Here’s laughing at you, kid
‘Macao’ a hysterical parody
REVIEW. Ten minutes after the curtain call of the Lyric Stage Company’s production “Adrift in Macao,” you’ll be hard-pressed to come up with a plot. But, somehow, that doesn’t matter at all. What “Macao” lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in laughter. We’re talking 90 minutes of non-stop laughter here.
Set in 1952, Christopher Durang’s flimsy spoof of “Casablanca” (and film noir as a whole) finds four Amer-icans in Macao, China for very different reasons. Though, ultimately, all ex-pats are really looking for a way to get back to the States.
Brendan McNab plays a seemingly corrupt owner of a local gambling joint and nightclub, who hires a sultry Aimee Doherty to be the new club singer because she’s hot. This doesn’t sit well with Kathy St. George’s opium-fueled resident singer, who has her own happily-ever-after plans for McNab. Enter Ariel Heller, the sexy stranger with a secret of his own, and everything turns upside down.
What drives the action is the search for a mysterious man who holds the key to the fate of at least two of the displaced Americans. But, along the way, there’s sex, booze, intrigue, murder and mayhem that provide the ensemble with plenty to spoof. And at the center of it all is Austin Ku, an “inscrutable Asian” who knows more than his subservient, offensively stereotypical personality lets on.
St. George is superb in a Lucille-Ball-on-drugs performance. Doherty, too, doesn’t miss a beat with her madcap chanteuse, and Heller feels like a throw-back to film noir, with his dry, impeccable delivery. Last-minute replacement McNab looks like he’s been with the show from the start. But the biggest hit of the night is Ku, in a role that feels like it was written for him. Not only will his performance make you laugh in all the wrong places, but his big finish will keep you singing the ridiculously likable “Ticky Tocky Tock” all the way home.
‘Adrift in Macao’
Through Feb. 3
Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Copley
$25-$54, 617-585-5678
www.lyricstage.com