Los Angeles Times

Theater Review

“The Edwards Twins in Celebrities on Stage”
Confounding, but crowd loves it.
By David C. Nichols, Times Staff Writer

Doctoral candidates in cultural anthropology will hit pay dirt with “The Edwards Twins in Celebrities on Stage,” which played Saturday at the Colony Theatre, where this touring show will return in January between Thousand Oaks dates.

The premise is Borsht Belt basic. Identical twins Anthony and Eddie Edwards imitate celebrities to recorded arrangements, in elaborate makeup and costumes, including Cher’s notorious Brazilian-cut get up.

Eddie does the divas, starting with Bette Midler, who sets up the effective pandering device of dividing the house, encouraging applause at recognized tunes, and there are many. He has a phenomenal vocal instrument, as his Streisand confirms, though all the women repeat the same brush-back hair and smile gesture.

Anthony mainly does men – Neil Diamond, Elton John, Sonny Bono. If the aural snarl in Neil’s “Fly” recurs in Sir Elton’s “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,” or Sonny seems a bit rote, the mimicry is impressive, in a flashy, Madame Tussauds kind of way.

They are undeniably gifted illusionists, and their crowd-friendly parade will thrill audiences who find a casino showroom or community concert series the apogee of entertainment. Whether it is theater is debatable. The protracted finale – Anthony does a rapid-fire plethora of singers, Eddie sheds the feminine before our eyes, they duet on “You and Me” from “Victor/Victoria” – certainly thinks so. On Saturday, so did the Burbank audiences, which went berserk over the Edwards’ human audio-animatronics. Thousand Oaks will surely follow suit. This reviewer can only marvel in disbelief.

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