Aside from spending their formative years forming, childhood
chums Tim Garrick and Lori Scarlett devoured gothic horror romance
novels by the late V.C. Andrews and acted out the stories using
puppet heads.
The puppet heads have now been upgraded to live actors, who may
cost more than their arts-and-craft predecessors, but present
“Sneaux!” to a non-puppet-watching audience. Directed
by Andy Fickman (“Reefer Madness”), the musical is
currently playing at the Matrix Theatre every Thursday to
Sunday.
While Andrews never meant for her books to be a source of
laughter, Garrick (MTV’s “Jailbait!”) wrote
“Sneaux!” as a zany, X-rated comedy that follows the
guidelines of the gothic horror romance genre. First, the heroine,
Sneaux, is poor and mistreated (sold into white slavery and
molested). Second, she discovers her true pedigree (French
princess) and pines to show her talent (figure skating). Third,
along her journey Sneaux inadvertently sleeps with a blood relative
(brother Didier).
Kristen Bell (“The Crucible” on Broadway) as Sneaux
appears in every scene, singing and dancing in most of them. Bell
makes her marathon performance ““ which includes Sneaux being
imprisoned in an attic and raped during a pelvic exam ““ seem
easy.
Music and lyrics were written by Scarlett, who also turns in a
winning performance as Birdie, a looney woman with only one arm and
one leg. In the song “It’ll Cost You an Arm and a
Leg,” a wheelchair-bound Birdie clings to her son
Arbor’s (Garrick) outstretched arms as the two twirl almost
maniacally.
Christine Lakin has the trampy characters market cornered,
taking on the roles of Sneaux’s horny sister Darla, horny
figure skating rival Sissy, and horny nurse Baer. Lakin, who
graduated from UCLA with a degree in mass communications, is the
lone Bruin among several cast and crew members from USC, but she
more than holds her own playing gyrating whores with little
embarrassment.
Fickman’s direction and Scarlett’s music seem to
take opposite paths. The songs are relatively more prominent in the
first half, poking fun at the Louisiana bayou setting and redneck
lifestyle. The songs in the second half are toned down slightly.
The second half is when the action takes center stage. The many
skating rink scenes and a skate-off in the nightclub rely less on
clever songwriting.
Costumes feature wild colors and themes such as the cherry caps
the nurses wear during Sneaux’s pelvic exam. The set design
is more reserved with very few vivid images. However, the sliding
walls and trap doors give it a more outlandish feel.
The fast-forward wedding scene toward the end makes the story an
appropriate mess. Even though the spectacle swerves out of control
at the end, it’s this chaotic pace that makes the musical a
disturbingly enjoyable ride.
– David Chang