The Fab Five: Kevin Meets the Beatles

TROUBIES’ HOME A-LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND: Theater Review

For 23 years, The Troubadour Theater Company has been up to their usual uproarious Troubie tricks, mishmash-ing a classic or popular work with well-known music to create an amusing parody spoofing both. In the past, the Troubies mixed Aeschylus’ bloody Greek tragedy Agamemnon with songs by Abba to concoct Abbamemnon. The Troubies have also combined Aristophanes’ Greek classic Lysistrata with music sung by Liza Minnelli to render Lizastrata. Now the merry pranksters (and wankers) have moved beyond antiquity to wreak theatrical and musical mayhem on a beloved movie and record album.

This holiday season the troublemaking Troubies have brought their “when worlds collide” formula to bear on John Hughes’ 1990 story Home Alone, synthesizing it (at least partially) with the Beatles’ 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to render Troubies’ Home Alone-ly Hearts Club Band. Matt Walker—who’s around half a century older than Macaulay Culkin when he played the role—depicts Kevin, whose parents accidentally abandon him as they jet off to Europe without him during the holidays. Kevin is left behind to defend their household against the home invasion by robbers Harry Lime (Rick Batalla assays the role Joe Pesci originated and who, BTW, is named after Orson Welles’ criminal in the 1949 film noir classic The Third Man) and Marv (Daniel Stern’s character, here incarnated by Philip McNiven).

The frenetic vaudevillian romp is set to tunes by the Beatles, played by a live four-piece band, with parody lyrics. Here’s an example: The Troubies’ slicing and dicing of “Lovely Rita” turns the attractive meter maid into “Little Sal the Checkout Gal,” who Kevin checks out and fantasizes about when he goes grocery shopping. The show has lots of slapstick, sight gags, clever wordplay and bawdiness (a number of adults in the sold-out audience brought children; the scatological and lewd humor may go over the kiddies’ heads or may not be appropriate for the tykes at all, so be forewarned, folks—this isn’t exactly “The Nutcracker”). There are also a few sharp topical, political zingers tossed into the fray for good measure.

My favorite bit was when we critics came in for a taste of our own medicine. I think it was the Troubies’ longtime director Matt Walker himself in his daffy blonde Kevin wig who harpooned various theater reviewers and their outlets by name from his onstage perch. I loved this criticism of we critics, which is often well-deserved. For instance, my favorite radio show is KPCC’s FilmWeek, although its critics have, without prior warning, divulged plot spoilers and on its November 29 show two of its critics made factual errors. In the review of Moana 2, one reviewer called the title character a “pathfinder.” Hey HAOLE boy, Moana the navigator is a “wayfinder,” you sidewinder! And in the critique of Raoul Peck’s new documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, one FilmWeeker erroneously said that the photographer’s negatives were found in a “Swiss” bank—wrong, it was a SWEDISH bank. I guess if you’ve seen one cold European country you’ve seen them all! (Hmm, maybe I should put “Larry Mantle” in the byline for this thee-a-tuh review so the Troubies don’t skewer me next year?)

The Troubies have a loyal following and I never saw the Colony Theatre so jampacked. Entering its august portals prepared for chortles, fans were repeating some of the troupe’s tropes and running gags, such as what they do when latecomers brave the Troubies’ scorn and derision upon taking their seats after the proverbial curtain his lifted (I won’t spoil the surprise for you be revealing it here, as it is pretty funny). A splendid time was had by most, but as for your humble scribe, I was disappointed that sometime in the second act the frantic comedy lost the Beatles’ thread. There’s about a 15-20-minute stretch wherein the Troubies don’t poke fun at a single Beatles song. To the best of my recollection, this isn’t because the erstwhile crooners ran out of songs from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to lampoon—for instance, I don’t remember George Harrison’s “Within You Without You” getting the Troubie treatment. I could be wrong but I felt the Troubies kind of dropped the thematic ball here.

Be that as it may, what’s next for the endlessly inventive Troubadour Theater Company? A spoof of Wicked wherein Dorothy wears, but of course, the Troubie slippers?

Troubies’ Home Alone-ly Hearts Club Band is being performed on Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 4:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., through Dec. 22 at The Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank, CA, 91502. For tickets: Colony Theatre or call the box office at: (818)558-7000.