New Parker Show Sparkles

The cast of The Sexes (According to Dorothy Parker) after the show at the New York Comedy Club.

It’s taken a group of young actors to finally bring Dorothy Parker into the 21st Century, and they pulled it off marvelously.

I’m talking about “The Sexes (According to Dorothy Parker)” playing now through Friday at the New York Comedy Club, 241 E. 24th Street (bet. Second and Third avenues) at 7 p.m. The cast of six weaves Mrs. Parker’s greatest hits into a punchy little show that shouldn’t be missed.

It seems like every month someone is taking a Shakespeare play and re-inventing it for modern times. Now Mrs. Parker is the one getting the makeover, and the cast of “The Sexes” gets a big round of approval for it. As all Parker fans know, her dialogue is timeless, and the young cell-phone wielding cast bridges the gap from Roaring Twenties/Great Depression to life during Bush/CNN/Bin Laden.

The show used pieces of Mrs. Parker’s short stories, among them Telephone Call, The Waltz, Dusk Before Fireworks, Just a Little One, New York to Detroit, and The Sexes, with some of her one-liners and poems. They mixed them up, set it in a little jazz club, and what comes out is pure magic.

The cast, who all seem to come from Florida (is this a hotbed of talent?) consists of Bryan Brendle, Jenn Fraser, Anne Levy, Sam Mossler, Candy Simmons and Jennifer Swiderski. The director is Tim Herman, and he really moved the action around the room. One of the best parts of the production is that being inside the comedy club, the bar is OPEN, and so the audience can suck down drinks along with the show. The cast is also surrounding the audience, putting them into the production too.

The writers, (Brendle, Levy and Simmons), even used some clever gender reversal in The Sexes and Just A Little One to dynamic effect. Switching The Sexes to two women really put a new spin on the story; the same goes with the classic Just A Little One. You wouldn’t think of it, but having the cast using cell phones throughout the show really made it clear that this was 2001, not 1921. And the interweaving of all the monologues, jokes and snappy lines just crackled.

The production tapped the jazz talents of D’Flo, regulars at the Elbow Room, a trio who grooved and kept the music flowing throughout. They added another dimension to the show that really assisted in the transformation.

Try and see this show if at all possible, maybe it will make a return engagement in the near future. It’s excellent.