LOST

Lost Moon Radio’s new Hollywood Fringe Festival show is by far the least impressive Lost Moon outing I’ve seen.   A departure from their usual late-night free-form radio show format, Million Dollar Hair has a fine enough conceit: it more or less purports to be a piece of musical theater (book: Frank Smith, Ryan Harrison and Lauren Ludwig; music by Harrison, Dylan Ris, Mikey Wells, Lauren Flans and Brenton Kossak; lyrics by Ris, Wells, Harrison, Smith and Flans), set at the memorial tribute to a scumbag pop music mogul, complete with performances and testimonials by an eclectic gaggle of has-beens that the deceased, Bernie Schonfeld (get it? He’s a Jew!), used to exploit.   There is something remotely like a story, and there are something like characters.   Familiar is another way to describe them.   Add half-good songs and weak callbacks of obvious jokes, and that’s this show on paper.   Malapropisms do not a character make, even in a sketch.   Certainly not in a sketch that lasts 70 minutes.

Lost Moon is a tremendously talented bunch of actors, writers, and singers, and they always get a great live band to back them up (Ris, guitar; Kossak, bass; Dan Wessels, keyboards; Eric Kalver, drums).   Their songs and sketches are normally sharper and edgier than anything you can see on TV, but this time I often felt I was watching an hour-long Letterman bit.   Performance is not the issue; it never is with these guys.   It’s just an entry typical of my Fringe experience, not ready for prime time, and it features what is, for me, the single biggest hallmark of Fringe shows: undeveloped writing.   It’s just not consistently funny or clever enough to warrant asking people to watch it.   Under Ludwig’s direction, these performers (Leslie Korein, Ryan Harrison, Megan Rose Greene, Dan Oster, Smith, and Flan) work it hard, but about one in ten of their moments struck me as reasonably well thought-out, amusing, or diverting, well below their usual standard.   But hey, it’s Fringe.   You know.   Put up a show.   Whatever.

photos courtesy of Lost Moon Radio

Million Dollar Hair – A Comedy Tribute Concert
Lost Moon Radio
part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival
The Hudson Backstage
6539 Santa Monica Blvd
scheduled to end on June 28, 2014
for dates and tickets, visit Hollywood Fringe