Be a Pelican Rooster in Chinatown

Bob Greene and Zoe Conner explore geriatric activities at Pelican Roost.

Photo by David Allen

Aging is a funny thing, and Assisted Living: The Musical® proves it. The revue debuted two years ago in a Florida retirement community and has rolled its wheelchair into San Francisco’s Chinatown. The singing duet of Zoe Conner and Bob Greene goes through 19 songs about the problems of seniors. The seventy-five minute show is lively and wickedly funny.

The Act

Piano accompaniment is provided by actor Robbie Cowan, whom they claim is their nephew. The music is diverse and familiar, with take-offs of well-known songs. The writers Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett have created new lyrics for old songs. The show is tightly staged with hilariously descriptive costume changes.

Against gold framed red velvet panels Bennett and Compton act as denizens of the Pelican Roost nursing home, or “Senior Village.” The players circulate through the house in character as the show begins. Compton introduces himself as Andy, saying “I’m the handyman around here.” Bennett is Marge the Social Director. Their nephew is Lou. Andy also becomes a cowboy lawyer and Marge also plays a nurse and Naomi Lipschitz Yamamoto Murphy who upgrades her living quarters every time her next husband dies.

The music styles range from doo-wop to a slow ballad. The duo laughs at everything from dentures to Viagra. Andy’s opening solo “Help! I’ve Fallen For You And I Can’t Get Up” is a reference to the little blue pill. In one scene Andy wears a deely-bobber with big blue pills. His “A Ton-And-A-Half Of Cadillac Steel” is a litany of senior driving errors sung while Bob mimes using a stool as a steering wheel.

For comedy hour at Pelican’s Roost, Marge welcomes the audience to “Poughkeepsie-by-the-Sea” where she introduces Bob as a Catskill comedian. He tells every lame joke from the borscht belt circuit and acts surprised when nobody laughs. “Haven’t you ever been to the Catskills?” he asks.


The Actors

Both actors are remarkably versatile. Bob in his hideous yellow and green golf clothes looks like he can play the game when he sings the blistering “Golf Cart Seduction.” For his geriatric solo “Lost-My-Dentures-On-Steak-Night BLUES” he stoops as he slowly shuffles across the stage with his dinner tray. Bob’s sleazy cowboy-hat lawyer insists that he can be trusted as he looks at the audience with wide-eyed innocence.

Zoe switches characters easily. She is very efficient in her white nurse uniform and very cold as Naomi singing about how she is able to capitalize on the deaths of her husbands. Her voice is pleasant and well controlled. At the end of her slow ballad about an online love affair (“WalkerDude@Facebook Dot Com”) she rises effortlessly to a high C.

Robbie as Lou is personable and interacts with the audience. Sometimes he has to set things up, such as for “WalkerDude,” where he had to explain some Internet terms. He got the audience to sing along “Happy Birthday” twice for people in the house. When Marge and Andy sing about “The AARP,” he plays along the score to “Ghost Riders In The Sky.” Andy and Marge plan to “go out rock and rolling.”

Assisted Living: The Musical® has an open-end run at The Imperial Palace, 818 Washington Street, San Francisco. The second-floor dining room has room for 150 people at large tables. A Chinese food banquet precedes the show. Tickets ($79.59; $99.50 VIP) are available online at AssistedLivingTheMusical.com or by phone at 888.885.2844.
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