Hootchy-Koo

By T.E. Kalem

TIMBUKTU!

Directed, Choreographed

and Costumed by Geoffrey Holder

Almost everyone has heard of zero population growth and zero-base budgeting. To judge by last month's On the Twentieth Century and last week's Timbuktu! Broadway is rapidly nearing ZQM--zero quality musicals.

One problem is that Broadway scarcely ever engenders a totally new musical these days. It rehashes old ones or injects old plays with songs and dances. The most popular recent marketing device is to turn originally all-white musicals into all-black musicals. In the current instance the show is based on Kismet, and the locale has been changed from Baghdad to Africa, though the basic beat and mood of the musical are Caribbean. That is not too surprising, since Director-Choreogra-pher-Costumer Geoffrey Holder was born in Trinidad.

Holder throws bolts and bolts of gaudy cloth over a production, possibly to hide its flaws. With The Wiz it worked, since the show had a story line that could be playfully transposed to a jazzy urban-ghetto setting. But Kismet was a fable, and fables are too fragile for Holder's broad, jumping, visceral style.

Even the real 1953 Kismet probably could not stand up in 1978. A simple damsel (Melba Moore) with a poetic thief for a father (Ira Hawkins) ascends, through incredible accidents, to become the bride of the king of the realm (Gilbert Price) despite the machinations of the Wazir

(George Bell) and his concupiscent Wife of Wives (Eartha Kitt). Give Kitt credit for delivering sexily insinuative lines with the mocking irony of Mae West.

Despite Baubles, Bangles and Beads and Stranger in Paradise, the voices are notable only for amplification. At any moment, the drums bursting in the orchestra are probably in one's ears. Except for a rather lyrical mating dance done in beautifully evocative bird costumes by Eleanor McCoy and Miguel Godreau, the choreography is basic hootchy-kootchy.

The undress is almost more spectacular than the dress. A stunningly lovely female chorus line visibly advances the cause of the see-through top, and the virile, muscular men may restore to fashion the jeweled codpiece.

--T.E. Kalem

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