LATE NIGHT CHUB THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW

The only excuse for reviewing this 70-minute trifle is that they’re charging $20 to see it when it would be worth twice as much to pay to get out. Mired in forced rhymes and scansion, forgettable tunes, lame lyrics, grade-school props, seemingly improvised dialogue, and a plot that fails as both parody and satire, this musical one-act based on the 1975 thriller puts a lot of promising performers through a showbiz shredder. As a favor to their future, I’ll omit all but one name, since having appeared in this  travesty could constitute a resume-killer.

All That Jaws doggedly sticks to the Spielberg original, except, that is,  for making Jaws himself a wanna-be nice fish who, in the only good line here, “is hungry for anything new.”  Poor voracious Jaws keeps eating the people he means to befriend and, well, the humans just don’t get him. (David Stone, gifted with an ardent tenor, makes Jaws as winsome as the silly part deserves.) After the first victim goes down,  the village idiot, who happens to be the mayor, thinks said victim was eaten by her boat  – though another imbecile thinks the chomper could have been a lesbian.

Anyway,  Amity doesn’t want to be known as “Shark City,” so they hire a disco-era Captain Ahab to pursue the  salt-water monster.  Things don’t go so swimmingly as a  grizzled shark hunter, an overwhelmed police chief, and an eager-beaver oceanographer join in a silly hunt for the well-meaning carnivore.

In no way could the effects that follow ever be called special. Though cheesier than the chewy flotsam stuck between  the teeth of a  Great  White shark,  and dumber than a barnacle, the best moment lasts a minute: An underwater ballet of mermaids surround Jaws as the misunderstood muncher tries to bite his way into Amity’s good graces  (although he does have the good sense to devour Peter the Pervert and a local whore). Yes, that’s the humor here, folks, and there’s not enough booze in the lobby to make it work.

There’s nothing here to sink your teeth into. They don’t need a bigger boat, just a better show.

photos by Abbey Olenick

All That Jaws
presented by Erin Lane, Keenan Camp, Logan Dean and Chris Gorton
at Theater Wit
book by Keenan Camp, Logan Dean, and Chris Gorton;
music by Keenan Camp and Chris Gorton;
musical direction by Ryan Miera and choreography by Nikki Pierce
scheduled to end on December 7, 2012 CLOSING November 9, 2012
for tickets, visit http://theaterwit.org

for info on this and other Chicago Theater, visit http://www.TheatreinChicago.com