Saturday, May 16, 2009

Go-Go Killers!

theater

Go-Go Killers! is meant to evoke a number of B-movie genres, especially girl-gang flicks and those manic movies that featured go-go boots and hot pants -- all-American MST3K fare, in other words. Importing pop-culture genres to the stage and making creative use of them can produce spectacular theater, as Soul Samurai proved a few months back. But in this case, evoking is as much as the play can manage. Interspersing clumsy, overlong scenes with less-than-crackerjack go-go-inspired dance numbers does not automatically create a re-imagining, an homage, or even a parody. Here the setting is a post-global-warming New York, where rival girl gangs compete to murder the rich men who are enslaving their sisters. Sounds promising, in a trashy sort of way, right? But director Rachel Klein, who did better work with another genre piece last year, seems to have no idea what to do with Sean Gill's awkwardly constructed script. Go-Go Killers! boasts some good dancers and nifty costumes, but little else.

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