Menllenium Saves the World
Hollywood has taught us well: when something works once, make it pay off twice with a sequel. Go Comedy! welcomes the return of its resident fictitious, flirtatious, flagrant boy band in Menllenium Saves the World (written by the cast, director Tommy LeRoy, and assistant director Michelle LeRoy). An indulgent retread with a detective twist, this Thursday/Friday primetime offering is a winking spoof on the pitfalls and artificiality of the sequel format, hitting as many snags in the execution as it does high notes.
Returning viewers are reminded, and new ones caught up, by a opening number reintroducing the main players and their chief personality traits: egotist Kevin (Andrew Seiler), rebel Jayson (Micah Caldwell), sensitive imbecile Marcus (Tommy Simon), resident pervert J.D. (Clint Lohman), and fallible manager/handler Sarge (Ryan Parmenter). Having spent the first installment developing the characters and making discoveries about the relationships, the sequel requires the band to do something; naturally, they are summoned to the Vatican to solve a murder. Borrowing from 70s-era cartoons such as Scooby-Doo and the Harlem Globetrotters series, the fellas are drawn into a topical mystery full of religious overtones, murderous Mayans, and the end of the world. Joined by their new church-official friends Daphne (Christa Coulter) and Father Oftlen (Dan Brittain), they warble and thrust their way to the case’s resolution.
The production is fully in on the sequel joke, dropping meta punchlines and embracing the worst clichés to uproarious effect; indeed, the plays on the form make for some of the freshest moments of the show. Less exciting is that in order to mock a sequel, LeRoy and company have to present a sequel, and so the good stuff is part and parcel with the play’s main source of contrivance: a hackneyed, paper-thin story. Where the prior mockumentary-style iteration leaned on five dynamic character arcs and devices like Lohman limply “trying” to hide J.D.’s pansexual urges, here the loss of secrecy is taken for an invitation to indulge these now-known traits to the hilt; as a potent example, an entire scene devoted to J.D.’s surprising autopsy abilities is certainly startling in its frankness, but runs its course well before Lohman finishes.
In the same vein, new musical numbers by composers Parmenter and Ben Mullins aren’t quite as snappy, their exponential deviance sapping any sliver of presumed innocence that added to the humor the last time. (The audience is treated to a medley of songs from the original Menllennium, which on the one hand provides a ready-made encore, but on the other only highlights the decline.) Going for broke lyrically and musically, the new songs suffer from debilitating overproduction; although director LeRoy's sound design admirably keeps a lot of plates spinning, no amount of splashy lighting and video effects (the latter also by LeRoy) can replace the lacking structure with style.
Although the production’s best moments are noteworthy in their own right, they’re especially notable by virtue of standing out so blatantly from a disappointingly low baseline. In aggregate, Menllenium Saves the World presents a handful of inspired ideas and expertly honed moments that serve as punctuation to a slog of static ensemble loitering and obligatory pop compositions about explicit S-E-X. That the climactic mystery-solving scenes stretch out interminably in a play spanning just 75 minutes is telling. Having fully formed its characters, the franchise is apparently content to double down on plot, saddling this offering with the very same sequel-y triviality it aims to ridicule.
May 18, 2012