MEDIA

Ryan Landry and his gifted Gold Dust Orphans have raised the bar once again with this year’s holiday extravaganza, “The Rocky Menorah Christmas Show,” running through Dec. 23 at the Iron Wolf Theatre in South Boston.  The highlight of the production for me was the music — both the choice of songs, their placement in the show, and the truly inspired lyrics...the songs framed the mayhem even better than the plot. [...] no matter how gleeful, groan-inducing, and goofy, Landry’s theme is always love, tolerance, and most importantly, joy.

"Lefty and Carmela took the stage as a classically vaudevillian pair, Lefty's quasi-Blanche all mischief and innuendo, and Carmela's Stanley the consummate straight man, confi­dently doltish and constantly a step behind throughout punny interlude featuring the performers' delightful comedic timing [...] The gender-playful Bananas Burlesque couple ultimately evokes sympathy for the many Williams characters struggling within and against prescribed

gender roles as they pursue what they desire." 

“If femininity is expressed through an act or a costume,” Carmela says, “then masculinity can be as well. My masculinity is just as valid.”

Carmela’s current role continues an exploration of masculinity through Williams’s iconic male characters, echoing their misogyny, homophobia, class struggles, and imprisoning traditional gender roles. They noted that they had to be careful to “embody but not embrace” those characters: “It’s an exploration and exploitation of them,” says Carmela.

“Gina Carmela’s clever props like blow-up dogs, what I think was a bubble maker for snow and other effects make the show both beautiful and fun to watch…The acting in the show is exhilaratingly over the top. The talented Carmela, who doubles as Barb and a leopard-suit-wearing TV show host eager to get the scoop on Norbert’s tree, along with the muscley milkman Joey C. Pelletier and Landry as Mrs. Grinchley, are hilarious.”

Landry has a solid core of actors in his company, many with him for a dozen years or so. “Most of them are old timers who’ve been with me for a while so they all know the drill,” Landry says. His husband, Scott Martino, who plays “a drunken Mrs. Cratchit,” goes back 25 years; the newest cast member, Gina Carmela, is “a young girl I met in Provincetown who’d been coming to the shows and asked to get involved and she is. I really like her. She’s the Little Match Girl.”

(skip to 10:00 to hear review!) I was thrilled to participate in the very first show this past Monday, December 4 to talk theater with Jared our host and Chris Ehlers, Style Editor & Arts Critic, Edge Media. We offered our latest recommendations and incisive opinions, as well as what to look for coming up! -- Arts & Entertainment Critic Joyce Kulhawik, Emmy award winning movie & theater critic CBS BOSTON

"what a monster he's created" 

"There was no end of hugging and screaming and hooting and hollering. But at 7:20 p.m. the lights dimmed and the ceremony actually did begin, the Gold Dust Orphans kicking it off with a sexually explicit number from their nominated musical “Little Christmas Tree Shop of Horrors.” When Kulhawik came on afterward, she thanked the Orphans for their “tasteful opening” and added that they might have scared the cast of Wheelock Family Theatre’s “Matilda” “out of the auditorium into therapy.” That didn’t happen[…]"

“The joy in Carmela’s voice is palpable as they revel in the artistic opportunities and queer journeys available in Provincetown [...] 

last summer Carmela received what in other towns might be considered an insult, but here it was encouraging: After one performance at Showgirls, an enthusiastic audience member said, “You are so weird! I love it! It’s exactly why I come to Provincetown, and Showgirls. You’re just weird.”

“I took it as a big compliment,” says Carmela. “Given the history of Provincetown I know when someone calls you weird it means you’re successful.”

"There are several sexual innuendos in the text that the actors fed into, which made the dialogue even more comical for college students. Even though the actors wore costumes resembling clothing from the 19th century, their makeup looked like it belonged in HBO’s “Euphoria” with sparkly eyeshadow and glitter eyebrow gel."

Lefty was joined on stage by some local talent, including newcomer Gina Carmela, whose performance as Stanley Kowalski was another highlight of the evening. Carmela entered from the rear of the house, singing a full-throated, raw version of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” that gave me chills. Somehow this part-drag, all-burlesque version of Stanley was more “real” than any live performance of him that I’ve ever seen. His appearance at this moment in the story, completely separate from Blanche, reminded me of a Ballet Trocadero performance where the male characters would simply walk across the stage every once in a while, not interacting with or acknowledging the drag ballerinas. Stanley was supplementary in this version of the story, but Carmela was not.

In Landry’s version, singing Christian elves, superheroes, and Hermione P. Grinchley dance, fight, and frolic in a frisky, excitingly over-the-top holiday show.  The green-skinned Mrs. Grinchley takes the place of the heavily lip-lined Frank-N-Furter, Brad Keebler (Eric McGowan) and Janet Winky (Taryn Lane) are elves who believe the world shares their faith, Eddie [Gina] is a reindeer, and Dr. Scott is Santa Claus. Much exists in the world that divides us: differing ideologies, politics, and religion are just a few. Landry mixes all these polarizing things to make a hilarious and harmonious two-act tale with a message that stresses the importance of unity above all.

"Kiki Samko is at the helm as director again, and proves again that she and Landry are on the same creative wavelength when it comes to his singular brand of musical comedy, in which he marries new, frequently naughty lyrics to familiar pop songs and musical-theater classics.

As ever in any production by Landry and his Gold Dust Orphans, “Little Christmas Tree Shop of Horrors" has the feel of a raucous family gathering, the auteur and his merry band having built up an extremely loyal and fervent following over the years..."

“There are also hilarious work from Gina Carmela as the butch Dunkin' Donuts manager and a nosy television reporter, Sarah Jones as Professor Penelope Ponds; and Joey Pelletier in an unabashed and very funny turn as a milkman who wears nothing but a jockstrap.”

"For a variety of reasons, a number of Boston-area theater leaders have moved on in the past year.

Not Ryan Landry. Now in his 26th year as the artistic director of the Gold Dust Orphans, Landry is that most paradoxical of figures: the iconoclast as institution.

He boasts the kind of seniority very few cultural impresarios around here can rival. Fewer still can match the freewheeling camaraderie Landry enjoys with his fans..."