Here comes a strong recommendation for those of you within driving (or even flying) distance of Santa Monica Airport. There's a theater in the airport complex there and it's housing a very funny show. I'm not sure how long it's going to be there because it keeps being extended and extended…but don't take the chance of missing it. Go quickly to see this production of El Grande de Coca-Cola.
Some history. El Grande de Coca-Cola is a play that was written by Alan Shearman, John Neville Andrews, Ron House. Shearman and House starred in it when it was first staged in London four decades ago and they were in it when it came to America, had a long run off-Broadway in New York and then toured major cities to constant raves. This new production was directed by Shearman and it stars House in the role he created.
So what the heck is El Grande de Coca-Cola? It's a night in a shabby cabaret in Trujillo, Honduras, a city where everyone speaks the kind of Spanish you don't have to speak Spanish to understand. On the evening in question, Señor Don Pepe Hernandez, who believes himself to be Mr. Show Business, was to have presided over an evening of top cabaret acts…but they all cancelled, leaving him and his staff of relatives to whip up a show on short notice. The result is a fast-paced, slapsticky revue of some of the most amateurish entertainment imaginable. Basically from an audience standpoint, you just sit there and laugh pretty continuously for 75 minutes.
Ron House is magnificent as the impresario, a man whose talents are about as bogus as his four-dollar hairpiece. (The show, by the way, has been updated for the times. Señor Don Pepe reveals at one point that his role model is Señor Don Trump and does a great — which is to say, lousy — impression of him…in pidgin Spanish.) Then you have his cast of four. Sometimes, they play Señor Hernandez's staff, sometimes they play other characters and sometimes they play Señor Hernandez's staff playing other characters, and most also do triple or quadruple duty as the orchestra. In real life, they are Nina Brissey, David Lago, Lila Dupree and Aaron Miller. Paul Denk rounds out the bill as an Italian chef from a nearby restaurant who wanders in on occasion.
Brissey, Lago, Dupree and Miller all astound the audience with their versatility, energy and expert timing both of physical comedy and just comedy in general. Shearman and House is/were part of a comedy troupe called Low Moan Spectacular, which was responsible for four shows: This one, Footlight Frenzy, Bullshot Crummond and The Scandalous Adventures of Sir Toby Tollope. All were noted for their relentless devotion to mirth. Every second on stage, the actors were either waiting out the laugh from the last joke or leading right into the next one. The evening I saw the original production of Footlight Frenzy may well be the most I've ever laughed in a theater.
And so the tradition continues. Brissey does a phony psychic act and wrings every possible laugh out of a brilliant bit of chicanery. Lago explodes on stage with a bullet-catching trick and some of the best comic dance moves I've ever seen. Dupree is hilarious as she opens the proceedings as a vendor selling Coca-Cola (the show is full of product placement) to the audience. And Miller just fractures the audience as a blind singer who can't find the audience or the side of his guitar that has the strings. Each of them does dozens of other insane acts…and I haven't even gotten to the Toulouse-Lautrec impression which alone is worth the price of admission.
If you want to pay that (modest) price of admission and see a great show, here's a link to order. You may see me there again. I'll be going back because, in case you haven't picked up on it by now, I kinda liked this thing. Here's a little promotional video that will give you an idea of what you're in for…