Some have argued that this popular party game wasn’t meant to be made into a full-scale Broadway musical. We’ll soon find out if they’re right as Twister – book by Georgia St. Marie-Vance, music and lyrics by Carlotta Alvierro – enters its second week of tryouts at the Mulberry Theatre in Pittsburgh
The curtain rises on 36 actors who go by numbers instead of names, seated in a circle. Two at a time – then four, then six, etc. – they take to the giant game board painted with large circles of varying colors. The show winds down three hours later, after a breathtaking 42 different numbers.
That’s a lot of songs for one show – and while it may have worked somewhere else, the problem with a game-board show is that too many of the songs involve the same concept: Right Hand Purple, Left Foot Blue and Don’t Kick My Leg Off the Yellow sound pretty much the same, for instance.
There are exceptions: The lovely Sally Cloverland (Number 6) singing Hoping and Praying He Won’t Tumble – as she’s poised nervously under 300 pound Number 33. And Jerry Fillip (Number 22) singing the plaintive My Green’s Your Blue generated a few sniffles in the middle of the second act.
Word from the road: As their last two shows – Up from DesMoines and Mechanical Mary – closed after six and two performances, respectively, Alvierro and St. Marie-Vance desperately need a hit. Since so far no critics in Pittsburgh have been able to sit through an entire performance, this may not be it.
