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Situation Tragedy
Highly successful television writer and producer Maxine Lapiduss began her career in Pittsburgh at age 14 doing stand-up comedy, an artistic high, which obviously never left her. Now, after 10 dizzying but profitable years and such hard labor writing for sitcoms such as Roseanne, Home Improvement, Dear John, the Jeff Foxworthy Show, and currently serving as consulting producer for Ellen, the hunger has returned luckily for us. Just as many movie stars return to the legitimate stage for a quick infusion of what it was that originally made their blood soar, Lapiduss has combined her comedy writing and performing to present her (almost) one-man Situation Tragedy…Observations on 10 years in Hollywood…with Bongos to the Globe Playhouse in West Hollywood. I say almost one-man show because, although Lapiduss, with her sister and former writing partner Sally Lapiduss, has created a mammoth small-scale production to showcase her many nonstop comic talents, she has also added a few folks to her her blood-soaring efforts; a seven-woman band, four dancing Vegas lounge-style chorus, er, boys and Lynsey Bartilson, a 14-year-old future musical comedy superstar included to represent the teenaged Maxine ("Except in reality," Lapiduss admits, "I was 60 lbs heavier and had a droopy eye"). Simply put, Lapiduss' hilarious Situation Tragedy is the funniest thing I've seen on a stage in years; when this woman takes on the industry which has made her rich and certifiable, and incubated her addiction to scotch and Pepto-Bismol, she takes no prisoners in the process. With an amazing voice which falls somewhere between that of two of my all-time idols-Frances Faye's belt (the late cabaret wonder's signature "Good Evening," linking names of that evening's audience members in a multiple ménage-a-many, begins the show) with Blossom Dearie's vibrato. Early on Lapiduss offers a spirited rendition of Streisand's "Gotta Move, Gotta Get Out," each verse sparked by huge video projects of garish studio hallway-style publicity shorts of Roseanne, Tim Allen, Foxworthy and a goofily-grinning Tom Arnold. She soon insists this is not autobiographical: "No giant screen could ever hold the true size of Tom Arnold's head." Also quick to defend herself that she has never taken a writing job for the cash (Charles in Charge was a labor of love"), Lapiduss and her boys also perform a wonderful routine called "The Next Biggest Thing," with our heroine trying to pitch a series project to the networks, only to return for each meeting to find an entirely different and politically correct group of suits in charge of development. When the almost-final newly installed VP of Comedy turns out to be a 12-year-old girl spouting Lapiduss' first story idea as her own, all seems to be lost until she too is replaced and sent back to the seventh grade with a "big fat severance package." This is soon followed by a side-spitting send-up of Rent's "Seasons of Love," here altered just slightly to accompany a chorus line of TV execs carrying piles of scripts, each positioned evenly across the lip of the stage to sing "Seasons of Trash." "Anybody see Rent?" Lapiduss asks earnestly. "Well, if you haven't, we've just saved you 75 bucks." Lapiduss also does hysterically funny and right-on expressions of everyone from Milton Berle to Joan and Melissa Rivers (performing the climactic scene from their TV movie rendition of Edgar's suicide, which the star likens to such epic miniseries as Roots) to Liza Minnelli warbling "Cabaret" in concert at the El Cerritos Performing Arts Center three weeks after hip replacement surgery. There are sections discussing the newest craze for lesbians -- raising babies; sections on the evening news and "The Fault Lies in You," a love ballad sung to a TV stop-action frame of Cal Tech's familiar resident post-disaster seismologist Dr. Kate Hutton. Is nothing in Hollywood sacred here? Not a chance. There
are also a handful of more serious moments, including the remembrance
of a meal observing her aging parents and marveling in the simplicity
of their love, to a knockout duet with her knockout band's knockout
conductor and keyboardist Allison Cornell. This all goes to prove
that this woman possesses a dynamic talent which should no longer
be hidden behind a desk at Disney or Fox, but should be right up
there along side the heavily retouched headshot of the less talented
stars whose faces inspire the opening "Gotta Move." This
departure from tried and true formula of mass audience-driven mindless
"entertainment" could be a concept which might just somehow
save us all for the current state of television sitcom formula.
Lapiduss' dream is to resurrect the old variety format made successful
by Carol Burnett and other for modern times. Lapiduss herself and
the multi-talented Ms. Bartilson as Carol and her sister Vicki?
With an imagination and a gift as vast and limitless as that of
Maxine Lapiduss, who knows? Maybe old tired ex-TV watchers such
as myself might actually turn their sets back on again. Until then,
don't even consider missing Situation Tragedy, the best evening
of nonstop entertainment offered on a stage in this crazy industry
town in many, many seasons.
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