From the people who brought you Forget Your Troubles, Come on Get Real, The Practice on Ice, and numerous other hit Broadway musicals based on popular MBTV shows too numerous and downright fabulous to mention here, comes the musical sensation Spaced Out!, a song-and-dance spectacular based on the WB's rip-roaring, follies-worthy dance fest called Roswell.
Spaced Out! stars a veritable Who's Who of veteran musical talent, including Jack Wagner as Max, Barbra Streisand as Maria (and Maria's mother!), Nathan Lane as Michael, Madonna as Isabel, the guy who played the cop in The Village People as Porno, Antonio Banderas as swashbuckling athlete of the week Kyle Valenti, Jonathan Frakes as (surprise!) himself, and Small Wonder's stiff and monotone Vicki the Talking Robot as Liz, in a career reinvigorating role closely resembling John Travolta's star turn in Pulp Fiction.
Laughs! Tears! Mysterious orbs! Um, more mysterious orbs! Behold Spaced Out!, the smash Broadway musical, and see why national publications such as the Oklahoma City Food Lion Coupon Circular raves, "Djb has finally lost it. And you've got front row seats!"
Act I, sc. I
[The curtain rises on a typically overtheatrical, campy Broadway reimagining of the inside of the Crashdown café. The color scheme is blindingly bright, the food is consumed completely in exaggerated mime, and the waitresses roller skate from table to table. They serve said mimed cuisine to appreciative tables full of cookie-cutter dork caricatures (who would be known on their résumés as "character actors," an expression which, in LA as well as New York, is sadly just synonymous with "fat"), eating in mimed unison to the jaunty accompaniment. After these establishing moments of choreographed pandemonium, the music begins to slow, the waitresses skate off, and the diner patrons gradually move into a freeze. From seeming nowhere skates one waitress, who moves to center stage. A spotlight frames her as the music swells with that I-want-to-be-where-the-people-go pathos, popularized by every cloying Disney movie, hackneyed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and just plain ol' unwatchable CBS Christmas special on ice. With a melancholy turn of phrase, the waitress begins to sing.]
< B>Song: Shot In The Tummy With Love
Liz:
Oh, I work all day in this diner
Where "spacy" is the golden rule
I cook and I clean, and then I cook and cook and clean
I don't think I even really go to school
My life is fine, I'd say, but so predictable
I pray nightly for some lofty cause to join
'Cause I'd a feel a sense of strife, if the future of my life
Was serving burgers to fat Trekkies from Des Moines
If my life could be a little more important
If monotony would just give fate a shove
My personality, it screams, "Take me away, man of my dreams!"
And let me get shot in the tummy
With love
[The beat picks up once more and the lights slowly begin to rise. The patrons resume eating and the other waitresses skate back out onto the floor. But the focus remains decidedly on Liz, who skates from table to table, serving portion after gigantic portion of mimed, invisible food. De-LIC-ious! She continues on.]
Liz:
There was a time when I would tell you, "Nothing's out there!"
I'm happy with my Slackjaw dad, just slingin' hash
My grades were high, my profile low, the touch of boys I dared not know
Nothing new into my life I thought should crash
But as time went by, I wondered what the world held
I looked above me, sought an answer in the skies
But my brain did cease its touring, when even heaven found me boring
The moon and stars, still they ignore my 'scapist cries
If my life could have a little more excitement
Some as-yet-undetermined presence from above
Oh, if true love someone would bid me, it'd rocket through my lungs and kidney
Why can't I be shot in the tummy
With love?
[The spotlight disappears completely as Liz serves some more orders. She skates back to the counter where the cooks mime putting out finished orders, and as she turns around briefly, her attention freezes at the door. As the accompaniment briefly changes to a wailing sax and the stage is temporarily bathed in a carnal red light, Max [Jack Wagner] and Michael [Nathan Lane, something of a -- nudge nudge -- "character actor" in his own right] stroll in. Liz looks on as they saunter to an empty table. Max sits on the side of the booth facing Liz, and he briefly glances at her before opening the menu and holding it intentionally over his face. Another waitress skates up behind Liz and speaks.]
Maria:
Hey, kid. Quit your daydreamin' and back to work with you!
[She cracks a mimed whip and the audience goes wild. She is so. Freaking. Funny. After all. Liz turns in haste, but seeing Maria, she relaxes again and they both giggle knowingly. Maria then begins to sing.]
Maria:
My dear Liz, you've been so moony-eyed just lately
I feel you're drifting from the friends who once you knew
Though we're the Crashdown's slavish lackeys, I still find ways to stay real wacky
And if you didn't lack persona, so could you!
You've got a boyfriend in that sports star Kyle Valenti
And you can always share with me your darkest fears
And though he acts toward girls as neutered, you've got another likely suitor
In that Max Evans, talk to him Liz, he's all ears!
Liz:
Oh, if our days could be a tiny bit less dormant
Maria:
God, change our lives, we'll shout exultant "Mazel Tov!"s
Liz:
'Cause it's more action that we seek
Maria:
Than changing hairstyles twice a week
Both: Oh, let's get shot in the tummy
With love
[But just at this moment, two men seated in a booth near the door begin to fight audibly, eventually standing up and taking their loud words to center stage. They are dressed in capes and have large, handlebar moustaches, a very "Haw Haw Haw French villain" form of evil. All of the patrons and wait staff look on as the action grows tense and the accompaniment changes to that manic silent movie music played while the cloaked villain ties a damsel in distress to train tracks. Y'know, that kind. They speak.]
Bad Man #1:
You must pay the rent!
Bad Man #2:
But I can't pay the rent!
Bad Man #1:
You must pay the rent!
Bad Man #2:
But I can't pay the rent!
Bad Man #1:
Then you [pause] will [pause] DIE!
[Bad Man #1 removes a gun from a pocket of his cape and aims it at Bad Man #2. The diner gasps in unison and, with the exception of a shocked Liz, everyone hits the deck as the gun goes off. When Bad Man #1 fires, the gun shoots out one of those signs attached to the barrel reading "Bang!" The two regroup quickly and run out of the diner. Chaos ensues for a moment, then calms down until Maria walks to stage left, sees a downed Liz, and screams, "She's been shot! In the tummy!" Immediately on this line, a spotlight falls on Max Evans' table and everything else goes silent. Max's subsequent ballad highlights his never ending inner turmoil. It is a syrupy trifle, and the intent is to leave not a dry eye in the house upon its completion. Thank heavens, then, for the formidable tear-jerking capabilities of one Jack Wagner.]
Song: A Friend In Need
[Sitting in a single spotlight, Max begins this song from his booth. The first verses are delivered directly to the audience]
Max:
Look over yonder, where Liz Parker has been shot
Sad times reflected by this melancholy scoring
But can I help her? My discretion tends toward "not"
But if she dies, I'll reign alone as "World's Most Boring"
I've never told her, but it's clear my life she's rocked
We've had so much darn fun, we've fostered an alliance
She always makes sure that the condiments are stocked
And back in school, we've shared twelve different labs of science
And if she were to live, would that just solve the quandary?
I cannot swear our plots would move with any speed
We're hypnotizing, like the spin of drying laundry
But how can I not act here, for my friend in need?
[Max stands and begins walking toward where Liz is downed]
What no one knows is that I've got a chance to help
Oh, just a touch, and I could stem the savage bleeding
And though charisma-wise she ranks just above kelp
Those darn "good guy" cliches I feel I must be heeding
[bridge]
Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth I go
To help would break a pact, but love for Liz is all I know
Pure reasoning gets clouded, in my mind are lights of strobe
But to help her is to risk that dreaded doctor's anal probe
[key change, and a marked orchestral swelling]
That anal proooooooooooobe!
[He breaks off in sobs, looking around desperately for an answer among the frozen patrons and their slowly-growing-cold mimed alien burgers and alien fries. He approaches Liz and kneels down before her. As he moves a hand toward her bleeding chest, it is suddenly grabbed and pulled back by a resurgent, freeze-breaking Michael. They engage in a brief duet, a version of "A Friend in Need," but it moves a little faster and the pulse is clearly more urgent.]
Michael:
Hey, what you doin', man, this isn't all in fun
These people see the deal, and for police they'll yell
Don't lay a hand on her, don't be the foolish one
If she's alive or dead, the difference can you tell?
Max, plaintively:
But! But, Michael! I . . . I LOVE HER!
[singing again]
So I will save her, in the process make her trust
That she could be all mine, our love could blossom, wow!
Michael:
Though maybe her idea of cultivating lust
Is lying lifeless and more stiff than she is now
[Max puts his hand over Liz's bleeding stomach and the lights go mental.]
Max:
I make this decision with knowing intent!
Not out of a sense of pious panic!
In doing so, I become content!
In knowing she isn't exactly dynamic!
[He presses down a little harder on her stomach, closes his eyes, and theatrically intones the spoken line.]
Max:
WAKE!!!
[As he says it, the lights all go on at once and the diner breaks into pandemonium. In the chaos, Max stands back from Liz, then turns around to spy Michael, who grabs his arm. The two run off stage left. Liz looks around, dazed. Maria sees her sitting up, and runs over to offer assistance as the rest of the crowd looks on, concerned. These lines are spoken.]
Liz:
Hello. What's this?
Maria:
Liz! Liz! Are you okay? I thought you were a goner!
Liz:
No, Maria. I'm fine. I feel -- strangely revitalized. Like nothing could be wrong.
Maria:
Why, Liz? Why? Tell me what happened?
[Now singing again, in a stirring reprise of "Shot in the Tummy with Love."]
Liz:
My heart smiles glad, not breathing hard, and sure stripped bare of metal shards
I think Max Evans saw inside, and my bland soul he won't deride
And though tomorrow needs some answers, in a splashy number filled with dancers
In my heart, his secret I'm shuttin', though a stranger made a bull's-eye of my bellybutton
'Cause I've been shot in the tummy
[All diner patrons move in toward Liz and join the building drama at the end of the song.]
All:
Yes, she's been shot in the tummy
Liz:
Yes, I've been
Shot in the tummy
With . . .
LOVE!!!
[Fireworks explode and the choir dances their way, Fosse-style, into their final positions of the scene. On the last chord, everyone falls to one knee, arms extended in an exaggerated jazz-hands style. They hold this pose through the applause. Curtain.]