ThePhoenix.com Review

I think we can make it official: the L. in L. Frank Baum stands for Landry. Or it does now. Gold Dust is liberally sprinkled on the Yellow Brick Road in Whizzin’, drag powerhouse Ryan Landry’s raunchy, raucous riff on The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy has a bladder-control problem. Not so her little dog Toto, a calm bit of canine arm candy named Rhoda who not only does not pee on stage but also does not bark, yelp, or freak, despite being carted through production numbers featuring first dancing hobos and then a Jamaican psychic before being replaced by a stuffed counterpart when Dorothy is blown off to the Land of Id by a tall, ambulatory cyclone. The dog is either drugged or likes the excitement.

If the latter, the pooch has come to the right place: there is more energy in the basement of Machine, where Landry’s Oz-dyssey unfolds (through May 24), than in any legit theater in town.Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans have knocked themselves out for this small-scale extravaganza, which boasts a witty if derivative rock score by Landry and Billy Hough (with the curious intrusion of the Ink Spots tune “Whispering Grass,” here sung by the Tin Man to some puppet greenery, along with snatches of Harold Arlen). In Landry’s Freudian remake of Baum’s tale, Dorothy is the scion of marijuana-marketing Cape Cod trailer-park trash, introduced — pigtails, enuresis, and all — by none other than Dr. Freud himself (Hough warbling a funky “Superego Blues”).

Once Megan Love’s female (!) Dorothy lands in the verdant phallic landscape of Id, she picks up a trio of companions with hang-ups of their own: a cellphone-addicted Scarecrow, a cyber-sex-crazed Tin Man, and a queenly Lion (Rick Park channeling Bert Lahr) in search of a sex-change operation. Then there is recovering junkie Glinda, arriving in miniaturized version by bubble before springing to full-size, pink-gowned life to thwart Landry’s larger-than-life, emerald-hued Wicked Witch of the South End. This green-ham-and-ham villainess has her eyes on her trailer-trounced sister’s “ruby panties,” now sported by Dorothy right in her urinary trouble spot. Abetted by a troop of winged sock monkeys, this Witch will stop at nothing — whether it’s cooking the dog or hustling up a unicorn to violate our heroine — to get at the magical undies.

This is all as lewd and silly as it sounds, but the invention and drive of the enterprise are irresistible. Special effects run the gamut from crude to delicate. Scott Martino’s numerous costumes are marvelously detailed. And the ensemble perform with a maniacal verve that’s both showmanly and raw, especially when packed into the cramped nether regions of Machine. Wicked, eat your heart out.

The Boston Phoenix Arts "Musical Chairs" by Carolyn Clay April 29, 2008