Don’t Leave It All To Your Children
You don’t have to be old to enjoy Don’t Leave It All to Your Children, but it certainly helps. This revue celebrates aging, the aged and even death with soft-focus satire and humor, much of it cornball. The vaudevillian sketches, in fact, are perfectly suited to the material, since, despite promoting the show as aimed at baby boomers, the real audience is those in their late 60s and beyond.
The four performers are certainly game. With her outsized honker and N’Yawk accent, it’s easy to envision Barbara Minkus in the title role in "Funny Girl," which she’s done. She has a nice time with a fun song about finding romance with a real catch named Ian, who’s the object of every woman on her elderly singles cruise--until, that is, the ship berths in the Bahamas, and Ian meets his true love. At least the singer gets to do the hora at a gay wedding.
Marcia Rodd has a nice voice and belting delivery that she brings to numbers about keeping your chin up and feet on the ground. With his deadpan expressions, outsized presence and sly humor, Steve Rossi was my personal cast favorite--except when he was singing a treacly ballad about spoiling his grandkids.
Ronnie Schell is the show’s imp. He gets one of the better lines in the brief patter that intersperses the musical numbers: On being told, while on a cell phone in his car, that the news is reporting someone driving on the highway in the wrong lane, he responds, "One? There are hundreds!" But the best line goes to Rossi, who, when he tells his doctor that he can’t pee and that he’s 77, is told, "It’s OK, you’ve pee’ed enough for one lifetime."
If you don’t find these jokes exactly knee slappers, then be prepared for a slow evening. There are several chestnuts that have been hanging around since the Johnson Administration (Andrew, not Lyndon), like the one about the woman who requests her ashes be spread on the main floor at Bloomingdale’s so her daughter visits her at least twice a week.
There are plenty of misfires. At one point, the cast relates some of the famous baby boomers, a list that reminded me of the old National Lampoon’s celebration of famous white people (Mozart, daVinci, Newton ...). And more could have been with the theme of the title song, which closes the show, although these days, considering what’s happened to retirees’ portfolios and home values, maybe it’s not so funny.
Still, this is the kind of show that knocks ’em dead (the ones still alive, anyway), in dinner theaters. It’s a little disconcerting seeing it in the middle of big, bad old Manhattan. But the audience the afternoon I saw it seemed to be enjoying itself immensely. If you’re entertaining an elderly relative--as was I--this one fits the bill like a well-worn tuxedo.
’Don’t Leave It All to Your Children’
The Actors Temple Theatre
339 W. 47th St. (between 8th & 9th Avenues)
Wed. Sat. Sun. matinees (of course!) 3 p.m.; Sat. 8 p.m.
www.telecharge.com
212-239-6000
