Review: Gorilla Man, musical by Vestige Group
by Michael Meigs

Gorilla Man plays in a hang-loose theatre space Thursdays through Saturdays. The guys at the Creekside Lounge are more used to your typical 6th & 7th street music scene than to the romping of thespians, but they were good natured about hosting the show.

I arrived right at the posted time of 7:30 a.m., and I went directly into the bar. They directed me to the apparently unheated space next door, where some twenty folding chairs were set up in front of a bandstand. Director Susie Gidseg welcomed me aboard, and I joined the mostly college age crowd gathering there. The bartender eventually showed up and amicably sold me a Real Ale for just $2.50, so I was ready to go. I even took off my wool cap and later in the evening I unzipped my leather jacket. 

The 3-person band led by Henna Chou showed up promptly, wearing white shirts, suspenders and fedoras, along with narrator Spencer Driggers. They launched into the impossibly nutty musical story of Billy, the 14-year-old boy who discovers that puberty for him means waking up with abundant fur growing on his hands and other parts of his body. “Mom! What’s going on??” 

Gorilla Man is nothing more or less than an old-fashioned crowd-pleasing melodrama, descended directly from those 19th century populist shows in bars, halls and community centers in which traveling troupes presented stories of earnest heroes, young ladies in peril and impossibly wicked moustache-twirling villains.

The style is bright, mannered and decisive; the women are perky and the men are either innocents or corrupters; the cast encourages audience reaction, including at times with signs – “boo!” or “yay!” A major part of the fun is rooting for the good guys and a great deal of the satisfaction is seeing the blindly wicked and destructive villains get their comeuppance. 

In this mix and in this 21st century modification, the performance is amped up with rock and roll and the story presents a lampoon of the clean-thinking virtues of the classic melodrama.

Director Gidseg keeps this piece smartly on the rails all the way.  Top-hatted, grinning Spencer Driggers, billed as the narrator, is very much the Master of the ceremonies, spinning through the tale with precise timing and adroitly choreographed turns and shifts. Accompanying him is a pair of perky can-can girls, Jen Brown and Kathleen Fletcher, who sing back-up, shake it up, and take roles in the wild and furry Story of Billy.

Billy (Bobby Torres) learns that his mom (Jen Brown) has deceived him. She said his Dad was an accountant, now deceased; in fact, she confesses, she had a hot affair with the Gorilla Man, a deviant who couldn’t settle down to married bliss because he kept tearing the neighbors apart like Christmas presents. 

Billy is horrified but fascinated. Wouldn’t you be, too? He has to deal with the hairy evidence that he, too, may be on his way to murderousness. How much choice does he have over his own behavior or fate? 

 

Jen Brown is as cheery as Betty Boop when she informs her boy of his antecedents, and she whips out a pistol. . . but she just can’t pull the trigger. Billy flees, on his quest to the prison in the mountains where his dad the Gorilla Man is the sole prisoner (captured years ago after eviscerating whole squads of townspeople). 

Attractive auburn-haired Kathleen Fletcher has got the melo style down pat, delivering both as a fortune teller with a lusciously liquid east European accent and then as poor Alice, despairing, drunk and vulnerable to any human warmth. 

Lanky, limber Andrew Varenhorst meets Billy in each of the following three episodes. First as a happily deranged trucker who gives Billy a ride, then wants to talk him over to Jesus; next as a scare-mongering politician; and then as a sternly wooden prison guard. Varenhorst is supremely at home in this zany masquerading and he’s lots of fun to watch. 

And then, by gosh, Billy gets to the prison, where he manages to persuade the guard to admit him. Our dancing girls come on stage left, agitating a curtain between them – and drop it to reveal the Gorilla Man himself. Benjamin Wright is covered with pelt and wrapped in chains, and he has a cunning, wildly seductive magnetism that reminds you of Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. Dad courts Billy, exploits him, and urges him to give in to his real, inevitable nature – and Wright sings and acts just as well as he cons everybody in sight. 

Will Billy give in to his inner ape? What happens when the Gorilla Man meets Betty Boop once again? Poor Alice never gets tied to the railroad tracks, but can she ever find true happiness?

All this, rock and roll to heat you up, a zippy crazy story, and a friendly bartender in the back of the room – Susie Gidseg and her crew have successfully changed the Vestige tone and tune, to deliver some carefree entertainment. The tunes aren’t too memorable, but they have rhythm and drive. With that bandstand so low, sightlines are poor, but you can always lean or crane to follow the action. Poor Billy is the only clueless character, while everyone else in the cast is having a great time letting you know that they’re having a great time.

Thoughtful review by Elizabeth Cobbe in the Austin Chronicle of December 11 -- "Theatre for those who don't go to the theatre?" 

Review by Joey Seiler, published December 15 in Statesman's Austin360 blog and December 18 in the Austin Statesman

YouTube trailers for Gorilla Man: Click for #1 ;  Click for #2

 

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Gorilla Man, musical
by Kyle Jarrow
Vestige Group