Whoop-Dee-Doo!

Whoop-Dee-Doo!is an old-fashioned musical revue ... with a difference. Instead of "Three Little Maids," gangly impresariette Howard Crabtree and his troupe of sexy-legged "showgirls" give us three giant flies, singing "Stuck on You" against a piece of flypaper, imaginatively interpreted in Bruce Walters' scenic design as an oversize pant zipper. Rather than the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," Whoop-Dee-Doo! begets a sketch titled "Tough to Be a Fairy" featuring two hairy blokes in jumpsuits waving wands and exchanging gossip about the Tooth Fairy and Tinkerbell. Although passionately performed, the content feels uneven in places: For instance, the intermittent sequences in which Crabtree fends off criticism about everything from the costumes to the state of the backstage bathrooms from his kvetching colleague, Birdie-Bob Watt (standing in for Trauma Flintstone on the night I was there), feel hackneyed and overlabored; the same goes for the politically sophomoric sendup of the first lady in the extended musical sketch "Laura." In other words, the show's flamboyant exploitation of the artistic premise that "less is more" could beneficially be taken at face value every now and again. Nevertheless, the production makes heads and hearts spin with its dazzling array of gorgeously costumed frolics and crotch.