TheaterReview JD Caudill’s staging leans into the challenging close quarters of the environment, with Jonathan Berg-Einhorn’s minimalist but evocative set making us feel like we are in fact surrounded by a shiny kelp forest. KokandyProds | ✍️ kerryreid
had its pre-Broadway run here in 2016. I missed that, but I can’t imagine it was any more delightful than what Kokandy Productions has concocted in the basement at the Chopin. Stephen Hillenburg’s Nickelodeon series about the plucky and absorbent title character inspired this toe-tapping, whimsical explosion featuring songs by a murderers’ row of artists, including David Bowie and Brian Eno, Cyndi Lauper, Panic! at the Disco, and , Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, who contributed “Bikini Bottom Boogie.
”JD Caudill’s staging leans into the challenging close quarters of the environment, with Jonathan Berg-Einhorn’s minimalist but evocative set making us feel like we are in fact surrounded by a shiny kelp forest. But though the space is small, the performances are generous, expansive, and perfectly synched, aided by Bryan McCaffrey’s musical direction and a tight five-piece live band. Frankie Leo Bennett’s SpongeBob is the optimistic-to-a-fault center of the story, but all the residents of Bikini Bottom get their moment to shine, including Isabel Cecilia García’s lovably dopey Patrick Star, Quinn Rigg’s loose-limbed and ever-eager-for-the-spotlight Squidward, and Parker Guidry’s Sheldon J. Plankton, Bikini Bottom’s answer to Boris Badenov. It’s interesting to note the nods in the storyline to xenophobia and anti-science, both of which affect Sarah Patin’s Sandy Cheeks, the squirrel seismologist whose warnings about the imminent blow-up of Mount Humongous, which forms the spine of the plot, are met with vicious anti-land-mammal rhetoric. But this isn’t a show straining for a message. Instead, it’s a mostly family-friendly sojourn under the sea with familiar characters and some kicky tunes. There are points where it threatens to take on some narrative seawater, but the heartfelt silliness adds up to a very pleasant theatrical excursion.
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