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New Yorkers sure do love to slum it. We love ourselves some trash
food, and especially when it comes with a Southern accent. A kind of
hypnosis overtakes us when Southern people open their mouths – and
before long, we’re thinking pork rinds and chess pie might be just
what we’ve been missing. All of which the very smart and sassy
off-Broadway musical The Great American Trailer Park Musical knows
too. You put three blonde and buxom women in lawn chairs facing an
audience – and soon as they open their mouths, they know you’re
going to listen to every sordid detail. Furthermore, we’re talking
trailer park in Florida – a state which, as everyone now realizes,
provides the same opportunity for national soul-searching once held
by West Virginia. With characters named Linoleum, Pickles, Norbert
and Pippi, and musical numbers titled “This Side of the Tracks,” “It
Doesn’t Take A Genius,” and “That’s Why I Love My Man,” The Great
American Trailer Park Musical satisfies some of the same cravings
previously sated in years past by theatrical vehicles such as
Greater Tuna and its siblings. Moreover, this cast can sing, and
particularly Linda Hart, Orfeh, and Kaitlin Hopkins, all three of
whom raise the roof on this trailer park, while Leslie Kritzer gives
a gut-busting comedic performance in the role of Pickles, surely the
dumbest blonde ever in a region where dumb is a birthright. By the
show’s end, a life-affirming inspirational titled “(Make Like a
Nail) And Press On,” not only does The Great American Trailer Park
Musical provide yet another example of the plethora of talent
congregating in New York, but this show reminds us there ain’t
nothing like the South when you want good dirt.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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