There is only one more week to Cut Loose with New West Theatre and their latest summer musical-comedy revue which ends Aug. 31 in the Yates Theatre.
The show starts off slowly with the cast performing the opening number “Free Ride” and is followed by Erica Hunt’s usual questioning of the audience about where they’re from.
The affable Hunt had her fun with Kyle Gruninger, cracking jokes about how his long hair made him look like fellow cast member Kathy Zaborsky and it was on with the show.
The band, featuring Bente Hansen on keyboards, guitarist Scott Mezei and bassist/ guitarist Greg Paskuski and drummer/ musical director Paul Walker, who were up close and personal with the audience, like they were in New West’s last show, Country Gold, gets a workout in this production as they have to seamlessly shift between playing soul, R and B, pop, jazz and classic rock songs which allowed everybody to show off their many talents.
New cast member Mwansa Mwansa shone on these, belting out big, soulful melodies. Another new cast member, Alinafe Lupwayi, injected even more soul into the show as he sang beautiful soulful songs including Al Green’s I Wish” “Let’s Stay Together” and an early highlight “December 1963 (Oh What A Night)” and showed off some unique dance moves.
Mwansa Mwansa also shone on a hot, solo version of “Respect.”
After Erica Hunt noted James Bond turns 50 this year, Kathy Zaborsky sang a beautiful version of “For Your Eyes Only,” which might have made Sheena Easton herself tear up a little.
After a few bars of the James Bond theme, it was followed by one of many inspirational comedic moments on a sketch featuring Devon Brayne as James Bond and Erica Hunt as the elderly Canadian Bond girl named Regina who pushed the 50-50 draw by saying she bought all of the yellow tickets.
One of the weirdest moments of the show was a musical sketch featuring all of the cast members including male cast members including Jerrim Rushka, Alinafe Lupwayi, Kyle Gruninger dressed in ’50s hairdos and poodle skirts singing “7 Girls Love Greg” to band’s bassist Greg Paskuski, while Devon Brayne, dressed as a ’50s teen, drove a red car.
They ended the first half of the show with an outstanding version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” It began with most of the cast playing recorders setting the haunting atmosphere. Erica Hunt and Kyle Gruninger shared the lead vocals. It was a treat to hear two people who can really belt it out, belt it out together. Though Hunt overpowered even Gruninger’s terrific tenor voice.
Scott Mezei stepped forward to play the note perfect solo to the song.
They began the second half of the show slowly as well with the cast performing on some of musical director Paul Walker’s percussion instruments on a Latin tinged number, which lead into “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
Once again, the comedy was the highlight of the second half of the show. One of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen New West do was the guys performing in the “RCMP Theatrical Division — where the M stands for music”
Devon Brayne played the perfect over the top ham trying to inspire unenthusiastic new recruit Jerrim Rushka into singing and dancing who played the perfect straight man.
Another great bit seemed to be inspired by one of the plays in this year’s One Act Play Festival, where Jocelyn Haub narrated a story about a plane crash as the cast acted out her narration behind her.
In the second set we also got to meet beloved Ukrainian twins Svetlana and Svetlana (played by Kathy Zaborsky and Jocelyn Haub’s Canadian born twin brother Shvetka (Kyle Gruninger).
Another highlight was Erica Hunt and Kathy Zaborsky’s duet, though Hunt’s huge voice somewhat overpowered her.
Alinafe Lupwayi showed his comedic chops on a sketch involving oldermen cracking jokes. He spoke in a Jamaican accent, which was one of the moments where the cast needed to project their voices more and wait for the audience to stop laughing. Some of their punchlines were lost and I couldn’t hear very well from my seat in the upper level of the theatre.
That segued into a cool, jazzy version of “Knock on Wood.” Erica Hunt and Kyle Gruninger wound down the show by strutting down the stairs through the audience, singing together on Queen’s Under Pressure.
They ended the show with an exuberant version of “Good Lovin.”
Cut Loose runs tonight (Friday, Aug. 22), Saturday Aug. 23 and Tuesday through Saturday, Aug. 27-31 in the Yates Theatre at 7:30 p.m. each night.
