News from AmericanTheater Web: Golf Sinks Hilariously Into the Cup

From the American Theatre Web, December 1, 2003. By Andy Propst.

It’s safe to say that I walked into Golf: The Musical with a healthy level of skepticism about who enjoyable the evening would be. I mean, after all, how can one fashion an 18 song revue out of the sport? Composer-lyricist Michael Roberts, director Christopher Scott and the four-member company of Golf obviously know a thing or two more than I do though and have fashioned a thoroughly delightful two-hour revue; one that revels in humor that might be considered that of a retro variety show and cunningly draws the audience in, until the hilarity of the subject seems unbearably apparent.

Roberts anticipates the potential resistance to the idea of a golf revue, and addresses it with the show’s first number "A Show About Golf"; which gives a Letterman-like top ten reasons for why such a theater piece is necessary. After this, the sport, current events, and the mythology of golfers (historical and stereotypical) are all open season.

Highlights of the evening include an ode to the official color of the game, "Plaid"; a comedy song in the style of 1920s and 1930s topical revues, "Let’s Bring Golf to the Gulf"; and a mock Irish ballad extolling the pleasures to be found while golfing, "The Beautiful Time."

Helping to put the material over the top (or into the cup) is the talented quartet of performers who zanily work their way into the audience’s good graces. Sal Viviano and Joel Blum do terrific impressions of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in a suitably dated (and yet painfully funny) road movie parody. Trisha Rapier shines in both a woman golfer’s lament about the fame afforded to women in other sports and a housewife’s anguished torch song in which she fears "My Husband is Playing Around."

Christopher Sutton leads the company in a rousing gospel paean to Tiger Woods, and feyly cavorts around James Joughin’s astroturfed stage, which delightfully resembles what one might find in a tacky country club. Costume designer Bernard Grenier revels in having the chance to mismatch plaids, and use fabrics dyed colors found anywhere but in nature, heightening the good-natured satire of Golf.