It was shaping up as the quintessential theater-world nightmare. Deep into rehearsal, barely 72 hours before the curtain would rise on this world premiere, the show's creator sat silently in a darkened theater, a potential disaster brewing before him. As the climactic musical number began, the onstage drummer began scrambling to locate a vital piece of missing equipment.
He'd lost his pig nose.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 33 words Type of Material: Correction
"Rutlemania" phone number: The ticket information number included with a story in Saturday's Calendar about the show "Rutlemania," at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre through Friday, was incorrect. The correct number is (866) 468-3399.
Out in the house, Eric Idle remained unfazed. No wayward snout was going to stop the reincarnation of his whimsical pop-music creation, the Rutles, nor his enjoyment of this utterly surreal career moment.
"It's really fun, it actually is," Idle said a few minutes later in the cramped office of the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood, where "Rutlemania" opens a water-testing five-performance run starting tonight and continuing through Friday.
"I don't think anyone has ever tried this insanity before," he added, with the barely concealed snicker of a schoolboy sneaking a devious gag past the headmaster. "It's a tribute to people who never existed."
It's also a tribute to an act whose legacy, Idle famously predicted in 1978, "would last a lunchtime."
The former Monty Python writer and actor and mastermind behind the Python-inspired Broadway and Las Vegas hit musical “Spamalot” conceived "Rutlemania" to ratchet up the absurdity of the 30th anniversary of "All You Need Is Cash," the Idle-scripted and emceed mockumentary about the British pseudo-supergroup that virtually gave birth to the cinematic genre.
Two screenings of the film on Monday at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre, part of the ongoing Mods & Rockers Film Festival, will be accompanied by a Q&A with the original participants: Idle, singer-songwriter guitarist Ricky Fataar and drummer John Halsey. It will be the first time the "Prefab Four" have ever come together in public.
"Rutlemania" is another animal, part stage play, part movie, part rock concert. It tells the band's Beatle-esque story with film clips and live performances of Innes' wickedly clever songs, among them "Hold My Hand," "Cheese and Onions," "Piggy in the Middle" (hence the need for the porcine proboscis) and "Ouch!"
The music will be played not by "real" Rutles Dirk McQuickly (Idle), Ron Nasty (Innes), Stig O'Hara (Fataar) and Barry Wom (Halsey), but by the Fab Four, a veteran Beatles tribute band.
In short, impersonators saluting parodists.
