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'Big Bang!' Explodes With Belly Laughs

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By KATHY GREENBERG, Tribune Correspondent

Published: December 10, 2007

TAMPA - TAMPA - The return of the entertaining production "The Big Bang!" to American Stage feels like a holiday bonus.

Candler Budd and Matthew McGee reprise their roles from 2006 as two off-Broadway writers desperate to secure investors for a 12-hour, $83.5 million musical extravaganza.

With a cast of 318 performers, 6,428 costumes and a two-hour dinner break, "The Big Bang!" illustrates the history of the world through song and dance, beginning in that soup of primordial goo and ending at the present time.

The setting is in the Lipbalms' eclectic-chic Park Avenue apartment. The Lipbalms are away on vacation, so Jed (Budd) and Boyd (McGee) take advantage of the available venue to pitch their production.

Taking the audience for potential backers, the pair enthusiastically appeal for support by performing highlights of the show. Jed and Boyd borrow items from the Lipbalms' decor to turn themselves into various historical figures and then sing stories that explain pivotal events in time.

The lyrics and premise of this show are brilliantly funny; Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham created one of the finest musical-comedies with the cleverest use of props, bar none.

But it takes two brave, shameless actors to elevate the production to a level of genius. These guys did it. Budd and McGee had perfect-pitch timing and even more chemistry than the couples they portrayed, including Adam and Eve, Napoleon and Josephine, and Sonny and Cher.

The entire 90-minute performance was inspired, though there were some moments that were downright sidesplitting. In one number, Budd and McGee pulled white undershirts over their heads to portray pre-Exodus slaves in Egypt. Playing it like a Borscht Belt skit, McGee suffered from a perpetual wedgie in his high-riding boxer shorts, while Budd perfected the discontented nebbish.

McGee ran through a slew of royal personages, donning a lampshade to become Nefertiti, who was more like Queen Latifah than Queen of the Nile, and unabashedly evoked the spirits of Rosie Perez and Desi Arnaz to be Spain's Isabella. Meanwhile, Budd pulled off a leggy (albeit hairy) Marlene Dietrich to confess Eva Braun's lament for picking a lousy boyfriend.

By far the funniest number featured Napoleon and Josephine impersonating Sonny and Cher. Without giving too much away, the plastic grapes made an unexpectedly versatile headdress.

Directed by Steven Flaa with music by Todd Lindamood, "The Big Bang!" should become an annual, or at least biennial, holiday event for the Tampa Bay area. It kindles the kind of laughter that burns calories and clears the way for a happy new year.

ON STAGE

The Big Bang!

WHEN: Through Dec. 23; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: American Stage Theatre Company, 211 Third St. S., St. Petersburg

TICKETS: $26 to $35, depending on date and time of performance; (727) 823-7529;

www.americanstage.org

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