The Rat Pack Tribute show from the Greek Isles Hotel and Casino is currently touring across the country, and over the weekend I went and checked it out.
For me, a tribute show is either really good because the actors are really great and really capture the cats they are portraying, or it's really horrible, which to me, makes the show entertaining for an entirely different reason. This particular show was a little of both.
The "Dean" exaggerated all his mannerisms, which ended up making him look like a Macy's parade float bopping around the stage. His voice was pretty good though, both speaking and singing.
The "Sammy" was good in all aspects, except he was quite a bit larger, so he sort of squated and kept his head lowered everytime all three were on stage to compensate for height.
The "Frank" had a good voice, but really looked more like Ray Liotta than Frank Sinatra, which is funny because Liotta played Sinatra in a Docu-drama a few years ago.
I must say, the "Joey Bishop" was awful. It's as if they didn't even bother. Looked, sounded and acted nothing like Bishop, except for the fact that they both happened to tell jokes. Also, Joey Bishop is still alive and I wonder if he knows about this. If you're an impersonator, and the person you're basing your career on happens to still be alive, you have no excuse to do a horrible job... you have a living reference!
Possibly the wierdest thing though, is that the impersonators were in the lobby after the show, signing autographs. Why would anyone want an autograph from a person pretending to be someone else? Also, were they signing their actual names, or the names of the characters they are portraying? Very weird.
I still enjoyed it though... being that I have no chance to ever see the Rat Pack in their heyday, or any sort of dinner/stage show for that matter, I will take what I can get.
