Shaboom is Smaller, Friendlier
Claridge's '50s-style revue features music, memories, comedy, magic and personality.

Wondering if smaller is really friendlier? Pack up the memories and your significant other and go see Shaboom, the good-times '50s-style revue running through June 25 at the Claridge Casino Hotel's Palace Theater.

Shaboom is definitely smaller. There's a principal cast of three and that's pretty much it -- tiny by casino showroom standards--which leaves plenty of room for a rollicking, smartly paced 75 minutes crammed with laughs and vintage rock and ballads, some first-rate smoke and mirrors thrown in, and a cooking live (that's right, live) band.

Shaboom stars Dane Anthony, Lee Allen and an illusionist known simply as Dameon. Anthony does the singing, Allen tells the jokes, Dameon makes some pretty big stuff, some of it living, appear and disappear before your eyes. Anthony's recording buddies, The Sons of Thunder--Chris Reynolds on electric guitar, Steve Ciotta on alto sax, Bob Coulon on piano and Bob Kimmel on drums--hold up the sonic end, powering everything from Elvis to The Platters like they can do it in their sleep.

Not that there's a trace of somnolence in this show. This is Atlantic City casino revue at its best: fast, funny, familiar, good-natured, participatory.

This is a veteran cast. Athony, originally from Philadelphia, began singing at the age of 3 on Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow on the old Steel Pier. Allen's been working the nightclub and cruise ship circuits for years. Dameon, a New Jersey native, has won acclaim overseas. Each carries off his respective role with energy and ease; Anthony the Doo Wop charm, Allen the quick with and the caustic asides and Dameon, performing entirely (well, almost entirely) in mime, a sort of Harpo Marx meeds Brando On The Waterfront, a little touch of the bizarre.

All of which makes for a nice synergy. Crowd-pleasing synergy, to be exact. Where Shaboom really clicks is in the aisles.

It also happens to be where the "friendlier" part comes in. Folks are singing along with "Personality,", "Blue Moon," "At the Hop," "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," and the like. And old lady in butterfly glasses is brought up from her table to don a poodle skirt for a twist contest. (She won.) A guy named Joe down in the front finds himself on stage cranking an egg beater up around his forehead in one of Allen's comic card tricks. Three other grown men (joined again, reluctantly, by poor Joe) get roped into a hilarious variation on musical chairs. Even the cocktail servers are done up '50s-style in sweatshirts and ponytails.

Shaboom is nothing if not audience-friendly.

Good stuff, believe it or not. Of course, you'd have to be there to appreciate it. And by all means, find a way to be at Shaboom.