The many hassles of the airport were worth it, just for what I did once I got here. Comic retailer supreme Joe Ferrara and his lovely wife Dottie treated me to a San Francisco treat: An evening at Beach Blanket Babylon, a campy/outrageous revue which has been playing to packed houses in S.F. since 1974. There's a reason it's been up 'n' running that long. It's one of the finest, funnest pieces of live entertainment I've ever had the pleasure to witness.
Beach Blanket Babylon was the creation of a wickedly witty man named Steve Silver, who left this planet way too early in 1995, just past his 50th birthday. The show has gone on without him, carried forth by a superb crew headed by Kenny Mazlow and Jo Schuman Silver. I had the pleasure to meet and talk with some of the folks on and off that stage after the performance and I'm afraid I gushed a lot but, what they heck, they deserve it. They deliver a lightning-paced extravaganza that plays like one long, high-energy production number. Celebrities and politicians are relentlessly mocked, not only by song parodies but by an endless stream of colorful, hilarious costumes. Every time you blink, there's another one, topping all that came before. The music's great, the performances are all amazing…but you could easily leave the theater humming the wardrobe.
I was overwhelmed and let me list the entire cast because every one of these people impressed me: Curt Branom, Paulino Durán, Shawna Ferris, Jacqui Heck, Renée Lubin, Doug Magopiong, Kenny Mazlow, Caitlin McGinty, Tammy Nelson, Ryan Rigazzi and Phillip Percy Williams. To tell you the truth, I sometimes lost track of who was who because the costumes sometimes hide the performers and, well, the pace is so relentless that it's hard to take it all in or to watch the person instead of what they're wearing.
I've been hearing about this show since the late seventies and it wasn't until last night that — thanks, Joe — I finally got around to seeing it. Don't make the same stoneheaded mistake I made. If I'd gone to see it back then, I could have seen it dozens of times since then…and would have. As it is, I have a lot of catching-up to do. Here's a short commercial that may give you a brief sense of what you're in for, but which does not do this splendid show justice…
