By Mike Hoban

‘Ruthless! The Musical’ – Book and Lyrics by Joel Paley. Music by Marvin Laird; Directed by Russell R. Greene; Musical Direction, Gina Naggar; Choreographer, Kai Chao; Costume Design, Anna Silva/Shana Dirik; Set Design/Dressing, Shana Dirik; Lighting Design, Michael Clark Wonson; Sound Design, CRT. Presented by Theater UnCorkedat theCalderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through November 24

For those of us who find the humor in most musical comedies to be a little too tame for our deviant tastes, Ruthless! The Musical is the perfect antidote. This darkly comic sendup of Broadway musicals delivers rapid-fire laughs from material that one would expect more from a pre-Hairspray John Waters production than a musical comedy. Produced by Theatre Uncorked in a four-day run last weekend at the BCA, the all-female cast of Ruthless hits its comic marks with such frequency that the musical numbers (a handful of which are actually quite good, musically speaking) almost seem to serve solely as vehicles for Joel Paley’s wickedly acerbic lyrics.

Read more “Theatre Uncorked’s “Ruthless” a Wonderfully Demented Sendup of Theatre”