Two musicals in August: both funny, both for adults, both playing downtown Seattle

Jennifer Sue Johnson, Carter J. Davis, and Billie Wildrick  in Das Barbecü
Photo credit: Chris Bennion for ACT

Two funny, smart, adult musicals officially opened last week in Seattle.  Both were born in the Northwest, one's been to Broadway and the other hopes to head there soon.

Norbert Leo Butz as Carl Hanratty
Photo: Chris Bennion for the 5th

Das Barbecu started here in 1995, when composer Scott Warrender and lyricist/playwright Jim Luigs created musical spoof of Wagner's four opera Ring cycle at the behest of Seattle Opera's artistic director Speight Jenkins.  The show, originally a one-act, was meant to be a little light entertainment and a few chuckles for the Ringheads touching down in Seattle.

With rave reviews during its first appearance and subsequent expansion into a two-act full blown country western musical about a mixed-up bunch of gods pursuing love and a magical ring of gold in Texas, Das Barbecu took on a very peculiar life apart from regular appearances locally whenever the Ring was playing in town.  Although it failed to hit it big in New York, the show became a staple of community theaters in places where Wagner never played. These days, it's a rare year when you don't find one or two productions lighting up some theater somewhere in the United States.

The ACT's current version shows why.  With five talents like the current cast, a minimum of props, and a very small orchestra, you can make the audience hee-haw until the cows come home. The jokes play up the absurdity of the myths: with Wotan becoming a randy rancher always running after everyone except his wife, Siegfried portrayed as a dimwitted cowboy in love with his aunt (although she's the same age as him having been frozen on a rock for twenty years), and hapless Rhine Daughters trapped in a roadside pool doing synchronized swimming for the tourists since they lost their gold.

Weirdly, Das Barbecu sticks far closer to the plot of Wagner's fourth and longest opera Gotterdammerung (in which the world ends when Valhalla burns down) than the goofy goings-on would lead you to believe.  There are no happy endings for Siegfried and his aunt Brunnehilde, and the world does go up in flames.  And, along the way, the jokes get set aside for a series of beautiful tunes, including a honky-tonk celebration of drugged love, Rodeo Romeo, and a tender two-step for a pair of star-crossed lovers, Slide A Little Closer. Several of Warrender and Luig's songs could be busted loose from this musical and transported to Nashville without anyone ever realizing the whole Wagner connection.

This musical is an ensemble piece and there's no single star, just a whole constellation of extraordinary talent. Anne Allgood, Carter Davis, Jennifer Sue Johnson, Billie Wildrick, and Richard Ziman all shine together, even as they pull off a stunning number of costume switches (designed by the fabulous David Zinn, creator of last season's The Women) and character changes. Or, as one friend put it as she clapped for the five people bowing on ACT's stage:  "I thought there were more people in the cast than that."

Down the street at the 5th Avenue Theatre, the cast is considerably bigger for the Broadway-bound Catch Me If You Can. The plot, based on the movie of the same name, follows the real life cons of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a teenager who in the early 1960s managed to convince people that he was a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, as well as cashing several million dollars worth of fake checks, before his career as a "paper hanger" ended with a stint in prison and subsequent rehabilitation as one of the country's leading experts in the prevention of bank fraud and forgery.

The show's creators Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman picked Seattle and the 5th for Catch Me's birthplace. After all, the same out-of-town tryout here worked great for their earlier launch of Hairspray and the 5th has become something of their personal rabbit's foot.

As in Hairspray, the score demonstrates a composer assured of his craft, with a number of big hooks and hummable melodies.  Shaiman's and Wittman's lyrics remain savagely clever, although sadly turned to mush in big chorus moments by an uneven balance of orchestra and voice (this may smooth out during the course of the run).

Terrence McNally has written everything from Broadway musicals (Kiss of the Spider Woman) to modern operas (Dead Man Walking) based on movies.  Turning Spielberg's elaborate, sprawling, all-over-the-map chase film into a TV variety show makes perfect sense and keeps the action moving as swiftly in Act 2 as Act 1, never an easy feat for a new musical.

Yet for all its big and small pleasures, such as costumes by the legendary Bob Mackie, this show heats up with one absolute star performance.

As winsome as Aaron Tveit is as Frank Jr. and as suave as Tom Wopat is as Frank Sr., it's Norbert Leo Butz who all but bursts through the set as Carl Hanratty, the fictional FBI agent chasing down the young con man.  In his rumpled gray suit, Butz is a pit bull crossed with bloodhound.  His first big number, "Here I Am (To Save the Day)," puts him square in the spotlight and he never gives it up again.  As long as he's on case and on the stage, the show sizzles.

Unlike Hairspray, the female contribution to this musical is fairly light.  The women are stuck with playing classic archetypes in Catch Me:  distant mother, glamorous whore, and virgin girlfriend.  Each lady gets one good song-and-dance number, and then fades away. 

One suspects by the time that the show hits Broadway, the women will have even less to do and more trimming will whittle away the role of Frank's father in his life.  Because, at the end of the day and the end of the show, it's the "Strange But True" relationship of Frank Jr. and Hanratty that creates the heart in the center of this musical.