Champagne White is misunderstood and also mispronounced. The newlywed is now Mrs. White Juan Spritzer, but mostly it's White Wine Spritzer that gets served up. But this ongoing annoyance for Champagne becomes secondary when, after nearly a day of holy matrimony, she becomes a widow framed for her husband's murder. Cue the musical sting. Champagne White, stripper-cum-detective, is back in business.
We first met the star of the seedy and spooge-festooned Sha-Boom-Boom Room early last year, when Shit and Champagne became a runaway hit at Rebel Bar. A sequel was pretty much inevitable since D'Arcy Drollinger was not only the star but also the author, director, and a primary producer. A lot of arm-twisting was probably not needed to bust out the Champagne once again, this time at Oasis. The flavor of Champagne White and the Temple of Poon is slightly smoother than its predecessor, but it is still a brut �" to pillage one of the show's abundant puns.
Let's say it is the bouquet that has mostly changed, from fecal to flora, as the earlier plot had Champagne tracking down drug dealers who hooked their clients with "booty bumps" of crystal meth that came with unfortunate soiling side effects. Now it's a line of designer body fragrances �" including pumpkin spice potpourri crafted especially for what Oprah likes to call her "vajayjay" �" and more sinisterly, an addictive new brand of perfume that turns its users into raving addicts.
The new show doesn't have the same oh-no-they-didn't shock effect, but the laughs come at you from all directions amid gasp-worthy vulgarity that, paradoxically, can also be both childish and childlike. After all, the villain of the piece is harvesting G-spots from the inmates at her lady prison as a part of a plot to rule the world. For victims of a G-spot-ectomy, all body odors disappear and not even pumpkin spice potpourri can aromatize a vajayjay.
Returning to the role of Champagne White, Drollinger rules the stage as the flashy, vulgar, outspoken blonde babe with martial arts skills in addition to her talent as an ecdysiast. Her plans to quit the stripper's life are sidetracked when once again confronted by her archnemesis. That would be Pixie Pardonne Moi, known as Dixie Stampede in Shit and Champagne, who has rebranded herself as purveyor of a perfume made for huffing and collector of those magical pearls from furry clams.
Blessedly, Matthew Martin is back as the fiend, providing Drollinger with a worthy foil who can knock out opponents with a chorus-line high kick and tap dance in a gorilla outfit when necessary. Martin creates instant power as the devil-wears-Prada villainess, and also gets to do a fun turn as an orange-is-the-new-black cellblock mama. Steven LeMay is another welcome returnee from the first Champagne show, playing four roles but most memorably Champagne's gal-pal Mandy, inspiring a ridiculously funny dance routine set to Barry Manilow's song of the same name.
A third repeater is Nancy French, as a stripper and announcer of scenes who demonstrates the skill needed for acting bored in a comic way. James Arthur creates his own swirl of comic energy as Champagne's snap-queen confidant Sergio, and Adam Roy plays the straight man, as it were, as a cop with the hots for Champagne.
Drollinger's script gleefully grabs at whatever low-hanging humor is available, much of it from a 70s television and movie mentality. Some jokes get big laughs, some seem happy enough with groans, and there are but a few that elicit the dreaded sounds of silence. Some scenes are just too short to create comedic momentum, and no doubt add extra challenges for the furious backstage changes in and out of Tria's costumes. Cast and crew do get occasional respites with surprisingly slick large-screen videos produced by Richard Neveu that culminate in a Bullitt-style chase scene through the streets of San Francisco.
Champagne White and the Temple of Poon is designed to take advantage of any missed lines, bungled sound cues, and occasional shout-outs from the audience. Director Drollinger doesn't seem to discourage actors from letting the audience know they are on the verge of breaking up when something goes awry, but caution must be applied before spontaneous break-ups begin to feel part of the program.
These occasional indulgences aside, the new adventures of Champagne White are one big happy hoot. And this time, for me at least, the vague sense of nausea produced by the previous show is gone along with the booty-bump skid marks. Of course, we don't want any future Champagne installment to be actually tamed. This bubbly is best served lewd, shrewd, and merrily skewed.
Champagne White and the Temple of Poon will run at Oasis through Sept. 12. Tickets are $25-$35. Call (415) 795-3180 or go to sfoasis.com.