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Goes Well With Chianti: Hannibal Lecter Sings In <em>Silence!</em>
By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 31, 2011
Modified Oct 31, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 31, 2011
Modified Oct 31, 2011
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Silence! The Musical is exactly what you think it is. If you've been meaning to rewatch Jonathan Demme's 1991 Jodie Foster/Anthony Hopkins classic Silence of the Lambs but keep wishing it included musical numbers, more laughs and the possibility of having a free Twinkie hurled at your face, the surprisingly faithful unauthorized parody currently cutting up audiences at P.S. 122 should do the trick.
As if going through a parody checklist this tightly staged former Fringe show, directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, hits all the marks you'd expect from a spoof of a movie many of us know inside out (and let's be clear: this is an evening all about the movie, not the Thomas Harris novel). Jodie Foster's distinct accent? Yesh. Buffalo Bill's disturbing nude scene? In the flesh. A chorus of bleeting, singing lambs? Check. Hannibal Lecter's legendary set pieces? Certainly. Famous lines (like "I can smell your cunt" and "would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard") immortalized in Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan's songs? You betcha. A bombastic 11 o'clock number for given to one of the movie's relatively minor characters (played by Deidre Goodwin) for a huge laugh? Of course!
And it works, thanks in no small part to the brisk book by Hunter Bell (adapted from the screenplay "Silence! The Musical" by Jon and Al Kaplan)—paced to keep the songs and the sometimes surprisingly clever "oh, I remember that scene" moments coming while never leaving the audience time to check their watches during the show's 90+ minute running time.
Silence! isn't high art—Hannibal Lecter's musical theme is "if I could smell her cunt"—but it is a good example of the fun possible with a small budget and game actors. Jenn Harris (Clarice), David Garrison (Lecter), Stephen Bienskie (Buffalo Bill), Lucia Spina (the kidnapped Catherine Martin and her mother) and the rest of the cast give their all here when they could have been phoning it in, and their effort pays off: After the show not only were we humming the show's titular tune (which you can listen to here) but we also really wanted to go watch the the movie again to see what other references we'd missed. Which is about the best compliment we can give a musical spoof of twenty-year old horror movie.
Also? Silence of the Lambs is twenty years old? Ugh.
Tagged
fringe
opinionist
ps 122
silence of the lambs
SILENCE! The Musical
Garth Johnston
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