Theatre Review: JERSEY SHOREsical: A Frickin' Rock Opera

For some random reason, JERSEY SHOREsical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera initially sounded like Tony n' Tina's Wedding dinner theatre.  When I arrived at the lobby of The Hayworth Theatre, a bartender announced, “The house is now open; there is no intermission, so if you want to get your booze on, now’s the time.”  [Run time is roughly 70 minutes.]  Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater” blasts from the speakers hanging above the stage as you enter.  The lights turned black, keyboardist Jake Anthony started playing, and three random sluts (Karla Loaizak, Cloie Taylor, Veronica Mannion) trot out like some venereal disease version of the doo wop girls from Little Shop of Horrors.  These tramps weren't from Skid Row, but Jersey Sho'.  I soon realized that the entertainment potential was much larger than I anticipated.

Guest Grenade: Joel Michaely

This operetta, of sorts, is filled with halter tops and Ed Hardy T-shirts.  The plot, like the show it lampoons, is light on details making the ambivalent romance of characters Ronnie (producer Daniel Franzese wearing exaggerated muscle padding over his clothing) and Sammi (Genvieve Jones) the heart of the show, while every individual character more or less gets their moment to shine.  We’re introduced to the main cast while the guys wax musical about “GTL,” and the chicks sing about “going out,” after Ronnie and Sammi bond over their love of the 5-Hour Energy Break drink and begin their first helping of “I F’n Love You, I F’n Hate You.”  We are then treated to Snooki's emotional journey, as well as Pauly D and Vinnys' emphasis on expressing themselves through their sneakers, etc.  A dinner prayer ties everything together in the end ala West Side Story’s "Tonight Quintet."  “Jersey Sextet” would be the most fitting title, though, nonet may have been more accurate.

The production includes a celebrity cameo every performance.  The night I was in-house, Joel Michaely (Rules of Attraction, Can’t Hardly Wait) brought his vulgar-drag A-game as a slut nicknamed “Clitty Clitty Bang Bang.”  In his knee-high stockings, he’s quite comfortable and funny employing his motorized tongue while molesting his sexual prey and his gyrations cause his genitals--concealed by his short-skirted wrestling-singlet amalgam--to flop up and down.  Vinny (Mike Ciriaco), the object of his herpes-infested love, proclaims how disgusted he is, before adding, “I didn’t stay stop.” 

Mike Ciriaco as Vinny,
Daisy Eagan as Snooki

Jordan Katcher wearing a white headband like a crown and headphones wrapped around his neck makes an impeccable Pauly D, full of energetic ticks and fist-pumps.  And Ben D. Goldberg is perfectly cast as The Situation, oozing sleaze, while he periodically feigns vomiting.  He sings, “When any girl tells me to go fuck myself, I wish I could” with an alert and biting narcissism perfectly complementing his obnoxiously low-hanging aviator glasses.  After he announces, “I just came,” he kisses his crotch with his own portrait. 

But, in this frickin’ rock opera, the boys are out-written by the girls, and despite Katcher and Goldberg’s pitch-perfect impersonations, it’s the two leading ladies (and then some) who take the audience by storm.  Jones is all sweet and tackily sexy in safari print silk pajamas musing over her one desire to just “cuddle and bone.”  “I’m just a bitch in bed / he’s a got a big dick and a really big heart.”  Angelina (Jordan Kai Burnett) is a saucy whore who mouths “fuck you” at the audience while slowly twirling around as the cast sings about her departure.  The sly Burnett comes back within seconds, doubling as her replacement Deena, who has an equally, nondescriptly superficial personality.

Jessica Buttafuoco as Jwoww

Despite Daisy Eagan’s thin impersonation as Snooki (her lack of aping was unexpected for the Jersey crown jewel), she shrewdly delivers a sweet, nuanced girl who sings about wanting “a gorilla juice head,” while she has a pickle stuffed into her cleavage.  Her one moment of silent rage at the mention of Angelina’s name is probably the best bit of acting in the entire show.  As JWoww, Jessica Buttafuoco (talented daughter of, yes, the infamous lover of the Long Island Lolita) is the comic secret weapon and brings the house down in gospel number “Grow Some Balls,” educating Sammi on self-respect.  She ends her set convulsing with the spirit of Jesus emerging from within her. 

My only complaint would be that some of the singers were difficult to hear, whether they needed a mic or better acoustics.  Upon first view, the uncomplicated, clinical set looks like an OCD scientist’s panic room crossed with a minimalist laser light show composed of Christmas-themed lightning bugs.  It’s quite functional, as the show, still in its infancy, currently operates mostly independent of props and furniture.  And, now that I’ve just wised up, it may actually be the set of another production playing simultaneously at the Hayworth called Re-Animator.

Franzese, along with co-creator Hanna LoPatin, wrote the music, book, and lyrics based on the popular reality television show.  The subject matter of SHOREsical, just like the series it spoofs, is crass.  A large portion of the humor is scatological at its finest (Snooki: I’m so hungry, I have to poop.), but smart (Sammi rhymes in “I’m sick of this duet” her third go around with Ronnie) and humorous (Snooki: I can’t believe that dude punched me in the face / Well, at least, I got punched … some place).  The perceptive nonsense is easy to digest, even if you have a second-hand peripheral knowledge of the series.  With familiarity not a prerequisite, moments of randomness thrown in for good measure work despite themselves, thanks to the keen eye of director Drew Droege who deserves multiple kudos.  Relentlessly fun, the production only gets more hilarious as the cast continues to squeeze out the remnants of the satirical juice.  With a little retooling, this has the makings of a full-length comic operetta.  

JERSEY SHOREsical plays at The Hayworth Theatre in the Westlake neighborhood just outside of downtown LA on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9 PM until the 27^th of June.  I highly recommend you ignore that this show is endorsed by Perez Hilton and buy tickets anyway (the more the merrier).  You can get them here.  The house was half-full last night, which is criminal.  

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