Did Critics Cheer Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway?

Downtown stalwarts Kiki & Herb opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre last night in the aptly named Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway. Stars Justin Bond Kiki and Kenny Mellman Herb brought their take-no-prisoners humor and unique musical stylings to an uptown audience for a four-week run. Did critics warm to the duo's new show?

Here's a sampling of what they had to say:

William Stevenson in his Broadway.com review: "This is practically a greatest-hits show, but with plenty of new material as well….With a deep, raspy voice, Bond's seventysomething Kiki puts her indelible stamp on a wide range of pop tunes. Backed by Mellman on the piano, she makes Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" alternately touching and uproarious. Another first act highlight is Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life." Before launching into the song, she says, "I'm going to try to manufacture some genuine emotion." Kiki also brays Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype," which she dubs folk music. The second-act selections are just as eclectic. There's a deranged glint in Kiki's eyes when she sings the Cure's "Let's Go to Bed." Next up is one of the duo's standards, "One Tin Soldier." Though I've heard Kiki perform it many times, I've never seen her throw herself into the song so completely… I'm not sure if tourists will take a chance on Kiki and Herb, and if they do I'm not sure what they will make of the nutty duo. But the pair's admirers should fill the Helen Hayes Theatre for this limited run."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "That's one gorgeous set of teardrops that the immortal Kiki DuRane is wearing for her mind-popping Broadway debut. Kiki, a molting songbird for all seasons, and Herb, her happily suffering shadow and accompanist, opened last night at the Helen Hayes Theater in Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway, a hyper-magnified cabaret concert that has the heat and dazzle of great balls of fire… It is a tribute to the perverse showbiz genius of Kiki and Herb that once you twig on to this shameless trompe l'oeil, you don't feel merely amused. Nor do you think that the singer has been trading only in paper-moon emotions, or making fun of those who do, as she croons her whiskey-pickled way through bathetic ballads and angry anthems. Those artificial tears are a comic grace note, sure, but they are also a totem for feelings of devastating depth and substance. And a performance that should, by rights, be just a night of imitative song and shtick from another pair of happy high-campers from the alternative club scene becomes irresistibly full-bodied art."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "Last night at the Helen Hayes Theatre, Justin Bond Kiki and Kenny Mellman Herb, superlative actors and musicians both, resuscitated their lounge-act extraordinaire under the defiant title of Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway. Alive, and we might add, well! Very well, indeed. But on dear old conventional Broadway? Here could be the rub. This is not a show for everyone. If you live anywhere in the New York area, fine. But although it's quintessential showbiz, I doubt whether Kiki and Herb would play well in Peoria. The show itself is part cabaret act, part musical, but most of all it's a play. Bond and Mellman have, it seems, been absorbed by the other reality of Kiki and Herb so that by now—and they have been in business as this duo for 13 years—their performance becomes a kind of weird documentary."

Joe Dziemianowicz of The Daily News: "Enjoyment level largely depends on how keen you are on Kiki, who has few restrained moments. More often, she's in ranting and ear-splitting mode, whether covering "Take Your Mama Out" by the Scissor Sisters, "Don't Believe the Hype" by Public Enemy, "One Tin Soldier" or virtually any title from their odd-lot song list. Kiki's between-songs banter, which, to Bond's credit, is slyly hypnotic, can prompt gagging or laughter or both… At 140 minutes, with intermission, the show goes on too long. A director there's none listed on the Playbill might have edited. As it stands, "Alive on Broadway" is, like Kiki's liver, bloated— even if die-hard devotees never wanted the show to end."

Ian Mohr in Variety: "The premise of a boozy drag queen and her sidekick pretending to be showbiz wash-ups may not seem too novel. But that's just the jumping-off point for Bond and Mellman, who transcend camp to wildly jerk their act like a funhouse car through overt shtick, topical humor, emotional revelations and, ultimately, surreal artiness. It's cabaret for punk rockers: When Kiki barks at the audience, "Kiki loves you," it sounds less a term of endearment than a rageful threat. And when she drunkenly loses her place in songs, any customary, uncomfortable la-di-da's are instead replaced with clenched, staccato growls—as if she's livid at those damned words for having escaped her besotted, aging mind… The premise of a boozy drag queen and her sidekick pretending to be showbiz wash-ups may not seem too novel. But that's just the jumping-off point for Bond and Mellman, who transcend camp to wildly jerk their act like a funhouse car through overt shtick, topical humor, emotional revelations and, ultimately, surreal artiness."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "The resulting program suggests what might happen if Dame Edna's dysfunctional sister showed up as a guest VJ on MTV2 but decided that rather than playing videos, she would sing the tracks herself. It's a premise that could make for a great comedy skit, and Bond certainly has the timing and dexterity to pull it off, but not for more than two hours. Much as I enjoyed most of the first half of Alive on Broadway, I had the sinking feeling I might remember the experience more fondly if I left during intermission. I didn't, so I had to watch Bond's repartee with the more subdued Mellman grow thinner, although Mellman showed spurts of comical animation…. Not that Kiki isn't a swell gal to spend a little time with. But if you want to see a sassy older gal with great legs sing and tell jokes, I'd suggest waiting for Elaine Stritch's next show."

Rob Kendt in Newsday: "Bond and Kenny Mellman, as Kiki's unflappable pianist, Herb, aren't content with barbs and broadsides. Clearly energized by the platform of a Broadway stage, they want to say something big with the show—about post-9/11 America, about gender, about the state of the world. Sunk onto the floor in her black party dress in the show's second act, Kiki dishes up a rant comparing the status of gay men and women in America to apartheid-era South Africa. Stunned applause follows; is this really the same ostensibly over-the-hill canary who earlier labeled Herb a "gay Jew 'tard," or whose most infamous one-liner, included in this show, is, "If you weren't molested as a child, then you must have been ugly"? … When Kiki is tearing like a bug-eyed banshee through the Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mama Out" or making a melodrama out of the twee anti-war anthem "One Tin Soldier," no one can touch her and few would dare... But while fans shouldn't hesitate, the unconverted are likely to remain so after witnessing Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway.