Reviews
BUFFALO QUICKIES 2022 Alleyway Theatre
By
Mar 1, 2022, 12:40

Through March 19
BUFFALO QUICKIES 2022</b"Buffalo Quickies," the 2022 version.
While the Alleyway has been doing these shows for 31 years, this one is different, coming at a time when there are limited stage alternatives, possibly why the house was packed when I saw the anthology.
Alleyway Impresario Chris J. Handley has clearly put a little more money into the show, particularly Todd Warfield’s wonderful costumes for the rooster and hen of Jesse Jae Hoon’s “Chicken is Condemned to be Free.”
It’s a look at two headless chickens (Kate Olena and Michael Starzynski) marching to their doom while in a philosophical discussion about their fates.
The most fascinating show is Michael Hagins’ “Bumper to Bumper.”
It’s a look at a late Friday afternoon commute on one of New York City’s legendary highways, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Three different family groups are in three different cars, all stalled behind a jackknifed tractor trailer.
Each has a different story, as the endless traffic stalls on a packed highway, one larger car on the way to the Poconos, another heading home and the third on the way to a Pennsylvania cabin.
One is a recent marriage, in trouble because of the wife’s affair.
Another is a guy who is having a really bad day, testing the limits of his foul vocabulary.
The third is a family facing the teen daughter going off to college and mom and dad aren’t sure where they are going.
Best in the show is daughter Jessica (Colleen Pine); fractured husband Thomas (Joey Buckeker) and foul-mouthed Barry (Matthew Rittler).
The best local show is Philip Farugia and Amy Jakiel’s “Seventeen: The (Unofficial) Josh Allen Musical.)
It’s two guys (Bucheker and Rittler) in a basement who are obsessed with video games and the Bills and want to play Madden football with Josh Allen.
It’s amazing what exhaustion will do.
The funniest local show is Jeff Z. Klein’s “Buffalo Porno.”
It’s a look at a porno movie studio in Tonawanda, apparently controlled by a larger porn shop in Toronto, which is into all of those MBA tools like focus groups.
The focus group doesn’t like the Buffalo Accent.
If you don’t know what that is, you haven’t lived here very long.
The crew delivers porn like “Tailgate Tales.”
It gives rise to the funniest single sketch in the show, Rittler and Pine dancing around with corporate’s Olena to “The Rain in Ontario falls mainly on the Patio.”
It’s even the same Lerner and Loewe music which will soon sound next door in Shea’s.
The most pointed show is Alle Mims’ “The Commune of Mutual Aid and Education for the People Hosted by Angela Davis (Rachel Diana Henderson) with special guest J. Edgar Hoover.”
Of course, I doubt Davis wears bunny slippers.
There’s no credit for the puppetry of Hoover and former President Richard Nixon, as they justify the FBI’s war against the Black Panther and the murder of Panther leader Fred Hampton by the Chicago police fronting for the Bureau.
The weakest sketch is Sharai Bohann’s “The Great Steven Stravinsky.”
It’s not bad, just a little expectable.
Director Handley’s working with a strong cast, particularly Olena, Bucheker, Starzynski and Henderson.
There are also those Warfield costumes.
Not only is this a particularly strong “Buffalo Quickies,”</b

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