SWAN!!!

I find a lot of things funny, but I tend to me a chuckler or a silent laugher. I’m the last person anyone wants at their comedy show. But this weekend’s Black Swan parody SWAN!!! at P.S. 122 cracked my shit up.

The inimitable Jenn Harris played Nina delivering a brilliantly spot-on Natalie Portman with the world’s best facial expressions. I’ve seen Harris in a ton of the Our Hit Parade shows at Joe’s Pub. The girl can do a Barbie show like nobody’s business, but nothing has ever topped her devastating lip-synch to Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” She could teach a drag queen a thing or two. She was also brilliant in Silence! The Musical, a musical spoof of Silence of the Lambs which gave the world the classic song “Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket.” I’m not kidding—it was hysterical. So really, between that and this, she should be the go-to gal for any film parody.

The rest of the cast was all male, making this the gayest show since…well, frankly, it was even gayer than Priscilla—the drag queen musical with disco tunes. Which was pretty de-gayed for what it was. But that’s not the point. The point is that THIS show was really, really gay. And awesome.

Christian Coulson (the original Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter movies, which I don’t watch because the books are much better) was hysterical as the choreographer. Randy Harrison (of Queer as Folk) was amazing as the mother. The whole thing was organized by pint-sized dynamo Jack Ferver who also played the Mila Kunis character Lily, and who was adorably unable to stop cracking up throughout the evening (annoying on SNL, but super-fun when it’s a three night run of a casual parody). And Matthew Wilkas played Winona Rider. Who was referred to throughout the evening only as “Winona Rider,” not the name of her character in the movie. It worked. Brilliantly. As when the choreographer announce, “Winona Ryder will be retiring after her last performance here this seasons,” and Lily replied, “Oh my Gooooooood. Heather!”

It was perfectly low-rent. Performed from scripts in their laps, almost entirely seated, in rather chintzy ballet-ish costumes, and with a bunch of really clever low-budget sight gags: spraying themselves down with water for the sweaty club scene, a squirt bottle of fake blood, and (most notably) a can of baked beans that served as fake vomit. Over and over and over. Harris purged like a real ballerina. Constantly.

There was one point about an hour in when I felt a lull in the laughter and thought things might be slowing down. After all, how funny can you consistently be for almost two hours? About two minutes later, I was busting a gut all over again. An exceedingly hysterical two hours mix of low humor and sharp parody it was, without exaggeration, the hardest I’ve laughed at the theater in ages. They only did four performances and sold them all out. If they did it again, I’d be back in a heartbeat.