I Love Lucy, I Love Lucy Live" has taken on its toughest audience: San Francisco. While "Lucy" has always been a favorite among the GLBT audience, it also was a show with universal appeal and is still viewed by millions of people every day.
According to Wikipedia, "I Love Lucy" is the one show that has run continuously since it first aired in the 1950s. It currently plays on three networks accessible to the Bay Area and of course is broadcast in many other countries as well on a daily basis.
Bringing the popular show to San Francisco has a few obstacles. First, you will have a theatre full of fans that likely can act-out the entire show because they have become very familiar with it. Additionally, in San Francisco, we've had drag queens remounting several popular sitcoms like "Sex and the City." So how will "Lucy" fare playing it straight?
The answer is...very well.
"I Love Lucy Live" is more than performing episodes in front of a studio audience. It takes the audience back to the 1950s and the Desilu Playhouse, making us feel like we're at a live TV taping. There are cameramen, live commercials, on-stage flubs and even an audience participation moment. When you are watching "Lucy," you are at the CBS Television Studio and get to see how a TV show was made back in the 1950s, complete with Brylcreem commercials. (Even though I thought it would have been funny if they did Phillip Morris commercial and smoked through the show - but that might have caused today's audience to complain about the smoke.)
The live "Lucy" is a real hoot. Director Rick Sparks' first smart move was to pick episodes that aren't so engrained into society. Sure, seeing the chocolate factory or grape stomping would have been fun. But those iconic episodes would cause the audience to compare them to the popular original and no matter how hard they try, they would fail. After all, there was only one Lucy.
So the live version includes fun but less known episodes: "The Benefit" and "Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined." We still get to hear Lucy whine, Ricky tell her she's got some "splainin" to do and Ethel getting stuck in the back end of a horse costume. Also, there is also a lot of physical slapstick humor, which keep the show full of energy. Maybe there's no scenes of burning her fake nose in front of William Holden but the evening had no shortage of laughter.
Thea Brooks as Lucy has the biggest shoes to fill and does so very well. She's funny and has good comedic delivery and she reigns in her performance just enough so she doesn't appear too mimicky. Kevin Remington and Lori Hammel as Fred and Ethel are also a talented duo, even though they don't make me think that the Mertzes have come back to life. But fun and supportive none-the-less.
The ensemble is also great at playing the many supporting parts and doing the commercials. Richard Strimer has a great dance moment in the "Eyes" episode as he jitterbugs with Lucy and Carlos Martin as the eye doctor does a perfect imitation and re-creation of character actor Frank Nelson, who guest starred as different characters in 11 episodes of the series (yet he wasn't in the "Eyes" episode.)
But the real find here is Euriamis Losada as Ricky. He's better looking and more talented than Desi Arnaz. He is truly a delight and mesmerizing. He keeps the bar high on the comedic level and still is very suave as the sexy band leader with his singing and playing the bongos. He too is from Cuba as was Arnaz and truly has put his stamp in the role.
While "Lucy" has universal appeal - gay, straight, adults, children - but this production has given the show the added delight of the wonderful Losada, whose great looks and deadpan delivery make one love Ricky as much as, if not more, than Lucy.
