Gary Waldman & Jamison Troutman presented MEET ME AT THE PITKIN, a musical by Gary Waldman at the Hollywood Playhouse, Hollywood, FL (1997) ... the following is a review published in The Sun-Sentinel...
`Pitkin' A Zany Catskills-to-condos Musical Revue
Meet Me at the Pitkin is a new musical assembled from off-the-shelf parts at a show business warehouse. They snap into place and, when cranked up, spin together as if they were made for each other at the Hollywood Playhouse.
Don't expect anything new or unusual from Gary Waldman's variety package, described as an "English/Yiddish musical revue."But don't expect disappointment, either. Author Waldman and director Andy Rogow bring enough sincerity to the milieu that triteness becomes a virtue.
Pitkin's creative vapors envelop the story of a song-and-dance quartet that starts in a Brooklyn movie house, the Pitkin, in 1951. That initial break is followed by immense success in the clubhouses of the Catskills. National and world tours follow, of course.
The hottest nightclub act of that era, the Pitkin Four, become passe in the '60s and morph into a folk-pop group. After that trend, they play the lounges and cabarets on Miami Beach and, finally, the South Florida condo circuit.
In one bit of clever parody, the entertainers retire to a condo (called Boca Loco), where their stereotypes change from stage guys and dolls to meddling neighbors.
The first half is an obvious knockoff of the musical Follies, focusing on the hopeful young kids. After intermission, Pitkin begins to look a little more like Gypsy - without the feather boas. That's a lot of important baggage in which to tote Pitkin's (often deliciously) hackneyed musical pastiche.
Waldman extends the parody throughout the score, which fractures a collection of familiar, decades-old pop and Yiddish standards. Most of them have new, comic lyrics that identify the troupe as a bright musical comedy team.
Waldman is paying respects to Catskills show business in much the same way that Gerard Alessandrini honors theater with his Forbidden Broadway cabaret acts. Blame it on the Bossa Nova becomes Blame it on the Cosa Nostra; the Yiddish Tumbalalaika transforms to a jazz-swing favorite. Even the Mamas and the Papas' folk anthem Creeque Alley gets an outing as Alligator Alley.
The appealing cast treats Meet Me at the Pitkin as legitimately as The 1940's Radio Hour or any similar nostalgic conceit. Margot Moreland and Louis Silvers take on the important vocal challenges with grace and panache. Heather Jane Rolff and Oscar Cheda dig a little more deeply into the show's comic ribs. Choreographer Jamie Cooper's re-creations of best-forgotten cabaret shuffles are sometimes gruesomely funny in their own right.
Waldman and Rogow's scenic ideas are simple and natural, evoking a variety of locales from the once-famous Pitkin theater, to a Catskills showroom, an airline terminal and a crowded poolside sundeck at the condo.
Meet Me at the Pitkin will never make theater's A-list, but is a cute exercise that shakes off the summer blahs for a couple of hours.
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