Silence! The musical

I saw Silence the Musical last night and I can honestly say it was one of the most clever, funniest and well-performed theatrical productions I've ever seen.

The entire cast sang and danced their hearts out and were hysterically funny.

David Garrison who plays Hannibal Lecter has a tremedous singing voice....such a departure from his Married With Children role.

Jenn Harris (playing Clarice Starling) could be the Carol Burnett of her generation. She breaks Randy up and he, like Harvey Korman, knows how to blend cracking up into his part.

She also does a bit toward the end where she has a cell phone conversation with Howard Kaye who was playing her FBI boss Jack Crawford. They were standing at opposite ends of the stage, facing the audience and Kaye had all he could do from laughing out loud at her ad libbing, before he could deliver his line.

Besides the arrogant, egotistical and lascivious, Dr. Chilton, Randy played various roles as part of the "Lamb" chorus....an FBI Academy trainee, a country deputy sheriff, a limping old man bundled up in a cap and woolen coat, a geeky, nerdy expert on insects (looking and sounding like Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor) a cowboy, a SWAT team cop, One of Lector's red neck dumb as a post guards and many more..

His solo song as Chilton, "Baltimore is a Great Place" was a show stopper, highlighting his singing, dancing and comedic talents. As Chilton he wore a tan polyester sports coat, a wide blue and yellow striped tie and sported an outrageous black wig that deliberately styled to look like a bad toupee'. The amazing thing about seeing him with black hair is that it made his eyes even bluer.

His face to face meeting with Lecter was very funny as he strutted around the room sneering and trying to intimidate Lecter while clicking his ball point pen and laying it down on the table in front of Hannibal, all but inviting him to use it as a means of escape (which Lecter eventually does).

The dancing and singing lambs were like a Greek Chorus, explaining things and commenting on the main action.

Each dance number was a well-performed parody of the various dance "types" one would see big Broadway musicals, including a Bob Fosse inspired routine with all the lambs sporting bowler hats.

They also did an "Oklahoma" type cowboy dance-- the most energetic one and my favorite number in the whole show. A friend of mine who saw the show and is more of an expert on dance than I am described it as follows: "... 4 kicks as they leapt from foot to foot and then the 4 gallops sideways (and then the same step reversed to the other side)” Randy was amazing to watch doing this routine.

Every one of the dancers were great, but watching Randy was an extra special treat because it is something we don't get to see him do that often.

His facial expressions and comic timing also exhibited that he can really play the clown and play it well.

Unfortunately both he and Jenn did not come out to the bar afterwards with the other cast members and we were told that they both rushed out right after the show as they both had a commitment to be somewhere.

All in all, a fun evening.