You know exactly what you’re going to get at Three’s Company Live!, which opened last night at Oasis and runs through April 29. Just as with Heklina and D’Arcy Drollinger’s previous drag sendups of classic TV shows like The Golden Girls, Sex in the City, and Friends, you will see faithful reenactments of real individual episodes, adapted with a reverse-gender drag cast in outlandish wigs and precision replica costumes, and a dick, breast, or vagina joke served approximately every 40 seconds. Three’s Company Live! does not explore any new ground in the campy drag TV show reenactment genre, but it is still a hilariously satisfying specimen of that special vaudeville-inspired, drag queen, insult comedy magic.
Implausible and badly written sitcom Three’s Company was a massive hit from 1977 to 1984, a post-sexual-liberation comedy of errors whose appeal was based on the prominent placement of the boobs and rear end of Suzanne Somers (or her various replacement characters). This drag troupe did a similar batch of Three’s Company episodes onstage last year, and in 2012 with The Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin in the Joyce DeWitt role. This year’s production remakes a new and different set of episodes, with the original scripts left more or less intact but enhanced with drag innuendo, cartoon sound effects, and a slapstick silliness that will at no point require you to use your brain.
Each cast member has as much or more comedic talent than their 1970s counterparts, and can better connect with their live cult-crowd audience. D’Arcy Drollinger always excels at the dumb blonde archetype, but the Suzanne Somers “Chrissy” dialogue allows her to take the act to an especially unhinged place. Costume designer Ruby Vixen has outfitted Chrissy with a special set of falsie brassieres that provide eye-popping bounce. Between scenes, Matthew Martin busts out a few 1970s commercial vignettes that achieve transcendent whimsy.
Oh yeah I forgot, Heklina plays that plain brunette who nobody ever remembers.
Three’s Company Live! may be the dumbest 90 minutes you’ll ever laugh nonstop through. The original Three’s Company is probably the worst show these Trannyshack alums have chosen to do recurring reboots of onstage. But the show's nonsense plotlines and lowbrow sexuality translate into their gay camp sensibilities perhaps better than any of the other sitcoms they've tried. And the effect of watching that live onstage is really quite regal.
'Three's Company Live!' runs through April 29 at Oasis. Tickets here.
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