Here, in full, is the review of the Brain CD that just appeared on talkinbroadway's All That Chat:
Is the science fiction musical about beings from beyond landing on our planet, The Brain from Planet X, earth-shaking? Don't be silly. On second thought, please do. This good-spirited goofiness is very entertaining if you're willing to let yourself be swept up in it. The zest of the cast makes that easy. They seize their many comic moments in this broad parody but rarely oversell it. There is good stuff to work with here, and most of it works.
The new show affectionately sends up not only the excesses and clichés of stories about visitors from beyond but also musical styles. It's an off-kilter love letter to the old school musical comedy genre, and it sometimes winkingly does some self-referencing. The orchestrations by Larry Moore are a major source of enjoyment, very much on the same page as the material itself, having sparkle and splash. The delicious instrumental accents, flourishes and undercurrents dress things up and scream a love for the style of traditional, perky show tunes. Listen to a singer hold a note on a big finish while the band kicks and builds; the five-person band led by keyboardist Richard Berent is bright and spunky.
The song about tapping your brain becomes a cheery big company tap dance number called - what else? - "The Brain Tap." The plan for "The Plan" is to give us a number that works as a plot song and has spoken and sung lines (the giant free-floating Brain says, "You're giving me a headache and I don't even have a head"). Playing the actual Brain, Egbert Bernard nails the smug attitude and daffiness needed for the character.
The brains behind The Brain are Bruce Kimmel and David Wechter. They collaborated on the script (bits of cutely cornball dialogue are sprinkled throughout) and the two songs mentioned above. The rest of the score is the sole work of the comical Kimmel, who has produced many satisfying albums chock full of show tunes. He produced this one as well and directed the show in its premiere last December with students from the Theatre Academy at Los Angeles City College and guest professional artists.
"The World of Tomorrow" is a peppy pick-me-up that Kevin Spirtas knocks out of the ballpark, playing the wannabe inventor imagining the far off future year of 2007. Set in 1958, the piece is full of that era's sensibilities as well as the nonsense of the cheesiest old movies about flying saucers. Those UFO sightings allow the chorus to comment with straight-faced simplicity: "There are saucers in the sky/ And we really don't know why/ All we really know is that it can't be good." What is good is that when the spacecrafts land, so do the jokes.
The aliens have a strong desire to take over the world as we know it - but wouldn't you know it, they also have strong desires of a sexual nature. The female and male aliens (Alet Taylor and Cason Murphy) both find more than a passing attraction to the males they encounter while visiting our planet, resulting in two well-done showstoppers. "I Need an Earthman" (her solo) and "All About Men" (his) are both boisterously bawdy, providing some vamping amidst the camping. There are other references to various characters' sex lives (or, mostly, the lack thereof) that are endearing more than leering, so The Brain from Planet X is only rated "X" for X-tremely funny.
