“Puss In Boots or A Tale of Two Kitties”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - November 2009

“When the slapstick’s too thick and the Prince is a chick,
That’s a Panto!
When a guy wears a dress and not under duress,
That’s a Panto!”

- to the tune of That’s Amore by Harry Warren, lyrics by the PantoLoons

The PantoLoons did not sing this opening number in their tenth annual British-American Panto, Puss in Boots, or A Tale of Two Kitties, possibly under the impression that everyone gets the schtick by now. And they’re probably right. Not only have they developed a fanatically loyal following in the past decade, their shows sell out well in advance and copy-cat productions have started to crop up around the area. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I have no desire to see any other entertainments foolish enough to try to pass under the name of Panto on this side of the Atlantic.

This is the Loons second version of Puss in Boots and, when I went back in my archives, I discovered that the 2002 production Puss in Boots and the Witch of Punsit Creek was the first Panto I wrote about. And I said I didn’t think it measured up to the Loons earlier attempts. I came away with the same feeling this year, and the knowledge that many of the numbers had been lifted in their entirety from the 2002 script.
I think part of my slightly subdued reaction to this year’s offering is that I am not tremendously familiar with Puss in Boots in its original.

The other part is that I saw the opening night performance. Joseph L. Mankiewicz could easily have been referring to Ghent openings when he wrote: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night! The performance I saw did not flow smoothly and was hampered by many flubs. Because everyone in that full house was squarely in the Loons’ corner and willing them to succeed, a fine time was had by all. But I imagine subsequent audiences will have even more fun, as the performers get more comfortable with the material and how it plays.

In a nutshell, our heroine Flora Bissell (Anita Mandalay-Pronto, aka Cathy Lee-Visscher) receives nothing from her father’s will but a cat, a hat, a jacket, and a pair of boots. All the clothing goes to the cat, Puss (Ali Katz, aka Paul Murphy) who, thanks to the magic of Aunty Dote (Dame Amanda Reckonwith, aka playwright Judy Staber), is rendered capable of human speech.

While Flora’s older sisters, Arabella (Little Ricky Rows Well, aka set designer and choreographer Rick Rowsell) and Tilly (Shanooka La Treen, aka Ron Harrington), have inherited the family dairy farm and plan to sell it to whichever developer bids highest – Yolanda Gentry (Nicole Putin, aka Mark Schane-Lydon) or Pollutia Von Schtunk (Tamara Snotherday, aka director Tom Detwiler) – Puss plots to get Flora married off to Yolanda and Rich Gentry’s (Jack Stride, aka costume designer Joanne Maurer) handsome but wayward son Prosper (Hunka Burninlov, aka Sally McCarthy), and helps Pollutia’s cat, Helixa (Oliver Gaylord Camp, aka Johnna Murray), break the spell that has rendered her feline.

There is always a topical socio-political theme to the Panto, and this year, as it was in 2002, it is environmentalism. References to people in the news, ranging from Judge Sonia Sotomayor to huge-uh car salesman Billy Fuccillo, abound. And while Todd Palin gets a mention, his overly exposed wife, so brilliantly embodied by Murphy last year, is sadly absent. Rowsell’s set features Pollutia’s smog-belching mansion on the hill, and Detwiler’s wig looks like a cloud of that offensive muck has landed on his head.

I was recently invited to write a “Best of the Decade” column for a local paper – a loathsome assignment that has me wondering who died and made me God – but I can state unequivocally and without any hesitation that Schane-Lydon and Maurer are the Best and Cutest Cross-Dressed Couple of All Time. They are just adorable! This is Schane-Lydon’s first Panto appearance, and I am hoping he becomes a regular Loon because, while Rowsell, Harrington, and Detwiler’s drag personae put the “ug” in fugly, Schane-Lydon’s big blue eyes render him quite fetchingly femme.

And I award the Tease of the Century prize to the numbskull who put McCarthy on stage in Elvis garb and then didn’t give her an Elvis-style solo to sing! Hearing McCarthy belt out her Panto solo (or two) is one of the highlights of this annual event, and this year, while she dueted beautifully with Lee-Visscher, she had no solos at all. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Last time around Murray played the title cat, and her catlike steps have only improved with age. The last time I saw Murray and Murphy on stage together they were playing the leads in the Town Players production of Doubt – from nun and priest to a pair of talking cats in less than six months – its variety like that that keeps actors and audience alike addicted to the theatre!

And I very recently saw Lee-Visscher and Schane-Lydon on stage together in the hilarious I Know I Came In Here for Something: The Middle Aged Musical which the Taconic Stage Company mounted at the Lighthouse Restaurant on Copake Lake. Here Lee-Visscher continues using her unique brand of ironic perkiness to get the laughs, while playing a woman relieves Schane-Lydon of those pesky “male problems” that plagued him in Copake.

Cat A. Tonic (aka Paul Leyden) provides all the music from behind a bunch of cleverly painted bushes stage left. There are a couple of raps, some solid rock, an homage to disco, a rather straight-forward chunk of Tom Lehrer, un peu de Richard Rodgers, a soupcon of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and a healthy dose of Lloyd Webber (guess which show in his cat-alogue those tunes come from!) I was happy to hear the recently departed Vic Mizzy saluted, and I enjoyed the return of Malvina Reynolds’ Little Boxes rendered as a feline – Litter Boxes.

Three characters in Puss and Boots speak with Hispanic accents – Yolanda because she is the Argentinian bombshell Rich picked up while “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” Helixa for reasons that are revealed in the climactic denouement, and Puss for no apparent reason at all.

Maurer has done her usual masterful job with the costumes, but Detwiler, Schance-Lydon, McCarthy, Staber, and Maurer herself are particularly well turned out this year. (Special kudos to whoever drew on McCarthy’s festive chest hair.) Bill Camp’s fine lighting keeps everything moving along.

There are things I love about the Thanksgiving weekend – a good turkey dinner and the kitsch of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – and things that I hate – the crass commercialism of Black Friday – but the thing I look forward to the most every year is piling my pals in the car and heading off to the Panto. This year even the year’s first snow squalls didn’t stay us from our appointed rounds. So whether or not this iteration of Puss in Boots was my favorite Panto, it may well be yours and I advise you to get your tickets, if there are any left!

The PantoLoons production of Puss in Boots, or A Tale of Two Kitties runs weekends through December 13 at the Ghent Playhouse, located at 6 Town Hall Place (on the corner of Route 66 and Town Hall Place) in Ghent, NY, across from the Ghent Fire House. The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission and is suitable for all ages.

Performances are at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays, with an extra matinee at 5 p.m. Saturday November 28th only. Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 Ghent Playhouse members and $8 for children under 12 years. Reservations may be made by calling 518-392-6264.

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