Book, music and lyrics: Kristina Felske. At: Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-697-9693 or www.theannoyance.com; $15-$20. Runs through Feb. 11
Every now and then you see a comically shocking stage title that piques your prurient curiosity. Take for instance Penny the F*ckable Dolphin: A Love Story now playing at the Annoyance Theatre. It's billed as being based on the novel Wet Goddess, which was supposedly inspired a true story of a teenage guy who falls in love with a dolphin!
But since this musical is at the Annoyance, bizarre and envelope-pushing shows are expected. Whether they amount to anything theatrically beyond their eyebrow-raising titles is another matter.
What really caught my eye with this show was the participation of Megan Johns as director. I've been very impressed with Johns acting work since I first spied her in the 2007 Annoyance show Love is Dead: A NecRomantic Musical Comedy and through most of her subsequent work for The New Colony in hit shows like Frat and 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche.
Alas, Penny the F*ckable Dolphin isn't in the same league as those aforementioned shows. Playwright/composer/actor Kristina Felske started with an interesting and outrageous idea, but her execution of the material just meanders with too many underdeveloped characters and numerous scenes that lack and urgency in their dramatic focus ( though the surf-rock inspired score is often fun ).
Penny the F*ckable Dolphin focuses on the 18-year-old Zack ( Andy Junk ) who gets a summer job at a rundown tourist attraction called Aqua Funland. Goaded by his weird boss Buck ( Charles Pettitt ), Zack develops a relationship with Penny, especially when she starts visiting his dreams and professing her love for himdespite the other bullying dolphins who want to destroy the relationship and damage Zack's manhood.
Based upon seeing the final preview performance of Penny the F*ckable Dolphin, Johns' direction doesn't help matters because of the exhaustive ( and arguably unnecessary ) scene changes which just slowed the momentum of the show down to a crawl. Johns also wasn't able to strike the right wacky tone for the show, with some performers clearly "getting it" ( like Susan Glynn as a not-so-bright dolphin ) while others were struggling to get laughs out of their lines.
But Johns doesn't deserve too much of the blame, since the writing for Penny the F*ckable Dolphin just feels like a rough draft. Many more revisions and excisions would help to make the show into the slick and silly comedy it aims to be. For now it's got that way-out-there title and premise, but that's pretty much it.