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| Sally Willisn, Ron House, Diz White. |
EL GRANDE DE COCA
COLA [Revue/Show Business] A: The Cast; SC: an idea by Ron House and Diz
White; CH: Anna Nygh; DS: Mischa Petrow; P: Jack Temchin, Gil Adler, and John
A. Vaccaro in the Low Moan Spectacular Production; T: Mercer Arts Center/Oscar Wilde Room (OB);
2/13/73-4/13/75 (1,114)
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| Ron Silver, Jeff Goldblum |
An unusually popular Off-Broadway comedy and musical revue,
originally done in England and elsewhere in Europe, which ran for over two
years. It opened as El Coca Cola Grande but
the Coca Cola company’s lawyers forced the producers to change the title to one they
felt was more positive for the product.
Clive Barnes found himself “roaring with laughter” at the “fast
and furious . . . , outrageously silly and beautifully done” show. John Simon
guffawed hysterically at this “adorably idiotic” show: “this White-House
extravaganza is surely the biggest fun house yet.” And Brendan Gill guaranteed
his readers it was the funniest show in town.
What plotline it had was about Senor Don Pepe Hernandez, the
sleazy owner of a sleazy cabaret in a sleazy part of Trujillo, Honduras, and
his failure to sign international nightclub stars to appear in his already
publicized “Parade of the Stars.” He has even gotten financial backing from his
uncle, manager of Trujillo’s Coca Cola plant. (This background is explained in
a program note.) To save the situation, Done Pepe recruits his stalwart, but
completely untalented family, to don the grease paint and go on in a variety of
guises, imitating the class acts they couldn’t get to appear.
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| Jeff Goldblum, Myra Turley. |
The ludicrous inanity of the acts and their presentation in
a bizarre pidgin Spanish, which remained understandable no matter how little
Spanish the audience had, created a farcical hodgepodge that had visitors
rolling helplessly in the aisles. The smooth British company (Ron House was an
expat American) carried out their tasks in quick-change routines presenting such
things as a pair of clumsy tango dancers, girl singers who can’t carry a tune, a
black Mississippi blues singer who gets lost on stage, unbalanced acrobats, and
a sketch about Toulouse Lautrec supposedly given by a Parisian acting company.
Everyone involved onstage (including Alan Shearman, Sally
Willis, and John Neville-Andrews) was considered perfect. House proved an
absolute comic genius. “Not only are his vocal and visual Hispanisms histrionic
delights,” chuckled Simon, “but even his basic expression—a smile that sweatily
modulates from unctuous to terminal hysteria—is a marathon mirth-begetter.”
A number of different actors joined the cast during the run, among those in the second season being Ron Silver and Jeff Goldblum, as pictured above. On August 10, 1973, the show moved to Plaza 9.
White and House won the Drama Desk Award for Most Promising
Book Writers.
