Daniel J. Vasquez
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, British comedians par excellence, used to do very funny skits of pop songs and TV shows. One of these, The House of Idiot, parodied The House of Eliott, a BBC drama from the 1990s set in a 1920s fashion house run by two sisters. French and Saunders brilliantly poked fun at all the absurdities of that show, with a recurring joke about a storyline that involved… missing buttons. Buttons, buttons, buttons. Where were they?
And it was to The House of Idiot’s buttons this critic’s mind returned during Only Gold (MCC Theater, through Nov. 27), a new musical-with-dance set in 1920s Paris with music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Kate Nash, who also stalks around the stage narrating events. The book is by Ted Malawer and Andy Blankenbuehler, the multi-award winning choreographer—including the Tony for Hamilton—who also choreographs and directs the show. Instead of buttons, there is a necklace—and just as in The House of Eliott/Idiot, the saga of the necklace, the mentioning of the necklace, the everything of the necklace, is endless.
The original necklace is a lost item of cherished lineage—a gift from gruff King Belenus (Terrence Mann) to his wife Queen Roksana (Karine Plantadit) many years before in Paris. Since then the business of running a country called Cosimo (great name for a fictional country, but sounds confusingly like Kosovo!), living in a palace, wearing fabulous clothes (the show’s gorgeous costumes are by Anita Yavich), and generally being rich, have mysteriously taken a toll on the couple. Most of the show involves them grouching at each other for no fundamentally major reason, while a replacement necklace is being prepared by jeweler/designer Henri (Ryan Vandenboom).