It's not necessary to buy into that convoluted premise to enjoy "Forever Plaid" as presented by the Stice-McRoberts Group at the Hula Hut.
Where? Anyone who remembers Waikiki in the mid-1970s knows the Hula Hut from its heyday as the Spencecliff nightclub showcase of Natural High (one of the greatest local Top 40 bands of the era). Except for short engagements by Dick Jensen and Don Ho there hasn't been anything of much interest to residents there since.
Not until "Forever Plaid." The room was comfortably full last Saturday.
Robert Larson (Jinx), James Pestana (Sparky), Andrew Sakaguchi (Smudge) and John Wong (Frankie) do excellent work as the group. They work together so smoothly that it's hard to believe "Plaid" opened last month with a lame duck cast; Larson's predecessor had already announced he was leaving.
Larson took over only recently but fits in perfectly. Sakaguchi and Wong are super. The multi-faceted Pestana is delightful as always. The quartet couldn't be better in getting the most out of an entertaining but problematic show.
The problem? Like some of the other popular shows purporting to celebrate the music of the 1950s or '60s there's a presumption here that the music doesn't have enough substance in and of itself to entertain a contemporary audience. The music and memories must be patronized and played for laughs.
Thus the "we're dead" premise. Thus the gawkish, geeky, nerdish characters. Jinx gets sudden nosebleeds. Smudge has a queasy stomach. Sparky has to write the lyrics for his big number on his hand. Even after years of singing at family parties and supermarket openings these guys are so lacking in talent and stage skills that they're almost lucky they died before they realized how bad they were.
One clueless Plaid reads with pride a critic's comment that "This group's sound is to contemporary music as Formica is to marble." They considered it a compliment!
The number that best transcends sitcom comedy is an early Beatles hit, "She Loves You," sung in a pop vocal group arrangement. It's a tantalizing hint of what Ross and arranger James Raitt could have done.
But who'd be interested in a straight retrospective on the music of white pop vocal groups like the Four Aces, the Four Lads, the Four Freshmen and the infamous Crew Cuts anyway?
Stice-McRoberts' "Plaid" hits its intended audience dead-on because Larson, Pestana, Sakaguchi and Wong are exceptionally good at playing nerds whose desire to sing overcomes all.
It takes tremendous talent to play "bad." Larson stops the show with a perfectly overwrought rendition of "Cry." Few people under 50 are likely to remember Johnnie Ray but he comes reasonably close even without adding Ray's trademark hearing aid.
Sakaguchi stars in a strictly for laughs blending of "Sixteen Tons" and "Chain Gang."
The four klutzes eventually do things that would far exceed such a group's capabilities in real life. An expansive spoof of "The Ed Sullivan Show" is a blockbuster production number.
Another clever segment finds the Plaids reminiscing about the days when they'd rehearse with plumbers' helpers as a substitute for microphones.
The finale is sheer "show biz." It's impossible to not celebrate with the quartet as they finally get their plaid dinner jackets and achieve their dreams singing a beautiful rendition of "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing."
Musical director Emmett Yoshioka adds "actor" to his resume playing a union pianist who abruptly leaves the group stranded in mid-show to take the break authorized in his union contract. Bassist Ryan Hotoke completes the cast.
What: "Forever Plaid"