Off-Broadway ‘Parent Trap’ parody is millennial…
Theater review
GINGER TWINSIES
80 minutes with no intermission. At the Orpheum Theatre, 126 Second Ave.
Am I seeing double?
If the reply is “yes” at “Ginger Twinsies,” you may be struggling from heatstroke. Because the funniest bit of writer-director Kevin Zak’s stage parody of “The Parent Trap” that opened Thursday evening at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village is the title characters’ full lack of resemblance.
The 11-year-old twin sisters, Hallie and Annie, both performed by pasty, redheaded Lindsay Lohan in the 1998 movie, are taken on right here by a white man, Russell Daniels, and a black lady, Aneesa Folds. They’re a pair of hilarious adults, with Red Bull coursing through their veins, who couldn’t look much less alike.
It’s ludicrous that the ladies’ estranged mother and father, posh British fashion designer Elizabeth (Lakisha May) and salt-of-the-earth Napa Valley vintner Nick (Matthew Wilkas), can’t inform these clearly totally different people aside. But we go along with it. And the end result, silly as it will get, is very humorous. The total off-its-rocker off-Broadway show, whose sole sin is sometimes making an attempt too exhausting, is lovably loony.
So, for that matter, is watching a room full of millennials, drunk on nostalgia, mouthing every phrase and understanding every beat of a 27-year-old child’s film.
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If you’re 29 to 44 and fall into the “Parent Trap” obsessive class, that could be a fruitful subject to carry up with your therapist next time.
If you don’t, effectively, congratulations. The Disney language barrier of “Ginger Twinsies” will take a couple of minutes to ease into. But once you get the gist — and it ain’t exhausting — the comedy quantities to an onslaught of wrecking-ball refined jokes, barked so loud by the eight-person solid that the bowls of borscht a block away at Veselka vibrate.
Aneesa Folds and Russell Daniels star as Hallie and Annie in “Ginger Twinsies.” Matthew Murphy
Lindsay Lohan’s breakout position was as both twins in the 1998 movie. Courtesy Everett Collection
Zak’s sensible realization is that “The Parent Trap” really capabilities as a stable stage farce. All the items are there: mistaken identities, a love triangle, English accents. Amping up the mischief, since the adult-aimed play can kick the lovable film’s PG score to the curb, lots of intercourse humor is tossed in.
As in the Nancy Meyers flick, after British Annie and American Hallie unexpectedly meet at summer time camp and uncover they’re long-lost sisters, they determine to swap personas. Hallie jets to London and Annie heads to California to meet mother and dad and, finally, pressure them back collectively.
From there, “Ginger Twinsies” takes fond childhood recollections and stomps on them with ruthless mockery, a trivia evening’s price of Nineties and aughts popular culture references, filthy humor and nuclear vitality.
Frankly, at occasions the show is too high-pitched; a Lindsay’s Boot Camp at which even the slightest break is not permitted. So few breaths are taken, the actors’ faces turn into redder than their wigs.
The one-act comedy sends up Nancy Meyers’ 1998 Disney film. Matthew Murphy
The octet runs like hamsters on a wheel on Beowulf Boritt’s cabin set lined in kitschy cutouts. Think Big Ben hand-drawn in Crayola.
But when the play confidently finds its groove in the center, the Napa and London scenes, the ensemble’s comedic expertise knock us over like Lindsay Lohan was in that amnesia Christmas film.
Phillip Taratula is a scream as Meredith — Nick’s viperous 26-year-old fiancée. The actor performs the misunderstood minx as a pantomime villain, who enters carrying an absurdly giant hat only to take it off to reveal smaller and smaller variations of the identical accent.
As Meredith, Phillip Taratula enters carrying a gigantic hat. Matthew Murphy
As the family help, Jimmy Ray Bennett sneeringly hops between upper-crust butler Martin and Annie’s grandpa by barely lifting a hand-held mustache to his lip. And Grace Reiter performs winery employee Chessy like she’s Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem.
In what may hardly be referred to as a twist, Wilkas’ Nick, the Dennis Quaid position in the film, takes a sleeveless Village People flip. And May’s Elizabeth goes on a resort bender, making Whitney Houston cracks.
The Orpheum’s most well-known tenant, “Stomp,” opened years before “The Parent Trap” hit theaters, and closed in 2023 after almost three a long time. Since then, the tough venue has been one thing of a Goldilocks.
Some reveals have proved too boffo. Others have been too amateurish or area of interest.
While I don’t suspect “Ginger Twinsies” will discover a lot of an viewers past Disney+ subscriber millennials or curious St. Mark’s bar-flies, it’s the first tenant there in two years to strike me as just proper.
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