Word: hpt
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...single-letter reversal that tries to provoke sexist tonsils into laughter--is tongue-in-cheek only because the tongue, if the image is complete, has no place else to go. But there's a connection between the two, homoeroticism and sexism, a connection that explains the traditions of the HPT. It goes back to an all-male Harvard, when men were cloistered and taught to enter into occupations and positions of power from which women were largely excluded...
There are other traditions in HPT shows too, aside from the singing, music, and dancing--incessant one-liners, salacious humor, satires of manners, silly word-play meant to elicit groans and hisses from the audience--traditions that tend to balance off the offensive stuff. And because director Judith Haskell has worked with writer Mark O'Donnell to excise some of the more offensive sexist jokes, because bits and pieces of the inoffensive material work quite well, and mostly because the music is excellent and some of the dancing is neatly executed, I suppose you should consider going to see Tots...
Most people don't have quite this perspective on the thing, which brings up the interesting question of why they go to Pudding Shows. It seems pitiful to spend money to see a show like HPT 126 Keep Your Pantheon, and this year's show, as HPT productions go, is good. But it's good within the tradition, and there is more to that tradition than just dressing up in drag--it also means wooden acting, amiable incompetence in the kicklines, slick p.r. (all that Man-of-the-Year stuff), and a certain alcoholic preppiness. There is also a tradition...
...BEEN a bad year for all the old values at Harvard, and the Hasty Pudding's HPT 122, The Boy Who Cried Beowulf, won't offer old alums much solace. Slipped into a somnolent winter between Fall and Spring campaigns. Beowulf has the bumps and grinds and the spangles and the "boobalas" of all its 121 predecessors, but there are, on balance more bumps than anything else...
...shaky in the opening scenes, but produces a particularly dazzling kick-line of glittering green "Grizzlies" toward the end of the first act. Beoeulf's costumes and sets produce the usual spectacular effects, but even with the rest of the show's occasional lifts, can't really pull HPT 122 out of the dumps...