{"id":853,"date":"2013-02-14T13:24:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T13:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennytrout.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/14\/spank-the-musical-guest-review-by-katiedidwhat"},"modified":"2013-02-14T13:24:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T13:24:00","slug":"spank-the-musical-guest-review-by-katiedidwhat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=853","title":{"rendered":"Spank! The Musical guest review by @KatieDidWhat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Note from Jenny: <\/b>When my tweep\u00a0<\/i>@katiedidwhat<\/b>\u00a0tweeted about seeing <\/i>Spank! The 50 Shades Parody, of course I had to ask her to do a review! So, here is her experience at what sounds like one of the most brilliant musical send ups since that Harry Potter one on YouTube. So, Happy Valentine’s Day, dear reader, because now you know this awesome thing exists:<\/i><\/div>\n

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I would\u2019ve assumed that Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody<\/i>, was a parody for the mainstream fans; not necessarily entertainment I would seek out.\u00a0 But when a grad school friend of my husband\u2019s called him up and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m in town!\u00a0 Let\u2019s hang out, do you want tickets to the show I\u2019m touring with?\u201d of course we say yes.\u00a0 We both work in theatre and any opportunity to see any show for free is a plus; even if it\u2019s terrible, you\u2019re not upset thinking you could\u2019ve gone to see a couple Oscar nominees for the same price.\u00a0 Silver Linings Playbook<\/i> notwithstanding, if Spank<\/i>! comes to your neck of the woods, check it out.\u00a0 (Big shout out to Jesse and the rest of the cast and crew, if they\u2019re reading, thanks again!)\u00a0 It\u2019s an experience worth having.\u00a0
<\/span> <\/span>We ran into an acquaintance in the lobby, a woman who bartends for our theatre, who says to my husband, \u201cAre you planning on enjoying being one of the few men in the audience?\u201d\u00a0 Once we\u2019re seated, I notice she wasn\u2019t just saying that.\u00a0 The audience is mostly groups of women in their 40s with a few representative husbands and boyfriends roped in as designated drivers.\u00a0 There are lots of sweater wraps, hooker boots and big hair. \u00a0<\/div>\n
By comparison, I\u2019m, well, Tuesday I\u2019ll be 29.\u00a0 In most respects, I\u2019m a pretty vanilla sort of person.\u00a0 I wonder suddenly about the women around me- are they really that into this book?\u00a0 Does the woman in front of me playing Farmville on her phone want to be tied up and spanked by a petulant millionaire?\u00a0 Flipping open the playbill, I note that the lead actor (it\u2019s a three person cast), is an accomplished burlesque performer.\u00a0 Oh.\u00a0 What are we seeing here tonight, anyway?\u00a0
<\/span> <\/span>That\u2019s the point at which I overhear the woman behind me say this:\u00a0 \u201cI read the first one, and then I tried to read the second one, but then I thought, \u2018Where\u2019s the reality?\u2019\u00a0 And there was none.\u00a0 Nothing in this is real.\u00a0 It\u2019s just as shocking and raunchy as they could make it.\u00a0 So I\u2019m here to see them make fun of it.\u201d\u00a0 At least I\u2019m not alone in my expectations.\u00a0
<\/span> <\/span>Spank!<\/i> is a parody, so instead of Ana and Christian, we have Tasha Woode (Alice Moran), Hugh Hanson (Patrick Whalen) and, also, E.B. Janet (Anne Marie Scheffler).\u00a0 The three performers are among the show\u2019s seven writers, with experience in improvisational theatre, burlesque and television, among other things.\u00a0 It\u2019s a talented group (check their website http:\/\/spankshow.com\/<\/span><\/a>), I\u2019m further reassured.\u00a0
<\/span> <\/span>First, we meet our intrepid aspiring author, E.B. Janet.\u00a0 Her husband and kids are away for the weekend, so she has two days and a bottle of wine to write the best selling sex-fantasy novel of all time.\u00a0 Our heroine, Tasha Woode, is brought to life perfect and pretty and naive and isn\u2019t that just terrible?\u00a0 Of course, she needs a sexy hero, someone who\u2019s rich and dark, and owns a major corporation and has a tragic backstory based on something terrible that happened to him in his youth and, \u201cWait!\u201d says Tasha, \u201cIsn\u2019t this Batman?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou don\u2019t know about Batman, you haven\u2019t read any literature written after 1891!\u201d \u00a0<\/div>\n
The show is a musical, with parody versions of at least six or seven different songs.\u00a0 If your musical theatre is up to snuff, Tasha sings a parody of I Know Things Now<\/i> from Into the Woods<\/i> that will make you weep with joy with its accuracy.\u00a0 Hugh introduces the Red Room of Pain with a parody of Pure Imagination<\/i>, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory<\/i>.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 You read that right.\u00a0 He puts on the purple coat and hat and everything.\u00a0 The phrase \u201cspreader bar\u201d is used to comedic effect and in perfect rhythm and tempo. \u00a0<\/div>\n
I mentioned that one of the actor\/writers was a burlesque dancer.\u00a0 That would be The Dark Prince himself, Patrick Whalen, who plays Hugh, and he has several opportunities to show off his skills.\u00a0 There\u2019s no full nudity, but there\u2019s a Batman dance that gets pretty close.\u00a0 Yes, there\u2019s a tie dance.\u00a0 Due to the juxtaposition of the re-creation of \u201csexy\u201d scenes in the book with the slightly comedic overtones of the show, there\u2019s some occasional wild screaming in odd places, but most of it was in the second act, so almost certainly cocktails number 3 or 4 had been consumed by some of the audience by that point.\u00a0 There\u2019s an opportunity to get a photograph with Whalen after the show that I turned down, but for the ladies who came for the eye candy, they have much to approve of and post on Facebook later. \u00a0<\/div>\n
While the show makes comedic reference to \u201cdown there,\u201d and \u201ccrap,\u201d it\u2019s totally OK with using the holy trinity of f-bombs: fuck, fisting and finger banging.\u00a0 We had the ultimate good fortune of attending a performance with ASL interpretation.\u00a0 If you ever have the chance to see any kind of comedy, especially a sex-comedy, with signers, DO IT.\u00a0 It must\u2019ve been a new experience for the cast, because at one point in the second act, they went totally off script to point out that now we all knew the signs for fisting and finger banging, wasn\u2019t that just great?\u00a0 Our signers were blushing good sports. \u00a0<\/div>\n
The presence of E.B. Janet actually answers some of the questions I had at the beginning of the night:\u00a0 why are middle aged women so into Fifty Shades?\u00a0 When Tasha loses her virginity, and comes staggering bow-legged onto stage at the beginning of the second act after having had an amazing 5 orgasms, she asks E.B., \u201cDo you even remember losing your virginity?\u201d\u00a0 E.B. has a flashback of her with her boyfriend, high in the backseat of a car while Dark Side of the Moon<\/i> plays (I think it was Floyd; them or Zepplin, sorry, I\u2019m terrible at classic rock) and recalls being really disappointed by the whole thing.\u00a0 E.B. points out, \u201cI wanted you to have a good time!\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s another scene after meeting Hugh\u2019s rich, distant family where Tasha says, \u201cI wanted to find out from them why he\u2019s rich and distant, why do they have to be rich and distant?\u201d and E.B. recounts the story of the disastrous first time she met her future in-laws finishing with, \u201cWhich would you rather have?!\u201d\u00a0 And I sort of got it.\u00a0 This is a fantasy you pull out for an hour after the kids go to bed, where you don\u2019t have to be in control of anything and all your problems are someone else\u2019s fault but you have crazy sex anyway.\u00a0 The trouble is with thinking that it\u2019s a healthy 24-7 lifestyle.\u00a0
<\/span> <\/span>Not to say that Spank!<\/i> doesn\u2019t point out the other side of the coin, too.\u00a0 It\u2019s made very clear that no one should have to sign a nondisclosure in a normal relationship and that this isn\u2019t a healthy way to be and that Tasha should stop Mary Sueing around and behave like a real woman.\u00a0 Sometimes parody hits a point where the audience says, \u201cOK, too far,\u201d but that didn\u2019t happen here.\u00a0 When Hugh revealed he was a sparkly vampire and asked Tasha to hop on his back, they were there all the way, agreeing when E.B. decided that a sparkly vampire refusing to have sex with Tasha wasn\u2019t the kind of romance she wanted, she needed to write a sex book!\u00a0 The fans and the snarkers were enjoying the show in the same places- having seen how dividing the territory of the book can be, this is a pretty amazing feat. \u00a0<\/div>\n
I asked my husband on the way home if he had fun.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, I laughed.\u201d\u00a0 High praise.\u00a0 He knows nothing about the series, next to nothing about Twilight, and he never felt that he didn\u2019t know what was going on or why a joke was funny.\u00a0 I wondered if possibly the production team were fans of Jenny\u2019s re-caps, because a lot of the jokes were familiar, though never identical, but I think it\u2019s more likely the book is just that full of low hanging fruit, you only have to harvest for greatest joke potential. \u00a0<\/div>\n
The only thing I would say against the experience is that I should\u2019ve gone to pee before it started.\u00a0 The irony of this is that the show was held in a theatre originally built by the city\u2019s Women\u2019s Club.\u00a0 There are six bathrooms in the building.\u00a0 When I commented that they \u201c…might at least\u2019ve opened the men\u2019s rooms too!\u201d my husband pointed out that the single men\u2019s room had three urinals and one stall.\u00a0 Those ladies who had the place built back in the 20s thought this through.\u00a0 Seriously, that\u2019s the worst thing I can say about the experience; nothing to do with the show, everything to do with bladder control.\u00a0 Check their website, find out when it\u2019s performing near you and if you go see it, you won\u2019t be disappointed.\u00a0 Even if you don\u2019t get to learn the sign for fisting. \u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note from Jenny: When my tweep\u00a0@katiedidwhat\u00a0tweeted about seeing Spank! The 50 Shades Parody, of course I had to ask her to do a review! So,…<\/p>\n

Read moreSpank! The Musical guest review by @KatieDidWhat<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}