Theatre in Review: Bigfoot! (City Center Stage I)Bigfoot! may set a record for the highest number of comparison jokes in a single night's entertainment. How much you enjoy them will determine your tolerance of this new musical. Commenting on their pollution-riddled hometown -- the action takes place in a little burg called Muddirt -- someone says the local river is "more toxic than people who peaked in high school!" An avid hunter notes, "! I've killed more animals than a lipstick company!" The title character, charmed by a local garden spot, exclaims that it "looks prettier than one of those thank-you cards corporations give people on their work anniversary instead of a living wage!" (The script is heavy on exclamation points, too.) If you tire of such japery, there are plenty of simile gags. A scoffer insists, "Bigfoot is just a legend! Like the Loch Ness Monster or ethical non-monogamy!" An explosion is described thusly: "That shack blew up like a white lady from the suburbs when she sees a Black family enjoying themselves." In the spirit of things, I will note that some of the gags in Bigfoot! are weaker than a Republican's campaign promises. Is this a musical or a Vegas warmup act? The book is by the television comedy writers Amber Ruffin and Kevin Sciretta, who are clearly more at home with punchlines than those pesky, bothersome things known as plot and character. (Ruffin, who co-wrote the book for Some Like It Hot, really ought to know better.) Anyway, they've concocted a little fable about the title character, who lives on the outskirts of Muddirt in the 1980s, loathed and feared by the population. ("You have sex with a carnie next to a nuclear power plant, you end up with a giant son," says Francine, his illness-prone mother). In fact, the big guy is a sweetheart, running around town at night, neatening up the place. Trouble comes when the corrupt mayor declares open season on Bigfoot, who, he fears, might scare away visitors to the town's proposed (and extremely ill-advised) waterpark. Director/choreographer Danny Mefford, who caught the farcical/touching tone of The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Putnam County Spelling Bee (now playing at New World Stages), does his best to keep things light and buoyant, but there's nothing for him to hold onto, aside from a group of performers who define the term "luxury casting." Grey Henson, one of the chief cutups in Broadway's Shucked, gamely sports Bigfoot's head-to-toe hair suit (the amusing costumes are by Ricky Reynoso), cutely framing him as the ultimate misunderstood teenager. Crystal Lucas-Perry lends her nuclear-powered vocal instrument to Francine's songs. Jason Tam is solid as the doctor who secretly yearns for her. Alex Moffat, last seen as the oily villain in The Big Gay Jamboree, is the oily, villainous mayor. Katerina McCrimmon shows off her impressive belt as the hunter who comes to kill Bigfoot and stays to become his best friend. Jade Jones is fun in several roles. The production design is sometimes cleverer than the writing. Set designer Tim Mackabee has fun depicting Muddirt in its degraded state. (Among other things, City Hall is in the back room of a stripper joint.) His fast, flexible design keeps the action moving. Between this effort and Mexodus, seen earlier in the season, the lighting designer Mextly Couzin showcases her facility with musical theatre; she deftly polishes the musical numbers without showing off. Sun Hee Kil's sound design is a model of intelligibility. The sound department, however, is a party to the show's knack for running its running jokes into the ground: Whenever anyone announces "the hunt" for Bigfoot, we hear a combination wolf howl and eagle screech. It's mildly funny once. Another well-worn big involves Francine passing out; roused by the doctor, she decks him. One of these bits cues a tasteless Ike Turner gag, which, like a bit about Andre the Giant, suggests that the show's sense of humor is stuck in another era. Bigfoot! earns points for songs (music by David Schmoll, lyrics by Ruffin) that legitimately seek to move along the plot, but they are written in that facetious, falsely bubbly, we're-in-a-musical style that has been so overworked in recent years. "I long for the mundane," croons Bigfoot, a comment that, under the circumstances, tempts one to say, Look, around you, brother. Amazingly, Bigfoot!, a commercial production, is presented in association with Manhattan Club Theatre, which, I suppose, is a sign of the times. And the audience at the performance I attended was cheered by the show's left-leaning tone. (Although, personally, I think it's a little late to be spoofing Reagan-era America when we have such big problems in 2026.) If you're going to construct a musical joke book, the jokes should be much, much better than these. Alas, these days, there is no joy in Muddirt. --David Barbour 
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