OK so they lip-synch at the Follies. Yo-Yo Ma cello-synched at the Presidential Inauguration. Think you're a more discriminating audience than the new president and 2 million other people?
It's the 26th go around for the Snowdown Follies this year, and Durango's most versatile thespian Don Doane directed the Egyptian effort. He brought pace and polish to an undertaking he described as "this cluster thing."
The pranksters kept up the heart of the whole endeavor - insulting local worthies. Shirtless pharaohs (Baudi Shellnut, Randle Taylor, Terry Shellnut and Bill French) danced on as the Spanked Monkeys carrying stuffed dogs to bring to mind those heroes of the evening's scriptwriters, Paddy Lynch and his dog. They are not forgetting the midnight raid on the La Plata County Humane Society.
The Monkeys accompanied the evening's first emcees, at the Strater Theatre, anyway. It was the other way around at the Arts Center, because the casts of the two halves change places at intermission. Queens Toughertiti and Cleospankya (Sandra Shellnut and Lisa Zwisler) told of the perils of answering personal ads in The Durango Herald, but then you already knew all that.
In "Toot Uncommons," Jim Pritchard led an act in which "Animas" rhymed conveniently with "cannabis."
Chuck Fredrick stood out on sax and a nubile chorus danced.
It's an anachronistic image many of the female cast has picked, strutting around in skimpy frocks behind the men. Come on, sisters! Update!
Then Billy Foster as Mick Jagger swaggered through a Durango bar moaning about his lack of satisfaction. Mick embalming jokes fit neatly into the theme.
But not all the jokes reached as far back as Mick. The scriptwriters were grateful for our local Overpass to Nowhere. Then we heard about the local crime wave with unmentionables being stolen from a rec center locker.
Olivia Burkhart and Roc Simmons kept up the rec center theme as they gingerly approached the exercise bikes warbling "Born to Be Mild."
At last, the new pharaoh of the whole country came up in "A Leader Named Barack" with an opponent warning "Sure he might not kill your children, but why take the chance."
There was more law enforcement as the boating under the influence law led to "Boozin' on de Nile."
It was a skit with police collaring reprobates, all floating on inner tubes, with one tipsy tuber explaining "Tequila makes my clothes fall off." Jennifer Tatum, Gerald Von Stroh, Brandon Hoskins and Sarah Slaughter delivered some of the evening's funniest lines.
Jeff Rea was the evening's comic star and singing star in one with his solo in which he gallantly told a companion "Put yer clothes back on and git on home." Asked what his favorite drink was, Rea replied, "The sixth or maybe the seventh. I git handsome by then."
Katherine Burgess as Isis and Tim Maher as Moses ruled the second half.
Isis was pregnant and she whispered the name "Bob Ledger" in that connection. She thought that after 4,000 years she should have known better.
Moses claimed he'd lived 800 years and graduated high school with Chuck Norton.
Lacie Fuller, Amber Pedigo, Taylor Vincent and Dani Scarafiotti reprised that naughty "Saturday Night Live" box skit before pagan Durangoans went off the rails to worship a golden bike. That was the kitchen sink realism part of the evening.
What comic review could resist Ms. Moose Mauler? Rebecca Gilbert brought Sarah into the evening reporting that between John McCain and the new baby, she was changing lots of diapers.
Then fan dancers came out to tease coyly with a surprise at the end of their number. They revealed nearly all just before The Recession Sistahs (Jessie Hamilton, Rebecca Gilbert and John Staten) held forth on those powerful Jews: Jesus, Abraham and Steven Spielberg.
The Egyptian Kings in Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wigs tied things up with "Let's Go Smoke Some Pot," and Suzy di Santo brought out her chorus line to kick us out into the evening's end.
Except, that is, for Moses, who let the audience in on the real meaning of those codes the police use.
When you hear them mutter "Code 420," Moses claimed, that means fresh doughnuts at City Market.
pahmiller@durangoherald.com
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