The cast of Suds: The Rocking ‘60s Musical Soap Opera, which played the Clayton Center May 5th, formed a new Fab Four to deliver classic rock songs and earned a standing ovation from the Friday night audience. Created and written by Melinda Gilb, Steve Gunderson, and Bryan Scott, Suds is set in a laundromat, and directed with great gusto by Gunderson, who also served as musical and vocal arranger for the show.
Bonnie Johnson starred as Cindy, the chirpy but harried Laundromat attendant and fluff-and-fold girl and a young lady profoundly unlucky in love. Catherine Randazzo and especially Kyle Ennis Turoff provided lots and lots of laughs as Cindy’s eternally bickering guardian angels Dee Dee and Marge, respectively; but Steven Flaa stole the show with his cheeky, rubber-legged comic characterizations of Mr. Postman, a Washer Repairman, a dingbat customer named Mrs. Halo, the proverbial Mr. Right, and teen heartthrob Johnny Angel. Flaa’s mugging and his Monty Python-like funny walks brought the house down.
The songs that Gilb, Gunderson, and Scott brilliantly incorporated into the action included several Burt Bacharach hits (“[There’s] Always Something There to Remind Me,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Baby It’s You,” “Don’t Make Me Over,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Walk on By”), plus selected ditties by James Brown (“I Got You [I Feel Good]”), the Young Rascals (“How Can I Be Sure”), etc.
Suds, which was the last show of the Clayton Center’s 2005-06, ended the facility’s season on a very high note indeed, much to the delight of ticket-buyers who gave the show a well-deserved standing ovation.
The Clayton Center: http://www.theclaytoncenter.com/. Suds: http://www.sudsontheroad.com/ [inactive 6/06].
