“Enron: The Musical”

I suppose it was just a matter of time.

Jeff Skilling, Andy Fastow and the rest of the Enron gang will have a new home very soon.

No, not prison. The stage.

Enron – the Musical makes its world premiere tonight at Lambert Hall, where it will play for two weekends.

Unlike its high-flying, glitzy subject matter, the musical is a shoestring operation. Its performances will take place on the set of the current children’s show Santa’s Magic Timepiece. With his best Mickey Rooney “we’re putting on a show” enthusiasm, producer/writer/director Mark Fraser insists that backdrop will work just fine.

Fraser, who earns his living as a manufacturers’ representative, wrote the show’s lyrics, too – but not the music. The show uses that favorite device of revues, comedy clubs and piano bars: parody lyrics attached to familiar show tunes.

Enron opens as the staff of accounting giant Arthur Andersen follows an alert from Enron to destroy all evidence. David Duncan, a lawyer at Andersen, croons The Sound of Shredding (to the tune of The Sound of Music).

At the peak of his power, Skilling sings (to the tune of Springtime for Hitler), “Springtime for Skilling and Enron stock!”

To the tune of Thank Heaven for Little Girls, Fastow and henchman Michael Kopper sing:

Thank heaven for off-book deals

For off-book deals improve our balance sheet …

They raised our stock and fooled folks on Wall Street

Those partnerships we set up were appealing

But now they’re not ’cause we got caught for fraud and stealing.

And so it goes, through such ditties as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Jeff Skilling?, 76 Indictments (“came down today / with 110 execs out on bail”) and Get Me to the Court on Time.

Sounds like something Mort Drucker might have cooked up for MAD Magazine, not that there’s anything wrong with that. For sure, this can’t be any worse than The Crooked E. It’s just running this weekend and next, though, so if this appeals to you, hop to it.

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