Chiquitas Bananas

By T.E.Kalem

EL COCA-COLA GRANDE

A MUSICAL REVUE

Conceived by RON HOUSE and DIZ WHITE

Playgoers in a silly mood will probably find this daffy production highly diverting. Others will not. British and European audiences made El Coca-Cola Grande something of a cult, and if there is anything that off-Broadway loves, it is a cult; the show will doubtless have its U.S. devotees.

The format is that of a musical revue. Most of it is sung or spoken in pidgin Spanish, some in pidgin French and German, and none in English. Much of the show is mimed and the real language is basic zany.

Before the performance begins, Senor Don Pepe Hernandez, a third-rate impresario who bills himself as "el compere extraordinario" has advertised in the local press of Trujillo, Honduras, that he has assembled a nightclub act of internationally famous cabaret stars. They include Senor Blind Joe Jackson (el blues cantante de Jackson, Mississippi), Giuseppe y Giovanni (el duo dinamico de Milano, Italia), and Las Dos La-La-Las (dos chiquitas frivolantes de Barcelona, Espana).

These people do not exist, of course, but Don Pepe's uncle, who manages a Coca-Cola bottling plant, has lent him the money to stage an elaborate bluff. The "parade of stars" consists of Don Pepe's nephew, cousin, stepdaughter and daughter. What follows is a show biz nightmare of ineptitude -- jugglers who drop their props, dancers who bump into each other and acrobats who cannot hold each other up. The decrepit old black blues singer and guitarist faces the back of the stage, thumps his foot, forgets all his music and caroms into the pit. Perhaps the funniest skit is one featuring Toulouse-Lautrec, who slithers around with shoes on his knees and tries desperately to heft a huge canvas onto an easel beyond his reach.

As may be guessed, a substantial part of the evening's humor consists of watching people make fools of themselves. This trait is human enough to make some playgoers hold their sides and others their noses.

--T.E. Kalem

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