Fool me twice

During the 1950s and ’60s, Harvard-educated mathemetician Tom Lehrer generated a repertoire of quirky, satirical ballads. Lehrer’s ouevre is a staple of the Dr. Demento radio show and, whether you know it or not, you’ve likely heard one or two of his songs.

Tomfoolery is a music hall-style revue with 30 of Lehrer’s best-known songs. It’s an enjoyable presentation, led by five charismatic performers, including musical director and pianist Matt Insley, who plays two keyboards and provides enjoyable commentary on the onstage proceedings with his on-point facial expressions and occasional tantrums.

The cast of four singers is perfect, too. Margo Schembre plays everything from a blushing schoolgirl to a dominatrix to a perverted nun and uses her powerful, versatile voice to full effect. Nathan Dunkin, looking particularly dapper in a gold vest, is hysterical as a deranged bartender and a Southern belle.

Russ Cowan, the oldest member of the cast, is likewise able to cover a variety of roles, from racist Southern plantation owner reminiscing about “whuppin’ slaves and sellin’ cotton” to a Boy Scout leader distributing condoms while admonishing his pot-smoking young charges to “be prepared.”

James Sharinghousen, though, steals the spotlight, both literally and figuratively. A high point of the production is his rendition of “My Home Town”—an ode to a place where math teachers sell pornography after school, ex-girlfriends have become hookers and the mayor’s son is a serial arsonist. Another excellent moment is his recitation of the periodic table of the elements, performed impeccably at an impossible speed.

Overall, the production moves at a good pace, although some songs could have been trimmed to shorten the running time. A Sesame Street-style song about “Silent E” is an obvious candidate for culling, as is a song about pollution in American cities. Lehrer wrote most of his songs between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Vietnam War, and some of the social issues he explores (such as the proliferation of nuclear weaponry) are more mainstream than they were when Lehrer was first drawing attention to them through popular music.

Lehrer’s music easily lends itself to updating or modifying for a particular audience. Lake Oswego is a frequent punch line in this production of Tomfoolery, but the performance could have benefited from some more general updates. The song “Folk Song Army,” which pokes fun at flower children and the canonization of musicians like Bob Dylan (“If you feel dissatisfaction / Strum your frustrations away / Some people may prefer action / But give me a folk song any old day”), would have been far more devastating had it targeted more current armchair activism trends, like Facebook “causes.”

The majority of Lehrer’s music has aged well, though. “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” (about an afternoon spent feeding pigeons cyanide and strychnine) is hysterical even 50 years later, as is the graphic “Masochism Tango.” Both of these songs are even funnier as duets. Tomfoolery is a thoroughly enjoyable show and bodes well for Public Playhouse’s comedy-themed season.