If you love musicals, Ruthless! is the show for you. And if you hate musicals, Ruthless! is the show for you.
Billed as “the stage mother of all musicals”, Ruthless! is a hilariously self-aware musical that skewers the genre even as it lovingly embraces it.
With book and lyrics by Joel Paley and music by Marvin Laird, Ruthless! first opened Off-Broadway in 1992 and has since developed a cult following for its gleeful satire of showbiz ambition.
Brenna Bazinet opens the show as the happy housewife and mother Judy Denmark and it’s clear from the first few notes, this performer is something special. Bazinet has a voice so powerful it threatens glassware.
Opposite her, Lauren Racz as Tina Denmark, is a precocious (and possibly sociopathic) child star-in-the-making, who tap-dances her way through a bloody rise to fame. When Racz belts out the lyrics, "I was born to entertain", it’s true of both the character and the actor.
Jaci Geiger is delicious as Sylvia St. Croix, the mysterious manager with a secret. Balancing camp with heart, Geiger lands every punchline while never letting the character tip into caricature.
The whole cast is great, and the live band adds an additional layer of energy that sends this production gloriously over the top.
The pacing, under the direction of Emma Alsop, is razor sharp. The jokes come fast and furious, the transitions are tight and the tempo is exactly what a show like this needs. With a nod to the fast-talking dames of screwball comedies, the breakneck speed doesn’t allow the acting to get precious. There is no chewing the scenery here. Well, there's a ton of it, but the performances are all grounded and the ride is so fun, the audience is happy to toss disbelief out the window for a couple of hours.
While Ruthless! leans all the way into camp, the show’s absurdity is laced with barbed commentary about the dark underbelly of ambition in showbiz. The book is filled with sly references for theatre lovers, like the line about Judy appearing in “an all-white company of the all-Black version of Hello, Dolly!”. When a newscaster gravely reports on the tragedy that took place “in the Vivian Vance Auditorium”, it’s a cheeky wink to the actor who played Ethel on I Love Lucy, and her real-life relegation from Broadway leading lady to sitcom sidekick. The reference echoes Ruthless!’s theme of whose talent gets recognized, and who gets violently pushed to the wings.
In the programme notes, director Emma Alsop wrote, "My teenage years were spent committed to absorbing everything I could about classic cinema and 1950/60s New York theatre.” This explains why Alsop so clearly understood the assignment. And also why teen Alsop was probably insufferable at the dinner table. But the point is, it paid off in this hysterical production.
Ladysmith Musical Arts made its debut last year with the much-buzzed-about Little Shop of Horrors. With Ruthless! they avoid the dreaded sophomore slump and double down with style, substance, talent and teeth.
Remaining shows are June 19-22, and 26-28 at Ladysmith Little Theatre, 4985 Christie Rd. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online at www.ladysmithmusicalarts.com.
