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Wacky, silly 'Ming' is good clean fun
By Misha Berson Cleanliness is godliness in the Kingdom of Courtesy, a planet where a worship of cleaning products and ultra-polite behavior go hand in rubber glove. And where a multicolored, blobby new museum known as EHP (Experience Hygiene Project) is about to be unveiled. But if cleanliness is king here, it's looniness that truly reigns in the Empty Space Theatre's season-opening musical "Ming the Rude." Or make that silliness with a streak of nostalgia. Co-written by John Engerman, Rex McDowell, Phil Shallat and Bob Wright, this shtick-laden, Gilbert & Sullivan-meet-Flash Gordon romp is a throwback to the celebrated Empty Space park shows its co-authors helped create and perform in the 1970s and '80s. "Ming the Rude," in fact, is based on a trilogy of short park works the same guys devised in the '80s. This new indoor version conflates and revises that material, and retrofits it with additional tunes. And the hijinks are handed over to a new generation of clowning actors — including several standout jesters who make "Ming" zing. Theater review "Ming the Rude." Plays Tuesdays-Sundays through Nov. 9, Empty Space Theatre, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle; $25-$35, $10 under age 25 (206-547-7500). I can't say that "Ming the Rude," directed with verve by fellow park-show alum Lori Larsen, is an all-out laugh riot. Actually, it is more of an amiable chuckle-fest, with sporadic guffaws and laborious patches. This isn't cutting-edge comedy, folks, but (refreshingly) it is emphatically family-friendly and weirdly wholesome. That's because the Ming dynasty rulers of Courtesy — zesty, sweetly befuddled Queen Bess (played at full comic tilt by Sarah Rudinoff ) and her dweeb son Larry (expert pratfaller Troy Fischnaller) — are, well, nice. And their underlings, the tiny Minions (part-human, part-puppet) are also endearing, especially Larry's waist-high sidekick, Eddie (Bob Borwick). Not every Courtesy resident is squeaky-clean, however. A sneaky villain, Sir Pendulous Dewlaps (Kevin C. Loomis) plots a coup. And his weapon of mass derangement? A ray-gun that turns polite people into snarling nasties. The plot (which also winks at the sci-fi flicks "Star Wars" and "2001: A Space Odyssey") is blathering nonsense, natch. What matters most here are the ebullient songs (composed by Engerman, and backed by keyboard player Rob Jones and drummer Dan Tierney), and the steady stream of sight gags and Firesign Theatre-style puns. Zippily choreographed by Jayne Muirhead, the musical numbers hark back to old movie musicals. And they're mostly swell — from the goofy dirge "Gone, Gone, Goner" (sung at the funeral of King CharmGlo, Larry's pop), to the retirement planet fantasia "On Leisure" and the Minion chorale "Swing Shift" — which, yup, has puppets jitterbugging. The sight gags can be a kick too, with a big assist from Jenny Anderson's pastel palace set and the priceless costumes by Melanie Burgess. The latter has found 101 uses for rubber kitchen gloves, and also handily works soap dishes, plastic buckets and squeegee bottles into the attire. The one-liners are more hit-and-miss, with the self-referential cracks mocking the show mostly amiss. And despite the light topical jabs at President Bush, Kenny G, feng shui, aromatherapy and the Star Wars defense system, the script needs more currency and bite. Larsen paces the affair briskly, for the most part, and the cast stretches to keep the tempo and pranks on track. Things can get a bit ragged. And some players (e.g., Mike Meyer as wise-man Vern, Nicole Boote as space-patrol gal Betty) don't exhibit the comic timing or confidence to really "sell" their jests. Pitching shtick is no problem for Rudinoff , a delicious singer-comedienne whose Bess channels the lusty spirit of such proto-top bananas as Charlotte Rae and Jo Anne Worley. But Rudinoff also knows when to pull back to score a laugh. In a pretzel-shaped headdress, flouncy. flowered frock and a variety of aprons, she can be deliriously funny — never more so than when in the grip of a hula seizure. Loomis also has a blast making the bat-winged Dewlaps hateful. Fischnaller's Larry stumbles and bumbles and leers his way into your heart. And as Eddie, Borwick merits huzzahs (and an orthopedic gift certificate) for a performance delivered mostly on his knees.
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