| The
Great American Trailer Park Musical |
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Back in early August, I was invited to
preview songs and interview performers who were going to appear in the
upcoming The Great American Trailer Park Musical and I
decided to go for three reasons: the title sounded like it could be a lot
of fun; it was to open at Dodger Stages and the owners of this
off-Broadway, multi-stage complex have proven they've got golden taste -
and Shuler Hensley.
Hensley's name is not one
that causes panting and swooning, but if you saw the recent revival of Oklahoma!
you might remember his breakout performance as Jud Fry which won for him
a Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Award. He alone was reason enough
to find out about Trailer Park ..... Hensley's baritone is deep
and full, the sound of a man who could easily sing opera (and does).
But the rest of the cast, I
found out at the preview, was equally as splendid, and the reason why
this musical is now a hit. This truly marvelous musical was put together
by Betsy Kelso, a comedy sketch writer from Connecticut who's never seen
the inside of a trailer, and David Nehls, founding member of the punk
band Ghetto Cowboy. And what they've created could be another Spelling
Bee and a move to Broadway. The talent is all A-List, the voices are
big, the set can fill a large stage and the whole show is a crowd
pleaser with grit and style.
Article
» by Barbara Mehlman at Poughkeepsie Journal.com September
30, 2005
Hopkins isn't the only one giving a top-notch performance here. The
company members uniformly give their all to the material, from Roxanne
Hart's bombastic Betty to Leslie Kritzer's "dumb as a box of
hair" Pickles to Marya Grandy's embittered Linoleum. Shuler Hensley
brings emotional depth to Norbert. One understands his attraction to
Orfeh's superlatively sassy Pippi. Wayne Wilcox rounds out the company
marvelously as her short-fused boyfriend. (Andy Propst, Backstage.com)
Nehls has stitched together a
country-rock score that calls for some hefty belting. Fortunately, he gets
it from performers who can sing, act, joke around, and pelvis-pump with
the best of them; cocky as you please, they sell Nehls's ditties as if
hawking rhinestones on the Home Shopping Network. While their wigs shake,
the ladies sing so loud as to be heard all the way to Dade County; and the
two men acquit themselves with the same all-purpose pow. Hensley gets away
with Norbert's frequent use of the phrase "holy ham sammiches,"
and that can't be an easy thing for any actor to do - not even a Tony
Award winner. If these toughened pros can't make The Great American
Trailer Park Musical genuinely great, at least they make it right good
enough. (David Finkle, TheaterMania)
The showstopper (evidently designed as an act one closer before the
musical was squeezed during previews into an intermissionless single
act) is "Storm's A-Brewin'," a brazen disco rip-off of
"It's Raining Men," replete with Hart doing some fearsome
Patti LaBelle-style caterwauling and Hensley in full Meatloaf/Jim
Steinman mode. Hopkins and Hensley do a fine job on the more tender
songs like the pretty, country-flavored "Owner of My Heart,"
and "But He's Mine/It's Never Easy" with Orfeh. (David Rooney,
Variety)
As
the sad-sack Norbert, Shuler Hensley has a booming, clarion-call voice.
(Michael Kuchwara, Associated Free Press)
The fumbling Norbert gets a chance to show his chops during "Storm's
A-Brewin'," and with actor Hensley dwarfing everyone else onstage, it
doesn't hurt that the song tastes of Meat Loaf. The join-hands-and-sing
"Finale" is another kitschy winner, with lyrics such as
"I'm gonna make like a nail and press on." (Sam Thielman, NY Newsday.com)
There's undeniable fun to be had in the fast-paced
proceedings, which are performed with just the right mixture of energy and
silliness by the highly talented, strong-voiced cast, who clearly relish
their down-home characters. (Frank Scheck, New York Post)
A bunch of shamelessly talented performers knocks the
material right out of the park.........the entire cast is excellent and
everybody appears to be having a lot of fun chewing on their white-cracker
stereotypes. (Michael Sommers, Star-Ledger)
The cast is strong and appealing and the book and direction, both by Betsy Kelso,
are interesting and consistently spirited. If
you are a frequent theatergoer you may be astonished to encounter Shuler
Hensley, who won a Tony Award for his much-hailed performance as Jud Fry
in the highbrow 2002 British revival of Oklahoma! Here, Shuler
is playing Norbert, a hayseed toll collector. (Jacques Le Sourd, The
Journal News)
Shuler Hensley's bearish, innocent Norbert
.........Hensley sings in a hearty country baritone and comes across as
sweetly as the actor's Tony-winning Jud Fry was nasty. Orfeh, who strikes
sexy angled poses and uses a hard sneer, is the show's siren/belter,
leading off with a working girl's credo, "The Buck Stops Here."
But before the mantrap moves in on befuddled Norbert, Hensley and the
silver-throated Hopkins join on Nehls' love ballad, "Owner of My
Heart." (Malcolm Johnson, Hartford Courant)
Shuler Hensley, who swept the theater awards circuit for his
three-dimensional Jud Fry in 2002's Oklahoma revival, again
brings nuance to a lumbering lunk, in this case Norbert. (Doug Strassler, Monsters
and Critics)
Hensley found thunderous laughs within the variations and levels of comic
conflict that the role has, going from horny doofus at a strip club to a
man who still does love his wife very much. These combating emotions
helped in creating the duet "Owner of my Heart" into a sincere,
heart tugging song that helped the audience really feel for Norbert. (John
Garcia, Pegasus News)
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