Sex! Drugs! & Ukuleles!

March 29th, 2008 · No Comments

My review of Uke Jackson’s Sex! Drugs! & Ukuleles!.

photo by Jonathan Slaff

The intentionally cornball, slapstick energy works for a while and the performers bring admirable enthusiasm and comic timing to a show that is clearly a lot of fun to perform. Terry Waldo’s music, performed by the actors and by two onstage musicians (Waldo on piano and John Gill on percussion) is enjoyable in its way, though fourteen songs in an eighty-minute show that’s also chock-full of plot and dialogue make for a rushed and superficial experience that doesn’t embody feel-good nostalgia so much as declare it. The result is rather like being surrounded by shouting, grinning theme-park performers who keep asking “Isn’t this fun?!? Huh?! Huh?!? Isn’t it?!?” without giving you a chance to respond.