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New
Yorkers sure do love to slum it. We love
ourselves some trash food, and especially
when it comes with a Southern accent. A kind
of hypnosis overtakes us when Southern
people open their mouths – and before long,
we’re thinking pork rinds and chess pie
might be just what we’ve been missing. All
of which the very smart and sassy
off-Broadway musical The Great American
Trailer Park Musical knows too. You put
three blonde and buxom women in lawn chairs
facing an audience – and soon as they open
their mouths, they know you’re going to
listen to every sordid detail. Furthermore,
we’re talking trailer park in Florida – a
state which, as everyone now realizes,
provides the same opportunity for national
soul-searching once held by West Virginia.
With characters named Linoleum, Pickles,
Norbert and Pippi, and musical numbers
titled “This Side of the Tracks,” “It
Doesn’t Take A Genius,” and “That’s Why I
Love My Man,” The Great American Trailer
Park Musical satisfies some of the same
cravings previously sated in years past by
theatrical vehicles such as Greater Tuna and
its siblings. Moreover, this cast can sing,
and particularly Linda Hart, Orfeh, and
Kaitlin Hopkins, all three of whom raise the
roof on this trailer park, while Leslie
Kritzer gives a gut-busting comedic
performance in the role of Pickles, surely
the dumbest blonde ever in a region where
dumb is a birthright. By the show’s end, a
life-affirming inspirational titled “(Make
Like a Nail) And Press On,” not only does
The Great American Trailer Park Musical
provide yet another example of the plethora
of talent congregating in New York, but this
show reminds us there ain’t nothing like the
South when you want good dirt.
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