ASSISTED LIVING: THE MUSICAL

ASSISTED LIVING: THE MUSICAL …a tour de force about aging…

Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.
Kitty O'Neill Collins

Let’s face it. Aging is the only option we have if we want to finish up all those plans we have for the future. Creators Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett surveyed the toll time takes on us all and decided the best way to survive the ravages of age is to laugh at them. And that, in a nutshell, is what ASSISTED LIVING: THE MUSCIAL does.

We’ve heard it all before: jokes about drooping features, inadequate limbs, teeth that don’t chew and organs that don’t do their job. The production has no surprises and in some ways the topics are just a bit disturbing to those of us to enjoy what we are and love each new day. After all, there are plenty of unexpected doors that always open even as we stand on tiptoes to see ourselves in the mirror. “This show makes fun of very serious matters,” said an audience member, a middle aged woman who had taken her mother to the show …and she is right. Losing your teeth and being crippled isn’t funny to anyone trying to cope with the loss. Living with someone who doesn’t know who you are is heartbreaking.

Indeed, the only thing that elevates this production from the clichéd jokes that are passed from one in-box to another on the internet is the delightful energy and talent of the three people singing and dancing on the stage. The songs are mostly parodies and you know what’they are about the minute you see Zoe Conner come out in a nurse’s uniform or Bob Greene trying to hold his tray of food while pushing his walker. Still, the pacing and the staging is delightful and Robbie Cowan (supposedly the grandson of the stars) is an utter delight, never condescending, always joining in the singing and acting as a perfect catalyst to the action on stage. Greene and Conner sing about plastic surgery, internet dating and the multiple marriages that seem to take place in the senior home as soon as the sun sets. Who can keep a straight face when they hear ”I found my thrill in a little blue pill,” or I’ve fallen for you and I can’t get up”?

Someone asked authors, Betsy Bennet and Rick Compton (both successful musical satirists ) what their next show would be and they came up with the title of the production we can see now at The Imperial Palace, along with a dim sum meal to die for as part of admission. Compton and Bennet decided that they wouldn’t make jokes about incontinence and respirators, but every other sign of advancing years is fair game. “We would love it if this show could change the way folks see maturity and how they see themselves in maturity,” said Bennet.
For this writer, the disabilities parodied only made the prospect seem more daunting but for many others just hearing someone sing about the problems they face or the fears they have is exhilarating fare. The show has been a hit wherever it appears from Florida, to Delaware to Pennsylvania. “This is the biggest thing to happen to our writing careers,” said Compton.
ASSISTED LIVING: THE MUSICAL is well worth the 110 minutes you spend eating the magnificent meal served by the wonderful people at The Imperial Palace and tapping your feet to parodies of songs about what you are or will be soon enough. Bob Greene and Zoe Conner give it their all as they sing about the inevitable. The truth is you might want to buy your plot while you are still breathing, but you’d like to avoid being put in it for as long as you can. Knowledge is the best defense, and this happy musical gives you fair warning of what you won’t be able to do if you stick around long enough.
ASSISTED LIVING: THE MUSICAL continues all this month at the Imperial Palace, 818 Washington Street, San Francisco. Tickets include both the banquet and the show and can be purchased at 888 885 2844 or on line at www.assistedliviingthemusical.com