‘Gimme a Band’ delves into Carmen Miranda’s all-too-colorful story
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Version 0 of 1. A big tip of a tropical-fruit-bedecked hat to Pointless Theatre for its distinctive and ebullient contribution to the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Many young theater companies might quail at the prospect of devising a Busby Berkeley-style production number for the tiny Trinidad Theatre stage, but “Gimme a Band, Gimme a Banana! The Carmen Miranda Story” contains multiple sequences along those lines. Written by Mel Bieler and Patti Kalil, and cannily directed by Roberta Alves and Matt Reckeweg, the 70-minute show also benefits from a top-notch onstage band and from the pizzazz of actress Sharalys Silva, who plays Miranda, the Brazil-raised Hollywood movie star known in part for her elaborate headgear. “Gimme a Band” is less successful at looking behind Miranda’s exuberant screen persona at her real-life struggles and the sensitive cultural issues framed by her career — topics Bieler and Kalil (both Brazilian natives) have said they aimed to explore. The show hints at some serious themes and events, but these moments are fleeting and not always clear, in part because of the production’s flowing pace and lack of dialogue. The spoken word isn’t entirely absent: A few voice-overs, resembling old-time radio newscast excerpts, anchor the scenes to time and place, referring to events such as World War II or the throngs of Brazilians who turned out to mourn Miranda’s untimely death in 1955. But for the most part, the show unfurls as a breezy pageant of dance, pantomime, puppetry (birds, planes, Brazilian market vendors), musical staging and classic Miranda songs, including “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat.” In that extravagant set piece (from the 1943 movie “The Gang’s All Here,” directed by Berkeley) and elsewhere, the historical Miranda adopted an image of cheerful exoticism and sensuality that bordered on stereotypes. Her stateside fame initially met with hostility in Brazil — an episode “Gimme a Band” recalls with a brief sequence in which bystanders angrily rip flounces off the star’s dress. A couple of other somber moments depict Miranda’s troubled marriage to producer David Sebastian (Brendan O’Connell). But theatergoers not already knowledgeable about the woman once dubbed the Brazilian Bombshell are unlikely to catch the full import of these scenes and other biographical allusions. Fortunately, anyone can bask in the magnetism of Silva, who nails various Miranda performance mannerisms, such as her swirly wrist movements and her blithely flirtatious expressions tempered with a hint of self-aware irony. Rounding out the characterization are Frank Labovitz’s colorful costumes, which include over-the-top millinery, including a chapeau crowned with a large fork and spoon. And then there’s the edible-arrangement turban that appears — along with some choreographed giant bananas — in this show’s fetching homage to “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat.” Here and throughout, directors Alves and Reckeweg create pocket-size spectacle with flow, with performers dressed as nightclub patrons or carnival dancers or movie-set technicians eddying about, while pieces of location-evoking scenery (the mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro, for instance) glide on and off. Somehow there’s always room for the terrific five-piece band. (Music director Patricia Vergara hails from Brazil, as does Alves. Bieler and Kalil designed the set and puppets.) All in all, when those little airplane puppets careen by, they seem emblematic of the show. “Gimme a Band” may have trouble going deep, but it aces the buoyancy test. Wren is a freelance writer. Gimme a Band, Gimme a Banana! The Carmen Miranda Story Written by Mel Bieler and Patti Kalil; directed by Roberta Alves and Matt Reckeweg; assistant costume designer, Camille Petrillo; masks, Nick Martin; lights, Max Doolittle; sound, Michael Winch. With Angeleaza Anderson, Rebecca Ballinger, Amanda Leigh Corbett, Philip da Costa, Belén Oyola-Rebaza, Daniel Smeriglio and Scott Whalen. About 70 minutes. Part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Tickets: $18-25. Through Nov. 14 at the Trinidad Theatre, Logan Fringe Arts Space, 1358 Florida Ave., NE. Visit www.pointlesstheatre.com. |