photo by Richie Fahey
"...This is the sort of comic impertinence at which Adobe Theater
Company excels, and which bubbles forth with effervescent glee in DUET!, the
downtown troupe's offbeat lampoon of the American way of mating. The show...is a
delightful sendup of that wholesome staple, the boy-meets-girl story, and at the
same time a bewitching spoof of the tacky Hollywood and Broadway values that
over the years have made that story such a wonderfully easy target....
As much
as it's intended to poke fun at modern romance, DUET! supplies a funny, running
commentary on modern entertainment. ...the production plays continually with our
collective show-biz sophistication. OKLAHOMA-style dream sequences, burlesque
comics, B-movie melodramatics and even the Muppets come in for some delectable
ribbing."
Peter Marks, The New York Times
"...In DUET!...the [adobe theater] company has a winner on its hands....
With an onstage beatnik on the drums, a session with a Hula-Hoop and a `50s beer
jingle greeting us as we arrive at the theater, there's no mistaking the era
being evoked.
But if DUET is very much about yearning for a more innocent time
than our own, it is also informed by an up-to-the-minute, downtown esthetic that
entails collage—or cultural pastiche—and self-parody.
The
action quickly comes to focus on the head-over-heels romance between
Marcia...and Mike...."
David Kaufman, Daily News
"...DUET! is a fast, loose and totally demented love story, which
parodies all things fabulistic—from Aesop's tales to 1950s Americana. Along the
way, the sharp eight-member ensemble gets to poke fun at exotic dancers, cheesy
emcees, embarrassing parents, horny frogs and singing trees (don't
ask)...."
Erik Jackson, Time Out
first produced by adobe theater company, New York
5 M, 2 W, a percussionist
I S B N: 0-88145-164-9, $8.95