Our first review from reviewplays.com:
After weeks of anticipation, the world premiere of The Brain From Planet X finally made its appearance at the El Camino Theatre at Los Angeles City College, wreaking havoc and leaving dozens of bodies on the floor from people who succumbed to its laughter induced fits and knee jerk slaps.
First written in the late 1980's by Bruce Kimmel (click here for our interview with Bruce), the collaborative effort with co-writer David Wechter has morphed into a science fiction musical that is very short on science, very long on fiction and wonderfully rich with music. It's also a little raunchy, a little baudy, a lot sexy and a merciless spoof of the great bad sci-fi films of the '50's and the '60's.
From the opening number (The Brain from Planet X) sung by the narrator and the company to the closing Finale the almost non-stop music advances the plot that would have us believe that a gigantic brain has made an expedition to the earth of 1958 with the evil plan of taking over the world, because the inhabitants of Planet X are convinced the earthlings are "Stupid!".
The brain and its stooges, Yoni and Zubrick, have a "Will Bender" ray gun with which they hope to control the entire population. One zap and the person is in their control. Their first stop is the heartland of the American landscape - The San Fernando Valley, and their first victims are Fred and Joyce, an amalgamation of Ozzie and Harriet, Lucy and Ricky, Jim and Margaret Anderson and every other TV cutesy couple of the era.
The U.S. Army gets involved vowing to destroy the brain, ignoring the pleas of Professor Leder who believes there is much to learn from the aliens. With Army characters named General Mills and his aide Private Parts, you kind of know they won't be too successful. In spite of their bumbling, true to every great literary masterpiece, good triumphs over evil, although we won't tell you how.
We can say that the cast is absolutely great, even if they are so much over the top they almost float next to the little space ship that sometimes glides across the stage. Kevin Spirtas put on his nerdy mantle to become inventor Fred, a model 1958 husband with his dutiful wife Joyce believably played by Lauren Rubin. Merrill Grant nails the role of horny teen-age daughter Donna, who in turn is nailed by beat generation wanna-be poet Rod, played by Grady Williams, man. Benjamin Clark is great as the Narrator who opens the show, later doubling as the Professor. Michael Hausner and Efrčn Sanchez play the General and the Private and Egbert Bernard is assigned the role of Brain. The guy has to schlep the massive glob over his head for the two hours plus - and even sings and dances with it. If the Ovations had a category - Best Performance by a Brain - Egbert would walk off with it.
One of the Brain's stooges is Yoni, played by the architecturally endowed Alet Taylor. Yoni discovers the pleasures of the flesh and proceeds to indulge at every possible chance with any man around. She even out-"horny's" Donna, and those familiar the the hormonal drive of a teen-ager will appreciate her effort. Her opposite number Zubrick is by far the best character in the play. The gifted Cason Murphy takes complete ownership of the role, and creates a character that is chaotic, zany and often bumbling, but always fiercely loyal to the cause - even if he doesn't understand it. Murphy's rubber face shows priceless expressions even when he brings up a member of the audience on stage for a little interactive shtick, discovering it's Dr. Steve Maradian, College President. Good thing Cason Murphy went into acting instead of crime; if the way he steals the show is any indication, imagine what a threat he could be to society.
Aided by imaginative and fluid retro sets by Kevin Morrisey the production shimmers with "big time" touches and one would be hard pressed to realize that most of the cast and crew is made up of LACC Theatre Academy students. The five piece band (often sounding much bigger) is led by Richard Berent (on keyboards) and includes Shannon Ford on drums and percussion, Daniel Fabricani on bass, Matthew Smedal on keyboards and Kurt Festinger on reeds. The orchestrations are by Larry Moore. One of the highlights of the shows is the Brain Tap number, featuring the entire company singing and tap dancing; a tribute to the talents of choreographer Shari Jordan.
The chorus members include Alien Tappers, Eric Brown, Aundrča Colfield, Svetlana Kisiyan, Ksenia Litomisky, Masafumi Matsumoto, Chie Saito and Alfonso Toxqui. Costuming of the period and the alien costumes are the creations of Terri Reh. Cricket S. Meyers designed the sound and Jim Moody is responsible for the moody lighting effects.
The Brain From Planet X will convince you that there is no intelligent life in outer space - but it will provide the most fun you can have with your clothes on while trying to find it.
