Word: misbehavin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After a snappy opening number introduces Saint Misbehavin' Hospital-"If you're stricken with psoriasis/ We might think it's leprosy/ But in the final analysis/ Saint M's the place to be"-the action lags a bit. A too-complicated sequence establishes that the hospital's chief of staff, Dr. Xavier Lyfe (John Claflin), is keeping a mistress in the hospital at government expense...
LAST night's opening of Hasty Pudding Theatrical #140, Saint Misbehavin,' delivered just what the audience wanted most. The champagne flowed, and anybody who couldn't be spotted in the lobby between acts just wasn't somebody you really wanted to talk to anyway. All that-and the show was a good one besides...
...Saint Misbehavin' is jam-packed with good lyrics-maybe too jam-packed with good lyrics. It's difficult to say, because in many instances so many words are squeezed onto each measure of music that whatever is being said on stage disintegrates by the time it reaches the audience. This mattered less on opening night, when there was a fair bit of screaming by roommates in the audience, than it might on night two, three or 26. In the Pudding's tradition, however, one pun begets another...
These are real groaners, which is to say, exactly what Pudding audiences are after. Unfortunately, Saint Misbehavin' doesn't deliver the inside Harvard humor of past theatricals. The obligatory Wellesley gag-which I wouldn't give away if it weren't so lame-comes when the evil Nurse Dwyer threatens to send Emmanuelle Leighbor (Carl "B.J." Fox)-the subtly played, airheaded nurse who elsewhere calls flowers "the most beautiful things on God's earth"-back to a certain Route 30 finishing school...
THIS YEAR'S show no doubt will be well-remembered. The older Old Boys on hand last night were calling it "good fun" and other such things. They seemed pretty sincere over champagne cocktails during intermission when they said Saint Misbehavin' was one of the best Pudding shows in a while. It's unquestionably a return to tradition after the theatricals attempt at innovation last year...