short concocted by Enward to promote wasting energy. The show does goes off track a bit during the cantina section in Act 1 and would be even punchier if shortened by about 20 minutes. Despite this you’ll have to agree that global warming has never been so much fun.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in <i>Eye Weekly</i> 2008-06-19.
Photo: Doug Morency as Al Gore.
<b>2008-06-19</b>
<b>An Inconvenient Musical</b>