Over-the-top doesn’t begin to describe the performances–or the fun of seeing so much scenery chewed by so sensational a cast–in Center Theatre Group’s Block Party reprise of Celebration Theatre’s 2017 comedy smash Die, Mommie, Die!

Playwright Charles Busch may have had a more subtle approach in mind when he penned and starred in his magnum opus back in 1999, but there’s no denying that taking things to extremes yields an abundance of laughs as director Ryan Bergmann and star Drew Droege bring faded movie goddess Angela Arden to outlandish life like the love child of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis gone berserk.

 Like her equally fabled Hollywood contemporaries, Angela has seen much better days than these, but a string of unfortunate flops (Song Of Marie Antoinette and TV’s The Angela Arden Hour among them) led first to summer-stock (Eliza in My Fair Lady, Peter in Peter Pan) and then an early retirement.

Fortunately for Angela, 1967 has begun with the promise of a New York solo show (in The Catskills, not The City), though not if her domineering movie mogul husband Sol Sussman (Pat Towne) has anything to say about it.

 Not that things are going any better for Sol, money for his Biblical epic Abraham And Sarah having dried up “like a plate of blintzes in the Sahara,” and worse still, the mob is threatening to “bathe Sol in cement” if he doesn’t fork over 20 million dollars by Monday.

 If only Angela could find comfort in her 21-year-old daughter, but the bouffant-haired, mini-skirted Edith (Julanne Chidi Hill) finds her mom’s current vibrato “as wide as Mister Ed’s asshole” and Mommie herself “a money-grubbing selfish bitch” and a “promiscuous slut.”

At the very least, Miss Arden’s teenage son Lance (Tom DeTrinis) thinks Angela is “the coolest mom ever,” though sonny boy has troubles of his own, having recently been sent home as a result of a scandal involving the entire (male) math department and “being spun around nude on the Lazy Susan.”

 Then there’s Angela’s 30something lover Tony Parker (Andrew Carter), once the star of TV’s Squad Car Thirteen but now best known for having “the biggest cock west of the San Andreas fault” and the reputation of “a highly-paid gigolo” who slipped into Angela’s life “as easily as Vermouth into a glass of gin, quickly and a bit too smooth.”

 Completing the cast of characters is longtime housekeeper Bootsie (Gina Torrecilla), a born-again Christian with an Appalachian drawl, a flask in her pocket, and a hankerin’ for Sol.

Finally, surrounding all of the above is the mysterious death of Angela’s sister Barbara, whose memory lingers on years later “like the smog over the canyon.”

 Already irresistible at the 47-seat Lex Theatre last year, Die, Mommie, Die! is even more delish gone upscale at the 317-seat Kirk Douglas.

Once again, the divine Droege nails Angela’s glamour, her ego, her panache, her self-doubts, and her speech peculiarities (gigyulo for gigalo, New York with a French r and a silent k, and a tendency to slur her s’s) in a performance that reaches all the way up to the back row and beyond.

 Supporting performances are equally fabulous, from Carter’s sexy, package-packed Tony to DeTrinis’s fab-fem Lance to Hill’s curvy, incest-inclined Edith to Torrecilla’s finger-wagging hussy Bootsie to Towne’s Louis B. Mayer-meets-Harry Cohn Sol.

 The move to the Douglas allows scenic designer Pete Hickok the space to make Angela’s elegant-kitchy Hollywood abode the mansion it deserves to be. Allison Dillard’s ‘60s garb (with special snaps to Angela’s one-of-a-kind frocks) look even groovier in Culver City as do Michael O’Hara’s spot-on period props and Byron Batista’s wig designs and styling.

Matthew Brian Denman’s lighting and its spot-on freeze-frames are even more mind-blowingly psychedelicious as Rebecca Kessin’s ‘60s-sational sound design once again lends ‘60s-evoking musical punch and thunder-clap whacks to slap after slap.

Additional program credits are shared by Jami Rudofsky (original casting), Sondra Mayer (fight director), Corwin Evans (video engineer), and Christopher Maikish and Carter (original video design, a hoot).

Lindsay Allbaugh is Center Theatre Group associate producer. Marcedes L. Clanton is production stage manager and Maggie Swing is stage manager.

After five serious pieces in a row, Block Party’s decision to go comedic proves a savvy one, and with even its most (melo)dramatic moments played for laughs, Die, Mommie, Die! more than fills the bill. Hallelujah theater gods, Angela Arden is back in town.

Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City.
www.centertheatregroup.org

–Steven Stanley
May 12, 2018
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: Celebration Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Charles Busch, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review