My girlfriend and I went to see The Third Story last night at the La Jolla Playhouse.

It starred Charles Busch, the cross-dressing and talented writer/actor of such plays as The Tale Of The Allergist’s Wife and Psycho Beach Party. He also wrote this show and stars in it as well.

The show centers around 3 stories. One is a fairy tale about a Russian Princess and a witch, a B-Movie parody about a mob queen and a final story of a mother and son screenwriting team.

All of the actors play several roles (except Scott Parkinson who plays Zygote) and they all do a fine job… but the show STUNK. I mean, I was bored and so was my girlfriend… and she likes most of the things we see.I only laughed out loud 3 or 4 times… and this was supposed to be a comedy?

I realize that it was still in previews and that shows can change by the time it officially opens but this show would have to change drastically if it were to get any better in my opinion.

Now for full disclosure, we did come out of the theater and heard some people saying that the show was really good. Those must have been the insane members of the audience.

Here’s the cast list from Playbill:

The Third Story’s cast includes Busch (Baba Yaga/Queenie Bartlett) of Die, Mommie, Die!; Tony Award nominee Mary Beth Peil (Peg/Dr. Rutenspitz) of the recent Nine and Sunday in the Park With George; Jonathan Walker (Drew/Steve) of Broadway’s Twentieth Century; Jennifer Van Dyck (Constance Hudson) of Broadway’s Hedda Gabler; Scott Parkinson (Zygote) of Broadway’s The Coast of Utopia; and Rebecca Levy (Vasalisa/Verna/Miss Tinsley), a third-year MFA student at UC San Diego who has also performed in Lulu at Harvard University.