Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: The perennial castaways retain their dopey appeal Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 15:07:56 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE \SS (WS) \HD The perennial castaways retain their dopey appeal \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT CHICAGO CHICAGO - Now sit right back and you'll hear a tale, only this time with singing and dancing. "Gilligan's Island: The Musical" opened last week as a dopily appealing stage show with everything the television series had, and more. "This is a big, original musical work," says Sherwood Schwartz, who created the "Gilligan's Island" TV series and produced and co-wrote the musical version with his son, Lloyd. The expensive-looking production features 16 songs by Hope and Laurence Juber, choreography and special effects, a seven-piece band and an elaborate tropical-island set that extends into the lobby of the 400-seat Organic Theater. The goings-on include a spaceship landing, a rocket launch and a hurricane. But the premise and cartoonish castaways - "seven of the best-known characters in American history," Mr. Schwartz says - are identical to those of the TV sitcom, which aired on CBS from 1963 to 1967 and in reruns ever since. The setup: a charter boat out of Hawaii is shipwrecked on an uncharted island. The five passengers - a rich man and his wife, a starstruck actress, a brainy professor and a sweet Kansas farm girl - are marooned along with the blustery skipper and his dimwitted first mate, Gilligan, who fouls up every rescue scheme with his incessant bumbling. Cast members were chosen for their physical resemblance to the TV actors, although they are not trying to mimic the originals. "It's sort of a tightrope act," director Steve Rothman says. "You've got to give the audience a sense that that is Gilligan, that is the Skipper, yet you want to let the actors create their own take on those characters." Critical reaction so far has been lukewarm. " 'Gilligan's Island,' the new musical based on the old TV series, is neither as bad as it might have been nor as much fun as one wants it to be," Richard Christiansen wrote in the Chicago Tribune. "Instead, it's a mildly amusing diversion, not without its simple-minded pleasures but lacking the spark that could have turned it into a high-class, low-rent show." Cathryn Hartt, who plays sexy movie star Ginger, says it's difficult to take seriously a show this dumb. "It's the most fun show I've ever done," she says. "It reminds me of why I became an actress in the first place." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM