"Gutenberg! The Musical!"

Theatre review
"Gutenberg! The Musical" at The Kitchen Theatre
Ithaca Times
June 17, 2009
748 words
"Writer's Blocks"

full text here

Writer's Blocks

Mark Tedeschi

"Gutenberg! The Musical!" by Scott Brown and Anthony King. Directed by Rachel Lampert, music directed by Larry Pressgrove. Starring Karl Gregory and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson. With pianist Thomas Jefferson Peters, costume designer Abigail Smith, lighting designer E.D. Intemann, and stage manager Abigail Davis.

"Gutenberg! The Musical!," the Kitchen Theatre's final show of its 2008-2009 season, is no routine playdate with theatrical convention; it's a celebratory satire of the unbridled passion that accompanies the dramatic process. The show's kid-because-we-love send-up, though, is merely a bonus success of its larger victory: relentlessly reducing its audience to ferocious fits of laughter.

Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, "Gutenberg!" features just two actors - Karl Gregory as the squirrelly, pliable Bud Davenport and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson as the committed, excited Doug Simon. Bud and Doug, two aspiring writers with a shared vision, stage a pared-down approximation of a musical they created for a hopefully Broadway-producer-laden audience. They preface and interrupt their performance with explanations and clarifications, wherein we learn of their intentions to tell the story of Johannes Gutenberg: Since Google informed of the "scant"-ness of specific details on the inventor's life, they take some artistic liberties. In other words, aside from medieval Germany, Johannes Gutenberg and a printing press, they make it all up.

Holding fast to the verisimilitude of a budgetless performance, the extremely minimal set consists of a backgrounded table of some 30 hats labeled with character names and a couple of other multi-use props. The Kitchen's stage appears strikingly spacious, almost barren, placing all attention and pressure on the capabilities of the two leading men.

Under Rachel Lampert's knowing direction, they deliver. Bud and Doug play every character in their show, donning a cap to let us know who they are at all times. Lampert and musical director Larry Pressgrove have collaborated for many years (recently "Bed No Breakfast" and "Tony and the Soprano"), and their seasoned partnership strengthens the subtleties in "Gutenberg!"

In a nutshell: Gutenberg works in a winery. He comes up with the idea to press words instead of wine, to the consternation of the evil Monk and his apprentice Young Monk. Monk persuades Gutenberg's coworker and love interest, Helvetica ("Her name is also a font!") to smash the new machine. I won't reveal any more, except for a few character names: Old Black Narrator, Beef Fat Trimmer, Dead Baby.

During busier portions with many cast members "onstage," their effortless transitions more than once made me forget that I was actually only watching two people.

Pianist and assistant musical director Thomas Jefferson Peters is also there, and in addition to playing an impressive range of styles to accompany Bud and Doug, he helps unleash the wonderful comic timing embedded in the music.

The songs in "Gutenberg!" adhere to a structure parodic in its strictness. The opening number, "Prologue/Schlimmer" introduces the quaint town where citizens have little to do but lament their illiteracy, evidenced in the second song, "I Can't Read." Act I closes with the ballad "Tomorrow Is Tonight," and the climactic, penultimate song in Act 2 is a medley at the biggest event of the year - the German festival, "Festival!"

Often, Bud and Doug explain theatrical terms to the audience, preceded by, "That's what people like us call..." After they perform the non-sequitur "Biscuits," they announce that that was their strategically placed "charm song." They also read set directions aloud: "The stage is filled with doom. And fog."

King, artistic director of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, and Brown balance "Gutenberg!" with judicious arrangement and modest wit. The story behind the Bud-Doug dynamic is hinted at a few times because it's somehow funnier filling in the rest of the blanks yourself. Any passing strife they encounter takes a back seat to their zeal for the project they've created, as it's clear they've had to compromise to get this far.

There's a smattering of unexpected profanity, but not much - Brown and King take care to capitalize on the element of surprise, and their humor stays smart and consistent instead of pretentious or cheap. However, there is some risk that comes with this brand of satire; the determined if misguided Bud and Doug insist that all great playwrights tackle at least one "important issue" in their work, so they choose the Holocaust. It's not inherently a bad decision - it's just not as likely to draw laughs as the rest of the content.

Despite having very little respite, Gregory and Henderson lose no momentum through the many dance breaks and exhaustive character changes. The quality of the show and the nature of its affection toward its audience make it a splendid summer diversion and a fine conclusion to another season at the Kitchen.


Karl Gregory and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson in ‘Gutenberg! The Musical!,’ now at the Kitchen Theatre. (Photo provided by Megan Pugh)