Parody is a tricky art form. Off Broadway iterations like Ginger Twinsies, an unauthorized sendup of the 1998 Nancy Meyers family comedy The Parent Trap, seem to thrive on inside jokes but not inside voices. There’s nothing quiet, or subtle, about this production, which boasts a broad performance style and the volume dialed up past 11.
Appropriately enough for a show that celebrates camp, the story begins at a summer camp where our separated-at-infancy twins Annie and Hallie meet for the first time. Rather than relying on a single actress to play the dual roles (as Lindsay Lohan did in her film debut in the 1998 movie, and Hayley Mills before her in the 1961 original), the show instead casts two ginger-wigged actors who are unlikely to induce a double-take: Russell Daniels (Annie) is white, with the zany but sweet demeanor of a young John Candy, and Aneesa Folds (Hallie) is Black, a sassy, take-no-guff woman who’s quick to take personal offense at the supposedly Indian name of her camp (Arapaho) and to shoot down any suggestion of blackface when they switch places.
The girls cook up a plan to reunite their estranged parents — while also underscoring just how absurd it is that two well-heeled adults would separate their offspring and move to opposite ends of the planet (London and Napa Valley, California) to raise their daughters in blissful ignorance of each other’s existence. There’s also a bit of character redemption at work for the movie’s heavy, a slick and stylish young gold-digger named Meredith Blake (Phillip Taratula, giving full drag-queen fabulousness), who’s set her sights on the girl’s winery-owning dad, Nick (Matthew Wilkas). “We need to take a moment and discuss whether I’m the villain of this piece,” she confides at one point, noting that her fiancé “seemed perfectly comfortable ignoring the existence of his other child, Angie or whatever the fuck her name is.” She’s not wrong. (She also gets most of the bawdier, NSFW lines in the show.)
The cast also includes Lakisha May as the mom, Elizabeth, a successful wedding dress designer in London, Grace Reiter as Nick’s bouffant-headed housekeeper, Chessy, and Jimmy Ray Bennett as Elizabeth’s fey butler, Martin — the latter two openly described as “queer adjacent” and therefore bound to hook up by the final curtain. Writer-director Kevin Zak is not content to merely send up one movie. He pulls in pop culture references from multiple decades, only some of them tangentially related to the film. Jamie Lee Curtis, who played Lohan’s mom in the body-switch comedy Freaky Friday, pops up occasionally to offer the twins advice. And Chessy is handed an acting award and then re-creates the speech given by the role’s original actress, Lisa Ann Walter, now known as the brassy Italian American teacher on Abbott Elementary (“Oh and thank you to Quinta Brunson”).
But Zak also studs the show with non-sequiturs whose connection to the material is hard to grasp. There’s a full-on routine that recalls the long-running Off Broadway percussion-fest Stomp (which ran for years in the Orpheum Theatre where Twinsies is playing). There are anachronistic references to the Brie Larson movie Room, Les Misérables, Pirates of the Caribbean — as well as an extended version of the cerulean sweater scene from The Devil Wears Prada that drags on far too long. Better are the quick cameo pop-ups. Why, there’s Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd! And Demi Moore from The Substance! And Julianne Moore from Far From Heaven! (The last allows for a quick dig at the actress’ dismal turn in the movie version of Dear Evan Hanson.)
The jokes and references all zoom by — which is perhaps just as well given that the percentage of punchlines that actually hit the funny bone is relatively low. (Your smileage may vary.) Naturally, Zak’s wit extends to his bio in the program, which steals a page from Megan Hilty (who reproduced Meryl Streep’s credits in the Death Becomes Her Playbill) by cribbing Hilty’s own esteemed career highlights. (“She is most recognizable for her portrayal of Ivy Lynn in NBC’s musical drama Smash.”)
Happily, the creators of Ginger Twinsies understand that there are limits to an audience’s tolerance for antic mayhem and so they speed through the silliness in an economical 80 minutes. They also benefit from some cunning stagecraft, particularly Beowulf Boritt’s set and Wilberth Gonzalez’s costumes — which look deliberately slapdash but reveal a surprising level of wit and sophistication. (At one point, a downstage trap opens to allow a performer wearing a glowing spiky hat to wordlessly play a campfire.) It’s a lot. But I found myself admiring most those quieter, subtler bits, which could be hard to pick out amid the din of demented tomfoolery. ★★★☆☆
GINGER TWINSIES
Orpheum Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 80 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets on sale through October 25 for $49 to $149
Culture Sauce 