Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical
Min Kahng (Book, Music & Lyrics)
TheaterWorks Silicon Valley, in Co-Production with Center Repertory Company
Reminiscent of Sondheim’s Passion, the musical now in its world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley also opens in the midst of a hot, bedroom scene of lovemaking, with arms and bodies intertwined amidst much heavy breathing and grunting. But in this case, the entangled lovers are clearly somewhere in their twilight years; and as they struggle to get out of bed, the male, Edgar, collapses in an apparent heart-attack, dying apparently of too much of a good thing. Seventy-year-old June is of course shocked and dismayed, even the more so since this is the second fellow resident at the 55-and-up independent living community who has recently faced his demise in her bed.
Whether the increasing extinction of elderly males at Happy Pleasant Valley is an under-the-sheet coincidence or something more sinister is not yet clear; but in the meantime, June is facing eviction for her sexual “prowess.” June — a diehard fan of amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote — is sure that something is amiss and that there is a murderer on the loose on the premises. It is up to her to clear her reputation as the one who “kills men with my vagina,” rooting out the real killer among the other, sexually active and adventurous residents of HPV.
As Sherlock Holmes would say, “The game is afoot.” In a co-production with Center Repertory Company, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley opens the world premiere of a riotous, risqué musical like none other ever staged there or anywhere else, Min Kahng’s Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical. Just the title itself is enough to draw a chuckle or two; but in only a few minutes, audience laughter is loud and constant as a humping line-up of seniors bump their buns, singing, “Aging doesn’t equal getting spayed, so the Happy Pleasant Valley seniors are getting laid.” After all, “Sex is just another option on our rec room shelf,” and “you’ve gotta get what you want before the getting’s gone,” at Happy Pleasant Valley.
For the rest of my review, please continue to Talkin’Broadway.
Rating: 4.5 E
A Theater Eddys Best Bet Production
Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical continues in a two-hour, thirty-five-minute (plus intermission) world premiere production by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (in co-production with Center Repertory Company) at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road Palo Alto CA.
Photo Credit: Kevin Berne
Leave a Reply