Vice Girl Confidential is one of those plays where if you drink the Kool-Aid of its premise, you’re in for a raucous, thoroughly entertaining, maniacally smart show. What you have to accept is that you’re witnessing pure, unadulterated spoof and nothing more.
If you want depth to your satire, look somewhere else. This film noir take on a prostitution ring is pure farce and over-the-top emotions, making absolutely no apologies for its exorbitantly high rate of clichés per second. Playwright Todd Michael, who also plays the drag role as the pseuo-classy Madame Stella Fontaine, has more fun with the play than anyone else could possibly have. How much of that fun trickles down to the audience depends purely on how jaded an audience member is.
If the best farces feature a Simpsons-like range of humor styles and approaches to storytelling, Vice Girl Confidential is a bit more like Family Guy—a one-trick pony in terms of comedy, but one that be uproariously funny for the occasional short burst. Like Family Guy, Vice Girl makes a reference and makes it for an exceedingly long period of time, daring the audience to turn away. But at the same time, even Family Guy is able to poke fun at the cultural reference points it worships. Here, Michael is too in love with the world of loose dames, hard-nosed detectives, and vicious crime lords to take a step back and give even the slightest wink to the audience.
Michael is smart enough to keep the play to an hour’s length, as there would be no way to maintain this kind of comedy for any longer. But as with Family Guy, you leave the play feeling like you’ve seen nothing really substantial and long-lasting, even if you've laughed your lungs out.
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