NEW YORK — The evening is billed as a “one-man show.” Daffy Duck is not a man, which is the first of many promises the production fails to keep. Over two hours and forty minutes, with no intermission because Daffy refused one, a duck tries to prove he is the greatest performer in animation history, mostly by saying so.
I admire confidence. I also admire emergency exits. By the end of the evening, I was thinking fondly of both.
The concept is a career retrospective in which Daffy plays every role in his own life. That includes the Scarlet Pumpernickel, Duck Dodgers, Robin Hood, and a private eye called Duck Twacy. All of them sound like Daffy, and all of them are on stage for far too long. Costume changes happen in full view “for the mystique.”
The mystique turns out to be a duck in a bathrobe.
Daffy’s famous lisp, delivered at full volume, makes for what the kindest critics call a wet experience. By the second act, the first three rows had been issued ponchos.
By the third act, snorkels.
The only other performer is Porky Pig, credited as stage manager, prop master, understudy, and ticket taker. Porky is allowed one line, “Th-th-that’s all, folks,” delivered at 10:50 p.m.
The audience rose in a standing ovation of pure relief.
I have attended opening nights for Sondheim revivals that received less gratitude.
Daffy strode back out, waved everyone down, and announced that we were merely at “a brief pause for my emotional beat.”
Act Three followed.
The lone bright spot was a Duck Amuck homage in which the backdrops changed at random while Daffy shrieked, “Who is responsible for this?!”
It got the biggest laugh of the night, and I’m told it was an accident. Porky had lowered the wrong scenery.
Daffy demanded the laughter be “redirected to me.”
For one glorious minute, incompetence achieved what the production could not: comic timing.
The trademark bill-spinning gag appeared eleven times with diminishing conviction.
The eleventh was performed by an intern in a rented duck bill and was the best of the lot.
By then, even the bill looked tired.
The showstopper, a musical number called “Mine! Mine! Mine!”, sends Daffy into the aisles to collect “voluntary contributions” from patrons. He also accepted tips on stage.
The program runs forty pages, thirty-eight of them headshots.
The gift shop sells “Mine!” T-shirts, a $40 signed photo of Daffy, and jars of “authentic Daffy Duck feathers,” which he insists were “shed, not plucked.”
Broadway has survived stunt casting, jukebox musicals and souvenir drink cups shaped like witches. It may yet survive this.
It ended when he stopped.
Nobody applauded, so he did it himself for eleven minutes, then called us all dethpicable.
After paying $200 a head for this, he may have a point.
Daffy Duck has spent eighty years insisting he deserves the spotlight.
After this evening, the spotlight would like a word.
