BE A C H BL A N K E T BA B Y L O N BI T E S T H E BI G ON E

(written on assignment for San Francisco; submitted the day creditors padlocked the offices)

As Salman Rushdie has so eloquently demonstrated, 1989 is not a propitious year for intoning blasphemy, but at the risk of incurring the wrath of Cyril Magnin’s ghost, let me pronounce my heresy: it’s about time that Beach Blanket Babylon b e exposed for what it truly represents — a vapid, derivative mŽlange of jejune stagefare and demeaning ethnic stereotyping that not only poses an affront both to the professed liberal spirit and to the putative cultural sophistication of San Francisco but also deprives various legitimate theatrical undertakings from the funds that might sustain them.

Now, before anyone tries to peg me as the sort of vituperative cad mean-spirited enough to sell the White House puppies to a Stockton Street butchershop, let it be known that Mary Poppins concurs with me. Shortly after this year’s Academy Awards broadcast, Julie Andrews and a host of other celebrities penned a petition denouncing the deplorable tackiness of the presentation ceremonies, citing, in particular, the ludicrous opening number, a grandiose adaptation of Beach Blanket Babylon, produced by Steve Silver himself. Not to be lost amid the subsequent Disney brouhaha over Snow White’s traipse with a certain, now-infamous troilistic tryster, entertainment critics nationwide panned Silver’s extravaganza as displaying as much substance as Dan Quayle’s academic transcripts.

Гласность (glasnost’) gleaned from the base of Nob Hill — let’s openly examine what the rest of the world already knows about us. For over fifteen years, Beach Blanket B a b y l o n, in its sundry incarnations, has presented San Francisco with little more than a paltry pastiche of popular tunes, haphazardly woven together and masked beneath an array of acromegalic haberdashery. Okay, okay, I admit the concept of expanding hats shows a touch of genuine theatricality, but the demands of his elaborate costumery have necessitated that Silver omit certain bothersome encumbrances of a well-crafted stage production, such as plot. As best as I can construe, San Francisco’s emblematic heroine, Dorothy Gale — wasn’t she from Kansas — is whisked off to Europe in search of LOVE. Arriving first on the streets of Rome (depicted by a back drop that includes the Leaning Tower of Pisa), disconsolate little Dorothy encounters the Pizza Lady, a beehived faccia brutta more horrifying than even green-faced Margaret Hamilton. Out comes the panoply of derogatory Italian typecasting, from crudely affected accents to ubiquitous cries of “Mangia! Mangia!” A chorus of dancing “Italian” foods — Kraft parmesan, Franco-American Spaghetti-O’s, Chef Boyardee — joins the Pizza Lady for a little Finiculi, Finicula, while undeflowered Dorothy is given her shot at romance with an Italian Stallion.

As this plagiaristic pageant is virtually bereft of originality, the use of such worn stereotypes comes as no surprise; still, it is with an amazingly novel display of chutzpah that Silver brazenly dares to present these depictions inside the Fugazi Building, a complex specifically bequeathed as a home for Italian cultural activities. The incongruous presence of Beach Blanket Babylon at the Club Fugazi has consistently disrupted the functions of several Italian organizations legitimately housed within these premises; it is no coincidence that the Museo ItaloAmericano no longer occupies the top floor of this building but flourishes apart from the traditional North Beach Italian community at its present Fort Mason berth. The erosion of San Francisco’s Italian stronghold has many causes, and it would be unfair to accuse Silver of deliberately setting out to exacerbate the Italian diaspora. Still, Silver has manifested as much concern for the integrity of the Italian cultural community as the 27^{t h} Army displayed for the democratic aspirations of the students in Tiananmen Square.

Speaking of China, Silver does not content himself with slurring but a single ethnic group; in a patented non-sequitur that constitutes progression in Beach Blanket Babylon’s ever-elusive storyline, dilettante Dorothy suddenly discovers a craving for Chinese food. Spontaneous segue to dancing Chop Suey, belting out If You Knew Sushi Like I Know Sushi, accompanied by a chorus line of Tekka Maki slices. One doesn’t need a doctorate in Asian studies to sense the rather glaring inaccuracy here, albeit the unsubtly racist implication that all yellow people look the same.

Tout ce qui est merde, sera merde. The French, British, Egyptians and Africans all receive their dose of Silver slander, as discombobulated Dorothy wings her way through this inane charade, still looking for LOVE. O o - e e - o o - a h - a h ! Gilbert & Sullivan should have been this clever! Instructed to marry a “rich doctor,” she instead finds — s u r p r i s e! — a black witch doctor. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here: King Tut singing M u m m y Al Jolson-style; the Queen of England sporting a Mazzola crown; foppish French poodles doing what doggies do do.

In what any armchair structuralist critic might interpret as an attempt to expiate for his other transgressions, Silver does, of course cast his own people with equal offensiveness, pirating the parodic innovation of some unknown sixth-grade punster. Bellying up at the “Bar Mitzvah,” four forelocked Hassidim break out in a h o r a, singing Hava Tequila. Meanwhile, back in gay Paris, drag queen Louis XIV attempts a sodomistic pas de deux with Cyndi Lauper.

 Cyndi Lauper in Paris? Cheap exploitation of noted celebrities abounds throughout, as pallid versions of everyone from Tina Turner and a botanical Barbara Bush to Willie Nelson and Prince (or is he Michael Jackson?) interplay with no thematic relevance.

Ep i p h a n y ! James Joyce and Steve Silver have more in common than double initials. Eventually, ditsy Dorothy grows tired of all this nonsense, but not before her miraculous revelation that — brace yourself for this one — There’s No Place Like H o m e ! ! Three clicks of the ruby slippers and instantly she’s back in Topeka — I mean San Francisco — transmogrified as an anthropomorphic version of our City by the Bay. Ineluctable modality of the visible! The cast breaks out in a chorus of San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gate and dispatches the wildly cheering audience back to their cozy homes, which, for the most part, unfortunately is not Kansas.

Ultimately, it’s quite sad that a local audience can repeatedly endorse a show whose quality is inadvertently metaphorized by a stunningly choreographed Can-Can executed by dancing garbage pails! It is inexcusable that a community which conscientiously strives to be the vanguard for establishing the statutory rights for all its varied populace should countenance such patently offensive ethnic portrayals enduring for even a single performance. If we can be politically correct enough to boycott pes-ticide-laden table grapes, certainly we should unequivocally refuse to endorse any form of pestilence that, like this cacophonous cabaret, gnaws at the fabric of human d i g n i t y .

Unlike most carcinogens, Beach Blanket Babylon will probably hold no longterm consequence and will be instantaneously erased from memory the moment Steve Silver departs for that great perruquerie in the sky (of course, if the Italians ever regain the papacy, he may find himself languishing amid fire and brimstone). However, while it continues to flourish, perhaps the most detrimental effect of B e a c h Blanket Babylon is the vastly disproportionate share it commands of the money individuals in the Bay Area allot to theatrical arts. One Beach Blanket ticket approximately equals the price of two seats at many of the smaller stages presenting meritorious works of emerging playwrights and employing earnest young actors. San Francisco, once the cultural gem of the North American Pacific, formerly the progenitor of nearly every cultural innovation in this country over the past third-century, looms precariously on the verge of being reduced to the realm of artistic retread, as economic opportunities and resources for those striving to devote themselves to their creative aspirations alarmingly dwindle. Amid such fiscal limitations, support of travesties like Beach Blanket Babylon constitutes a concomitant deprivation for some struggling yet laudable production. True, the virtue of preserving and sustaining our cultural prominence cannot equate to such imperatives as the AIDS crisis or homelessness, yet for San Francisco to lose its historical distinction would leave us equally bereft as a society. Contrary to the late Cyril Magnin’s pronouncement, Beach Blanket Babylon, far from constituting “San Francisco’s most exuberant landmark,” stands like a megalithic erection, obstructing the sunlight from beauteous cultural flowers yearning to blossom.