By: David de Young
 Photo Credit - Jack Norton's website |
Cast Members: Jack Norton (lead performer & director) Official webpage: http://www.angelfire.com/indie/jacknorton/index.html |
If you see only one show in May, you should really see this one. Part music show. Part Vaudeville act. Part puppet theater. Part circus sideshow. Complete with a banjo that lights up, singalongs and a 7 piece band. It has to be seen to believed. Or as Norton says in the first track, titled "Mr. Dandy's Vaudeville" on the 1999 "Wizard Oil" concept album that inspired the show, "You won't believe it even if you see it."
Once you have seen Norton's show it gets you to thinking who you can tell about it or share it with. This fun and intimate show would be great to take a date to. Your parents would enjoy it. Kids from about 8 on up would probably enjoy it (though keep in mind that in its current run the BLB is not a smoke free venue.) And perhaps most of all, if you see a lot of live music shows in this town like I do, Jack Norton's Wizard Oil Vaudeville Company's performances will come as a refreshing, earplug-optional change of pace in your music schedule.
I may be old, but unfortunately I'm nowhere near old enough to have experienced any real live Vaudeville. Still I get the strong impression that Jack Norton, having been steeped in this tradition since childhood, is presenting an authentic and well-researched show. Yet this show is far from academic; clearly it comes straight from the heart. Questions of period accuracy aside, Norton will have you waxing nostalgic for a wild time in our nation's history when "mother was a flapper and "grandma was a gal." (From the lyrics to "1925 Charleston.")
You can choose which part of this show to focus on; they all hold up. The musicianship is excellent, Norton having assembled a team of experienced musicians, including the amazing Jed Germond on banjo and violin. Master puppeteer Dr. Bob Armstrong's puppets are stars of their own, especially the tart Trixie Vamp and her hot red shoes. (If puppets could sign autographs, I would definitely have asked for hers.) Melissa Birch of the Red Curtain Cabaret provides the voice of Trixie. Birch also did her own little bit of standup as part of the show as the tuxedo-wearing rambler Ritchie Itch. (Birch's show can be caught every Tuesday in June at the BLB and features the Jack Norton band.)
Norton's show is fun, educational, and uplifting, the perfect way to unwind the evening before the weekend starts. Allow yourself to be transported to a different time and place for a couple hours and forget about the worries of today's more complicated world. No false snake oil sales pitch here, folks. Step right up. Jack Norton's Wizard Oil cures what it claims to do, and more. It may be just what you need, but don't realize yet.
More info: Jack Norton's Wizard Oil Vaudeville Company will be performing a "Hobo's Epic Journey" as a five-part installment piece at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, every Thursday in May. The show will be the usual combination of Jack's live 1920s hot jazz & ragtime band, Dr. Bob's puppetry, comedy, sketches, film clips and more. Each week will tell the continued epic saga of hobo puppets Jerry the Junker, Bill Bailey and Trixie Vamp (the boy's love interest).
Location Info:
Bryant Lake Bowl
Artist Info: Jack Norton
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