NY Review: 'The Apocalyptic Road Show With Your Hosts Gdjet and Lulu'

The question of whether anyone in today's world can genuinely be said to be ready for judgment day or claim to have lived a truly good life sits at the center of playwright John Clancy and composer Tim Brinkurst's satiric revue "The Apocalyptic Road Show With Your Hosts Gdjet and Lulu." And by the time this enjoyable but uneven theatrical amuse bouche has traversed the course of its 65-minute runtime, even the most saintly theatergoer will be considering some of the tiniest choices that he or she makes in everyday life.

Clancy has imagined that two semi-faded performers—the ever-so-British Gdjet (Catherine Gillard) and the slightly ditzy yet incredibly earnest Lulu (Nancy Walsh)—have gotten word that the end of the world is at hand. Before it comes they want to make sure they're ready for it—in song and story. In doing so, they hope that they can also prepare their audience—seated at capacious cabaret tables in this gently environmental production from director Peter Clerke—for the doom so close at hand.

It's an amusing premise, and when Clancy's sharp writing comes to the fore the show proves to be surprisingly funny and cuttingly thought-provoking. Particularly successful are the moments when the performers are interrogated by an unseen man—sounding just a bit like Zach in "A Chorus Line"—about the lives they've led. It's incredibly funny to watch the women attempt to provide the "right" answers to questions about the sort of charity work they might have performed, their families (the interviewer is astonished when Lulu responds that her children were not adopted), and the sort of places they lived.

The show also brings the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the stage through a quartet of monologues that recast the ills they bring to earth in contemporary terms. Clancy's vision of Pestilence, who's "the 1 percent of the 1 percent," is particularly funny, while his writing for War zings with anger. Other sketches—such as the "Apocalyptic Award Show," where the prize for Greatest Mass Murderer is being handed out—can also induce giggles, as well as a few winces.

Unfortunately, Brinkhurst's songs are less successful. Generally, the numbers announce a joke at their onset and then reiterate it ad infinitum, to progressively wearying effect. Thankfully, Brinkhurst has a unique ear for melody and can, for instance, synthesize the minor shifts of a Kurt Weill–type tune with electronica.

Gillard and Walsh deliver the material with mock amateurish élan, and though the show would benefit from some tweaking, theatergoers will most likely find themselves thinking that "The Apocalyptic Road Show" would be a perfectly acceptable way to while away their final moments on earth, even as they question how they might change their ways before that time comes.

Presented by Clancy Productions, in association with the Occasional Cabaret, as part of Ice Factory 2012 at New Ohio Theatre, 154 Christopher St., NYC. July 25–28. Wed.–Sat., 7 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.