StageSceneLA

ATTACK OF THE SECOND BANANAS

Dueling divas get double-murdered in Gina Torrecilla’s Attack Of The Second Bananas, a World Premiere backstage comedy whodunnit that despite occasional bright moments mostly falls flat.

Adam Huss plays the nameless Detective investigating the simultaneous deaths of cabaret artistes Ruby Moss (Katie Canavan) and Andrea Hammond (Kendra Munger) following their last-ever performance.

Not that there are all that many suspects to choose from.

There’s flouncy gay dresser Dylan (Tim McKernan), begging hysterically to be taken downtown and booked if only to be manhandled by the hunky police dick. (“I heard them both going extreme and sharp on the last note of the finale they’ve sung a million times so I knew something was wrong,” he explains to the Detective.)

Suspect # 2 is Ruby’s hard-boiled Agent (Jeanne Simpson), who wonders how Miss Moss is ever going to make tomorrow’s big audition now that she’s dead.

Next up is Andrea’s ethnically ambiguous Manager (Mary Ann Welshans), who reveals that since tomorrow was going to change her client’s life, tonight was to be their “secret little farewell.”

Last and most likely least among suspects is a hipster bartender who could hardly have gotten backstage to do the murdering, but then again maybe…

Early interviews provide details about the aforementioned audition (for a career-changing second-banana role on a new half-hour network sitcom), one that both Agent and Manager were certain their client would book.

A flashback reveals that Ruby and Andrea were once best-friend/roommates in New York, Dylan was their aspiring-costume-designer GBF, and the duo’s successful New York cabaret act provided them the funds to move to L.A.

And so it goes for the next hour.

On the plus side, playwright Torrecilla comes up with a nifty solution to who committed the murders.

Still, despite an occasional showbiz joke that hits the mark (Detective: “I don’t get it. She’s an agent and you’re a manager. What’s the difference?”), most punch lines fall short of being major laugh-getters and the cleverly if curiously titled Attack Of The Second Bananas feels long even at 68 minutes before Canavan and Munger get to strut their triple-threat stuff in a ten-minute musical epilogue that’s worth putting on YouTube.

Director Ryan Bergmann has encouraged appropriately heightened performances that on Opening Night, at least, felt under-rehearsed.

Scenic designer Pete Hickok gives Attack Of The Second Bananas a terrific onstage/backstage set, and despite some opening night glitches, Matthew Brian Denman’s lighting proves a strikingly vibrant treat as does sound designer Rebecca Kessin’s tongue-in-cheek police-procedural musical punctuation, with Allison Dillard scoring her own top marks for some divalicious costuming, Simpson for choreographing Canvan and Munger’s cabaret moves, and Anthony Zediker for his musical arrangements.

Brittney S. Wheeler is assistant director. Adam Bloomfield is stage manager. Taylor Stephenson has composed additional music. Cristina Gerla is casting assistant.

Jean Marie Baiardi, Tom DeTrinis, Travis Leland, and Wheeler are understudies and Sarah Mullis is swing.

Ultimately, despite the efforts of its talented creative team both onstage and off, Attack Of The Second Bananas fails to slay.