Great Shuster's Ghost

From its opening moments, when

Zigmund Fraud

(Scott Shuker) and

Zin Van Del

(EJ Regier) pop up through trapdoors in the floor and begin spouting heavily alliterated evil plans, the tone of the

is set.

---

The

, a yearly

production for

, takes all the happenstance, intrigue and idiosyncracies of a year in Santa Fe and satires it—100 years in the past.

It's almost too much to envision the lovely and lewd

Zoey Villa

(Melissa Pippin-Carson) becoming as worn out and, dare I say, tired as

's

character in

. And watching

Juana Rolla Doobie

(Shawna Howley/Helana Aguiar) become

through a history quiz reminiscent of

's "

" skit is an all-too-familiar reminder of just how absurd the whole

process can sometimes be.

The

shout-outs continue with

Will Shuster

(Ryan Kochevar), whose charming-but-bumbling mad scientist caricatures

's role in

, itself a parody, and even takes a few musical queues as well

.

"It's Gov. Richardson's swan song," co-director

Eliot Gray Fisher

said in a recent interview, and the character of

Gov. Beard Richerman

(played brilliantly by 14-year-old Tommy Roman), succeeds not only in legalizing marijuana "for medicinal purposes only" (as the audience is frequently, and facetiously, reminded) but also in using government funds to pad the pockets of his cabinet and almost running off to

Cuba

(the country, not the town).

It's an amusing, if borderline excessive, blend of political satire and good-natured

fun (as good melodrama should be), though not without its problems. The uproarious audience (which is encouraged, I might add) at times drowned out some of the quieter actors' lines, or the action on stage ground to an awkward halt as the cast was forced to await the end of a particularly boisterous fit of laughter. And the dance routines, while light-hearted and amusing, were still a bit rough around the edges. Still, for community theater, you work with what you can get.

makes a cheerful appearance as a half-

's monster, half-

sideshow. And

Shuster

shouting "This is why we can't have nice things!" at the 25-foot papier-mâché pot-reference when it kidnaps his love interest,

Juana Rolla Doobie

's not-quite-identical twin sister

Maria Juana Doobie

(Cristina Vigil), and—get this—climbs the bell tower of the

earned some laughs.

Oh, and the

was present. Watching the disco dance party for

Juana

's inauguration as

was both humorous and painful, but seeing the real

get lifted on stage to participate in the dance? Priceless.

Santa Fe Reporter