“Star Wars” parodies are timely these days, and Murray’s Desert Star Playhouse, that workhorse of good-natured ribbing, has slapped together a fluffy piece as amusing as any of them.
“Space Wars 1999: May the New Farce be with You” reuses a title from a DSP show of 1997, although the similarities end there. The older show was a parody of all science-fiction/space stories, with focus on a pre-scandal Salt Lake Olympics. The new one is strictly a parody of the first “Star Wars” film, though a few references to the new movie pop up here and there, too.
Luke Warmwater (Ed Farnsworth) is a sand farmer with a pet robot named Y2K2. Princess Ginger Spice Oregano (Trisha Ann Braunberger) — so named just because the Desert Star likes to throw in Spice Girl jokes whenever it can (and hey, who doesn’t?) — hides a computer disk in Y2K2 while fleeing the evil Empress (Chelsi Stahr), Garth Vulgar (Matthew Scott Nielsen) and their henchperson Billie Gates (Julie Ann Christensen).
This gets Luke wrapped up in the whole thing, and he solicits help from Odie Don Quixote (Scott Holman; played by Jack Drayton the night of this review), an old Jedi who carries a Yoda-esque puppet around with him everywhere. They hire Yon Soso (Steven Fehr) and his hairy pal Chewaua (Ricky Jason) to help them rescue the princess, there are light saber battles, and lots of people wind up falling in love.
This is a lightweight, harmless parody. There are only a few great jokes, though the Desert Star’s ever-popular chase scene format is intact, and the performances are good all the way around. Chewaua (pronounced “Chihuahua”) has a great musical solo, and there is plenty of good visual humor.
Ultimately, making fun of “Star Wars” is like hitting the broad side of a barn. This show hits the target, but not with as much “force” (pardon me) as we’re used to seeing at Desert Star.
What is impressive is the number of jokes stolen from other sources. There’s a line and even a song lifted from “The Simpsons,” and the “Star Wars Cantina” song takes most of its lyrics from a “Copacabana” parody that’s been circulating on the Internet the last several months. The Desert Star is quite capable of creating its own humor without stealing from others, and in a show that turns out to fairly average anyway, the theft here almost seems desperate.
Fans of the Desert Star (of which I am one) will not be too disappointed in the show, though it’s not nearly as memorable as we like them to be. First-timers should be reminded that it’s usually a little funnier, a little sillier and a little more inventive than this.