Beach Blanket Babylon

Steve Silver's madcap cabaret musical is one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets -- not because no one knows about it, but because no one who lives in the city ever goes to it or knows how good it is. That's somewhat understandable given our lame selection of year-round plays, from the recently deceased haircutting whodunit at the Mason Street Theater to the trite Italian wedding that happens every blessed weekend at the Cable Car. But Beach Blanket Babylon is a spectacle to behold, even in its 28th year. It's the fairy-tale story of a naive Snow-White-from-San-Francisco (petite powerhouse Dani Marcus) who traipses across the world to find a man of her own, complaining that "available hot dudes are hard to find" in her home city. Along the way she meets a myriad of characters, including the bad boys of 'N Sync, Tina Turner in a 3-foot-high wig, a PG&E workman singing "Hello Darkness, my old friend," and the Clintons, with Hillary dressed as the Statue of Liberty singing "I Will Survive" and Bill donning a huge gray pompadour and red sequined disco jacket. The show is a compilation of old songs -- dozens of them, nearly back-to-back -- sung by a talented cast of Broadway-quality vocalists in outrageous costumes and larger-than-life headpieces (enormous trash cans, Christmas trees, and a model of the entire city). Babylon's seasonal extravaganza is essentially the regular show with a few dancing trees and Christmas songs at the conclusion. The only disappointing details of the affair are a few well-meaning but overdone ethnic stereotypes, like the garishly dressed, money-hungry Jewish mother and the loud, pizza-eating Italian waitress. Pop culture satire is at the heart of this hit show, and when the writers stick to that endeavor, it's tremendously funny.