Hula Hoop Sha-Boop
When I was in grade school, some of the biggest hits on pop radio spoke of paternity suits, what it was like to be a virgin “touched for the very first time” and the sound of doves crying. By the time I got to high school, pop radio was openly dealing with sex, anatomy and human aggression. It’s difficult for someone who grew-up in the 1980s and early 1990s to understand that there was a time when the pop music hit parade was overwhelmingly innocent.
Aside from a few dark songs like “Mack The Knife” (a song about murder), most of the music on the pop charts back then were the kind of innocent teen love songs that make it so easy to forget that the 1950s were anything but innocent. While intolerable amounts of racism and sexism were socially acceptable, pop radio asked, “Do you love me?” While the CIA was ramping up to do extremely malicious deeds overseas, pop radio asked, ”Do you want to dance?” As the cold war was building-up the military industrial complex, pop radio asked, “Why do fools fall in love?” The Milwaukee Rep returns to an age of pop-cultural innocence as it stages these songs and more in the Stackner Cabaret’s production of Hula Hoop Sha-Boop.
They may not have been the most poignant songs to come through the airwaves, but there was a real passion behind the hits of the 1950s, driven as they were by the emotional energy of jazz and blues. Much of that passion had been bleached and sanitized from the music by the time it made it to the recording studio and out over the airwaves, but it was still there. The music comes to the Stakcner cabaret with nearly all of its remaining soul drained from it. This is not to say that Hula Hoop Sha-Boop isn’t a great deal of fun. It is. Really.
Hula Hoop Sha-Boop is a deftly-weighted package of nostalgia balanced by a contemporary understanding of mid-century culture. The show opens with an audio mix that swiftly takes the audience from the present back to mid-century with brief, iconic sound bytes from every decade. Occasional glances are taken at the adult word beyond pop culture, the most savvy of which takes the audience through a performance of the “Duck and Cover” PR jingle – the U.S. government’s attempt to calm public fears of the threat of nuclear weapons. It’s easily the cleverest moment in the production.
The cast keeps up with the pace of the show and keeps things together. (Scott Rott’s costuming carries a great deal of weight as well.) Mo Brady looks perfect as the mid-20th century geek; he’s like Peter Parker with rhythm and a voice for musical theatre. Lenny Banovez slides through the production with charisma to spare, while Jane Noseworthy brilliantly captures the sweetness of ‘50s teen-dom with subtly exaggerated emotions that fit the production well. Kell Kunkel infuses the production with those few moments of verve that keep the music fresh in this fun trip to the cabaret. VS
The Milwaukee Rep’s production of Hula Hoop Sha-Boop runs through May 25 at the Stackner Cabaret. For more information, call the Rep box office at 414-224-9490 or visit the Rep online.
