Poseidon! An Upside-Down Musical

CAPSIZE FITS ALL Czaplewski, left, and Kimbrough come up for air.

Photo: Rick Aguilar

As ardent, costumed fans gather for their annual New Year’s Eve viewing of the gloriously histrionic 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, one of them complains that the 2006 remake (the one starring Kurt Russell and tons of CGI) lacks heart. By contrast, Hell in a Handbag’s remount of its 2002 hit parody musical is unexpectedly satisfying, more than a campy homage.

Beneath the surface of Gunnels’s clever staging of the ocean liner’s fatal capsizing, there’s some earnest, solid musical theater. Writer-composer Cerda’s songs spring from some of the movie’s most memorable lines—“(In the Water) I’m a Very Skinny Lady” and the peerless “Just Panties (What Else Do I Need?)” among them—and the cast sings and dances the hell out of them with relish, all the while nailing the film’s characters. Michael Hampton and Trista Smith riotously re-create Ernest Borgnine’s blustery cop and Stella Stevens’s brassy ex-hooker wife; Ed Jones’s blank-eyed turn as ditzy, knee-booted lounge singer Nonnie and Steve Kimbrough as Shelley Winters’s portly, heroic Belle are gut-busting, while Derek Czaplewski gives Gene Hackman’s Reverend Scott a gleefully egotistical twist.

All of this fun, though, is somewhat hampered by the production’s split focus. Transitions between the framework of the TPA fans “watching” the movie and the parody itself are murky; a trio of soliloquies, while heartfelt, awkwardly halt the momentum; and both acts end abruptly. Although the production strains to make a metaphor of the ragtag survivors’ climb up through the sinking ship, this musical is nonetheless an enjoyable, charming disaster.

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