How appropriate that we have a show about con men in the "Broadway" Series this year. Because it is exactly that… A big con. If you decide to brave the snow to see DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS be forewarned, this show is like an extremely good college production. All but 3 of the cast look to be under 24 and the read as inexperienced. The choreography is clean, the set and lights are pretty, the girls are tall and hot, the boys are too. But the show lacks…well a star. Oh it has one, but not where it needs to be. On Broadway it had John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz (LAST 5 YEARS, WICKED) as the 2 con men originally played my Michael Cane and Steve Martin in the movie on which the piece is based. The personality and talent of those 2 men would carry the weakest of scripts through a rough sea. Well, we don't have them here. There is a warmth and audience has for a star… they can come out on stage and take a dump and they will still love it. It is magic… "Oh look, Doris it's the THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN guy."

This is a star vehicle with no one to drive it. No bad blood for Jamie Jackson (who?...right) the guy in the Lithgow role.(the poster still looks like Lithgow). Sort of like when they were still using the pictures of the Broadway cast of FULL MONTY for the tour and they had not been near the show for 4 years. MONTY, incidentally, by the same composer, David Yazbeck, unlike MONTY this score is all over the ballpark, sometimes hitting homeruns "Here I Am" and "Dirty Rotten Number" and others foul balls "What Was A Woman To Do" and "Chimp In A Suite".

I had mentioned that there was a star and there is. The only problem is that she does not arrive until fully 3/4 of the way into the first act. By that time you could care less about anyone in the show. It is very tongue-in-cheek in style as there is very little "fourth wall" meaning the main characters don't deny they are doing a play. They comment on it. Which can work, if when they are not commenting they are committed to the other "world" the are creating on stage. In this case I did not believe any of them. They just delivered all their "laugh" or "punch" lines flat out to the audience as if to say… "these are the jokes folks". And then they would wait….and…no laugh…and…then go on with the line like "stupid Hoosiers don't you know this is funny stuff?" and the next time they would push it harder…wait…titter…hold. Signs of inexperienced and definitely not Broadway caliber performers there were times Suzanne Sole who played a rich crass American was saying her stuff so flat out if there had been more people on stage you would not have know who she was talking to. But, I digress… the star. Jenny Gulley who plays Christine the young, fresh "soap queen", plays her moments with honesty, looks people in the eye, and …gets her laughs as results, big ones. I addition to having a super set of pipes she literally cons the show right out from under the rest of the cast.

Here is the deal. This is a non Equity tour. And I will be honest. I am an Equity Actor. So, yes I have a bit of an ax to grind. But, recently while I was in FL I happened to see the non-union tour of BEEHIVE and it was terrific. I also did some non-union touring back in the stone age as well. My gripe is this… It is like you have gone to St. Elmo's Steak House and ordered a nice rib eye. (Being a person working in the arts I have never been to St. Elmo's so let's say it costs 40 bucks.) So, while you are sitting there St E's runs out to Ponderosa (a fine restaurant as well) and buys a rib eye for12, re-plates it and serves it to you as your 40 buck rib eye. That is what is happening with SCOUNDRELS and later in the season with THE WEDDING SINGER. And there are plenty of other options that we COULD have that are what they advertise Broadway shows. If they stopped calling if The Broadway Series that would solve a lot… not the union jobs that are being lost. But, a lot of the false advertising. So, if you ask me the true dirty rotten scoundrels are Broadway Across America because if they would not book the tours the tours would not exist. Or at least not as they do by killing of the union jobs.