As my profile says, I googled myself and found dozens of other Mark Savages. I was amused, intrigued, shocked, touched... but mostly amused. Oddly, my ego was bruised when I discovered they weren't exactly like me.
I collected as many Mark Savages as I could and kept it in a file called "
never google yourself, you won't like what you find." When I would show it to people they would laugh a bit, but they didn't find it as funny as I did. Frustrating.
I joined facebook and found 14 pages of Mark Savages! I knew I had found my audience. Here at last was a whole crowd of people who would get the joke the way I had. It's an incredibly weird feeling to see your name and someone else's life.
So the First Mark Savage is me. Here's the review I was looking for that got me googling in the first place.
BACKSTAGE WEST Sept 14, 2001
Pinafore! Reviewed By Wenzel Jones ***** CRITIC’S PICK *****
This is the first show from Mark Savage's "Queering the Classics" reading series to receive a full production, and the result is so perfectly realized it could almost stand alone as an original work. Rather than merely doing a gay parody of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, Savage, who also directs, has retained the form and music and wrought an adaptation that combines silliness with incisive commentary on military policy, sexual fluidity, and intra-community prejudices.
This sparkling reworking has the Commander of the Pinafore, Capt. Corkinit (a richly voiced Michael Gregory) keeping his son, Joseph (Christofer Sands), in crinolines pending sexual reassignment in order that he might marry the Rt. Hon. Sen. Barney Crank (David Gilliam Fuller), Chief of the Gay Navy, who is responding to his constituency's current fondness for transsexuals. Sen. Crank arrives with a flotilla of nautically themed drag queens (the truly fabulous trio of Chadwick T. Adams, Antonio Martinez, Scott Scarboro), which he intends to billet on the Pinafore, much to the consternation of the crew (Neal Allen Hyde, John Brantley Cole Jr., Jason Beogh, Steven Janji, Wilson Raiser). Romantic complications arise when Joseph loses his heart to the toothsome new deckhand, the ostensibly straight Dick Dockstrap (Christopher Hall), a lad so untroubled by brain waves that he is unable to make the Joseph-Josephine connection. God-given cleavage and surprises are added by the local peddler woman, Bitter Butterball (Debra Lane), who ekes out a living selling toys at circuit parties in the port city of Palm Springs.
In a cast of superb performers, Sands stands out as the tender maiden manquee. Those who saw him as the Memphis murderess in Miss Desmond Behind Bars will recall his almost other-worldly counter-tenor; to this he adds impeccable comic timing and a tatty grandeur that comes into play every time he stops the show to take a deep, gratified bow. Hall is beguilingly dense and quite adept at conveying comically tortured romantic ache. Under Ron Snyder's musical direction the Pinafore's crew, who look to have been recruited on the basis of tummies so firm and smooth you could dine off them, form a vocally seamless chorus. As sole female in the cast, Lane gives plaintive and ribald voice to the plight of the woman whose universe consists solely of gay men. Space precludes further well-deserved cast accolades.
Robert Prior has brought forth another of his budget-brilliant sets, a pastel confection that is nicely complemented by Kathi O'Donahue's spirited lighting design. The first sight of the crew, decked out in Mia Gyzander's button-front hot pants and crop tops, is unforgettable, especially when combined with Ken Roht's skippy-hoppy choreography.
Savage must have workshopped this thing to death in his head, because it certainly doesn't look like a first outing. The performances and design elements combine to form a creation of finely tuned camp, which never deflates into sloppiness or self-indulgence. The juxtaposition of contemporary sensibilities with Victorian conventions is especially delicious. This is top-drawer topsy-turvy.
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