They said it, not me

I wrote not too long ago about my rather depressing voyage aboard a gambling boat that sails from the Corpus Christi area. Well, for reasons that will become clearer in a moment, let me describe one particular patron who graced the karaoke stage several times during the final hour of the trip. She never actually sang any songs herself but seemed to be the self-appointed back-up singer and dancer for everyone else. I'm guessing she was in her mid-40s or so, and using my armchair psychology skills, recently divorced or made single. Her wallet-like skin and jellyfish-tentacle hair indicated far too much time spent at the beach. She wasn't horribly overweight, but she certainly had a few extra pounds and rather bulbous breasts that sagged halfway down her chest, trying to escape the unfortunate tank top she had chosen. The droopy jelly balls wobbled back and forth as she gyrated gently behind butchered versions of "American Pie" and "Unchained Melody," pursing her lips and eyes in what I think she perceived as a sexy squint to the single men in the front row.

In other words, the is the kind of sight that, if I hadn't already been gay, could have been the last push I needed to cross that Kinsey midpoint. Despite that, I have to give the woman credit for her unmitigated self-confidence. She was on that stage, dammit, we could enjoy it or go to hell.

I mention her now because she seems an appropriate metaphor for "Xanadu," the musical, based on the Razzie-winning film of the same name, now in previews at the Helen Hayes Theatre. It sounds like a spectacularly bad idea on paper and doesn't disappoint in its execution. It drips with more cheese than a king ranch casserole, has a Six Flags-ready book and even manages to get a key part of Greek mythology wrong (note to the writers: Hector killed Achilles, not Paris).

And yet I couldn't help but have a good time, mostly because the cast and the show itself knows it's awful. It's full of self-referential asides of how shaky the premise is, my favorite being when the always entertaining Jackie Hoffman strides off the stage, saying: "This is just children's theatre for 40-year-old gay men, anyway."

How this got on Broadway rather than somewhere it might have a fighting chance -- say Vegas, or New World Stages, or gay day at Busch Gardens -- I'll never know. I'll also never know why anyone would expect an audience to spend $100 to see it. I'll also never know why talented folk like Tony Roberts, Mary Testa and Hoffman are slumming in it. But, hey: They're having fun, and so did I. At least this time, unlike with my South Texas temptress, I'm in on the joke.