Word: minimality
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This "musical entertainment" came to life in that country in 1962 and has wandered around Europe and the United States ever since, presumably to keep from going home. Now the eight performers and 32 musical instruments that comprise Wait a Minim have settled down at the Colonial for a short spell. The lengthy tour has not affected the show's vitality...
Like most revues that have pleased Broadway recently, Wait a Minim is not American and not strictly a revue. Ten years ago. La Plume de ma Tante, a French non-revue with a Hellzapoppin heart, zipped through its evenings on a series of musical numbers that somehow fell apart before they ever could get started. Coming a little later, England's Beyond the Fringe had little music and a lot of satire. Wait a Minim, standing somewhere between its predecessors, has its own hybrid identity. While the collapsing songs of Plume abound, so do jeering sketches, and, in a throwback...
...sentence catalogue of its contents does not do Wait a Minim justice. What makes its 21/2 hour running-time seem one-tenth as long as the uninhibited zaniness that keeps the performers flying through their material. They do everything and anything. In one sketch, medieval knights running around in cloaks bearing the peace symbol suddenly break into a ludicrous song about a chastity belt. Ten minutes later a thumping South African chant turns into a wild dance accompanied by a myriad of homemade instruments. When they aren't singing, the company takes turns playing whites and blacks shooting each other...
Whenever they can, the singers of Wait a Minim sneak on stage to express their musical thoughts about love or hate or anything else that happens to strike their fancy. Michel Martel clowns around, but also finds time to display a voice that can find its place in any octave. Helen Ireland, throaty and soothing, and Nigel Pegram, quiet and cynical, handle the familiar folk songs with an unfamiliar sense of style...
...eyes. The eyes are part of a body which also seems to throw off a few sparks from time to time. Whatever she is doing, Miss Olrich always manages to look very nice. Taking her into consideration, you might want to sit downstairs and up close for Wait a Minim...