Song and laughs
The Community Players comedy revue of ‘ Tomfoolery’ will have you rolling, or dancing, in the aisles.
PAWTUCKET — The Community Players are gamely taking on an ambitious project, the musical comedy revue “Tomfoolery.”
The Tom of the title is Tom Lehrer, who was a graduate student at Harvard University studying mathematics when he started writing comic parodies of popular music to entertain his friends. Word of his work and his cynical sense of humor lead to recordings and concert tours, and those songs comprise the “foolery” part of the title.
The revue is packed with 26 of his satirical songs, mostly written during the 1950s and 1960s but including the 1970s when he occasionally penned a ditty or two for the children’s educational show “The Electric Company.” His humor runs the gamut. He lampoons overly enthusiastic college alumni in “Bright College Days,” where a line about raising glasses on high refers not to beer glasses but eye glasses. Things get a bit more twisted in songs like “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” hilariously depicting a pair of retirees who spend days doing just that, or to falling out of love, as in the complaints voiced in “When You Are Old and Gray.”
Nothing is sacred, as the saying goes, in the goodnatured “Vatican Rag.”
Then there is the weird, “I Hold Your Hand in Mine,” in which the held hand is dismembered from its body. The lyrics are written for laughs, never to be taken seriously, and the banter from the actors between songs – including adlibs – is funny, too.
The task for the cast of six is not just to sing the songs but to be comedians as well, and there are hits and misses on both counts.
Everyone has a moment when the delivery is spot on, and other times when the joke gets lost because of timing or something as mundane as not speaking clearly. The vocals generally are strong, occasionally a bit wobbly, but always well-supported by an on-stage band, led by music director and pianist Maria Day.
Director and set designer Lee Rush and her crew have come up with interesting format that includes back-of-the-stage projections to go along with the live action; there is a bucolic park for “Poisoning Pigeons,” and Brown University’s Van Wickle Gate for “Bright College Days.” Photographer Robert Emerson contributed to the projections.
If you’re in the mood for some off-center humor, this musical revue is for you.
The Community Players production of “Tom Foolery” continues through April 9 on Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. in Jenks Auditorium, 350 Division St., across from McCoy Stadium.
Tickets are $25 for adults, $18 for students, and available by calling 401-726-6860 or online at thecommunityplayers.net.