Wade McCollum (center)
The new Off-Broadway musical Triassic Parq, which won Best Musical at the 2010 N.Y. Fringe, opened to mixed but generally positive reviews. The creative team includes Marshall Pailet (book, lyrics, music, direction), Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo (book, lyrics), Kyle Mullins (choreography), Zak Sandler (musical direction), Dina Perez (costumes), Caite Hevner (sets), Jen Schriever (lights), and Michael Mulligan (puppets). The cast includes Lindsay Nicole Chambers, Brandon Espinoza, Wade McCollum, Claire Neumann, Lee Seymour, Shelley Thomas, and Alex Wyse.
Jennifer Farrar (AP): This hilarious, raunchy satire, with witty book and lyrics by Destiny (Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Stephen Wargo), is loosely based on details from the 1990 book Jurassic Park. … Pailet’s direction is swift and sure, working with inventive choreography by Kyle Mullins and musical direction by Zak Sandler (Pianosaurus). The whole cast is terrific and energetic, colorfully costumed and prowling around the spooky, tropical-themed set. … The production team must be congratulated for creating the sounds and sights of a prehistoric jungle on a very small stage, with special kudos for the goat puppets. … This is one of the funniest psuedo-docudramas you’ll ever see, if you can hear it over the howls of laughter from the audience.
Eric Grode (N.Y. Times): Triassic Parq the Musical is overproduced and scattershot and a little bit desperate. It is also more than a little bit fun. This bawdy tribute to dinosaurs and their newfound genitalia doesn’t particularly make sense … but give the authors, Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Stephen Wargo, a little time. Their material eventually settles into a contentedly sophomoric vibe, happy to show off here and pander there. There are worse things than seeing clever people try too hard. … The score by Mr. Pailet has at least two power ballads too many, although it also boasts the least embarrassing hip-hop number within a conventional book musical in recent memory.
Andy Propst (Theater Mania): Musicals don’t get much goofier than Triassic Parq The Musical … the fitfully amusing show about what might prompt genetically engineered dinosaurs (which are part of an island similar to the one in Jurassic Park) to run amok on a carnage-filled spree. … While the jokes about T-Rex 2’s over-estimation of her phallus incite initial giggles, they eventually become strained, as does Pailet’s uneven rock-pastiche music. Fortunately, along with the company’s fine performances, Kyle Mullins’ cracking choreography, Caite Hevner’s exceptional environmental scenic design, Dina Perez’s consistently witty costumes, and Jen Schriever’s eye-popping lighting design come together to often turn Triassic Parq into a guilty summertime pleasure.
David Sheward (Back Stage): If you want the theatrical equivalent of a quick bite, Triassic Parq is as nutritious and forgettable as a bag of chips. … This mini-musical has a sorta-funny premise, a whip-smart cast, frenetic staging, and an acidic sense of humor. But it will vanish from your mind the minute you hit the pavement outside the SoHo Playhouse. … It’s all harmless fun, staged at a dizzying pace by Pailet, who also composed the rock-flavored score. He and choreographer Kyle Mullins economically deploy the seven-member cast around Caite Hevner’s theme-park setting as if they were a troupe of well-trained acrobats. … Like the show’s dinosaurs, you’ll find yourself gobbling up this spicy snack in one gulp, but you’ll be hungry again soon afterward.
Elisabeth Vincentelli (N.Y. Post): Proudly cheap production values: check. Gratuitous profanity and risqué material covering toothless irreverence: check. Humor so broad, you could fly a jumbo jet through it: check. … Triassic Parq and its dino-inspired characters keep trying, but the nonsensical musical should be put permanently in park. … The show has no inner logic. While anthropomorphization is the name of the game in this kind of project, the dinos still have to behave somewhat in character – they know that even in Ice Age. Raptors are mean predators, not sweet oafs who sing, “It’s a beautiful day to be a woman / It’s a beautiful day / To hug the things I love.” It’s enough to make you reconsider the theory of evolution. 1½ stars.