apple pie. Candy, Cora, and Seedy Apple (aka Rebekkah Johnson, Kimmy Gatewood, and Sarah Lowe, respectively) celebrated America’s oldest holiday in a variety show chalk full of turkey gobbles, raunchy humor, and even some feathery burlesque.
The Apple Sisters’ Variety Show, a charmingly tongue-in-cheek parody of 30s and 40s radio shows, is set in 1943 but the girls’ humor is thoroughly modern. Armed with song, dance, and a comedic physicality that would give Lucy and Ethel a run for their money, the girls put on a high-energy show that keeps the laughs rolling.
The performance last night incorporated many of their classic songs, including the latest dance craze “The Turkey Jerk,” a ditty for the champagne of gravy “Drippins Gravy,” and my favorite historically quasi-accurate reenactment of the first Thanksgiving the “Pilgrim Indian Song.” Seeing the songs live, as they were originally imagined, is a treat as sweet as Corndy. Whether it’s getting the audience to do their best turkey impression or gagging on cue as they drink gravy out of champagne flutes, The Apple Sisters are right at home on stage.
Having been together for nearly five years, the group knows their characters and their WWII world inside and out, making their teasing and taunting of one another especially entertaining. Fearing her sisters will say something offensive or dumb, perfectionist Seedy provides her sisters with talking points for their visit with FDR. As Cora shows a picture of a nude eel, Seedy instructs her “Say it fast, ‘nude-eel’ as in New Deal!” Being Cora, she does not get it and instead rambles off other phrases for naked water snake as Candy eggs her on.
The brilliant play on words and sibling miscommunication is typical Apple Sisters, smart and sassy. The joy of their brand of comedy is it is unabashedly intelligent and satirical without being demeaning or degrading. FDR, played by Paul F. Tompkins, finally arrives to dinner and relentlessly mentions to the radio listeners how much he walks and runs everywhere. After Cora lies about baking FDR’s beloved turkey Gobbly and attempts to distract the president by performing a burlesque turkey dance, FDR reveals he’s lied too. His ‘Ford WC’ is not really his personal presidential rolling throne, but a regular old wheel chair. Rather than make fun of him, the girls devise a way for him to dance because that’s what they really love to do is bring cheer to others.
The only downside to Thanks for Stuffing? Unlike actual Thanksgiving, I left wanting more. Thankfully, The Apple Sisters’ Holidoozy Christ-mess Special is right around the corner. Check it out on December 12th. You’ll be gobbly gobbly happy you did.
Source: improvisgoodforyou.com 
