Critic!

Ah, the barbed pens of critics. My best and oldest friend, Brian Boone, is a sometime playwright. His first musical, a comedic one-act, (which I workshopped at the University of Oregon with him) entitled The Sea is a Restless Whore, is enjoying its third--and first professional--production. It was first put on at the University of Oregon, picked up at a festival and produced by students at Western Washington University, and now is being produced by The Next Stage in Los Angeles, California.

Much to all our amusement, the play has received its first (extremely critical) review, from LA Weekly. See below:

THE SEA IS A RESTLESS WHORE is one of those pirate plays where everybody says “Arrrrgh!” a lot. It is perhaps the only show to feature a diabetic tap-dancing quadriplegic (played by Matthew Jackson). And it is a coming-out play. Captain Longbrau (Jack Sobrack) comes out as gay (which is no surprise to his crew, who present him with a tin of L‘Oreal Sword Polish for his birthday). Seaman Pete (Max Beard) comes out as a former would-be rock star, and Buckfoot (Liz Jamieson) shame-facedly admits to being a tea-drinking Brit. Longshanks the Fearsome (Tanner Beard) comes out of a trapdoor. Playwright Brian A. Boone has assembled every bad gay joke and pirate gag in the book, and Gabe Dickinson provides the unmemorable songs. Jamieson contributes handsome costumes and sometimes amusing choreography, while director Morgan Buck just goes for obvious camp. The actors do their best to overcome the sophomoric material, and the show is blessedly short. THE NEXT STAGE, 1523 La Brea Ave., Hlywd. Thurs., 8 p.m., thru May 24. (323) 850-7827. (Neal Weaver)

Bully, say I! And bully again! An artist needs to take some pride in pissing off the squares and getting bashed. Rarely are critics ahead of the curve. True, The Sea is a Restless Whore is not a work of intellectual genius, it's broad, picaresque comedy. But seriously, as Brian told me in a recent email, "The things he says suck are what will bring people to the show! If someone said to me 'don't see that show. It has a three minute fart scene and a dancing quadriplegic.' I would say 'Dude. I'm there.'" Trust me--if anyone is reading this in LA, you must see this musical (click here for the official MySpace page with info); the quadriplegic isn't just dancing, he's tap dancing. Plus, it's got it's own drinking game.