Provocation isn’t easy. The guys from “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon” make it look that way, but it’s really not.
Case in point: The new musical “The Last Smoker in America,” which tries hard to be edgy, only to suck with the aggressive intensity of 10,000 Hoovers.
Bill Russell (book and lyrics) clearly wants to skewer political correctness with the story of Pam (Farah Alvin), a free-spirited mom determined to keep lighting up in a world where cigarette smoking’s illegal.
“Cigarettes fill a void,” Pam sings. “So who am I kidding?/My life’s a hemorrhoid.”
Alas, even Preparation H would be useless against her obnoxious pig of a husband, Ernie (John Bolton), and her obnoxious pig of a son, Jimmy (Jake Boyd).
All of them — plus religious-freak neighbor Phyllis (Natalie Venetia Belcon, who played Gary Coleman in “Avenue Q”) — sing random numbers that aren’t justified by either plot or character development.
Whatever passes for a story drags along, free of anything resembling logic, as we go from clunky scene to clunkier song. There’s a whopping 15 of those, including several elaborate fantasy numbers.
Take Jimmy, who out of the blue starts rapping about living the ghetto life in “Gangsta”: “My body is a total Afro-disiac/And all my homeys love me/’Cause I be black.”
Then he goes back to speaking like the white teenager he is. Paging the continuity police!
As for Ernie, he’s always wanted to be in a band. But instead of singing about, say, going to rock ’n’ roll fantasy camp, he whines, in “Straight White Male,” about life being so unfair because minorities get all the breaks. Even Pam’s taken aback.
Meanwhile, since Phyllis is black, she gets a gospel number, “Let the Lord Be Your Addiction.”
Bizarrely, “Smoker” comes from people with pedigrees. In 1998, Russell’s book and lyrics for “Side Show” were nominated for Tonys. Composer Peter Melnick worked with Christopher Durang in the well-received romp “Adrift in Macao.”
You can’t blame director Andy Sandberg’s cast, who bravely give their all, and the production values are fairly good, especially Michael McDonald’s costumes and Charlie Corcoran’s nifty set.
They just can’t make this misfire bearable, though. Never mind the cigarettes — pass me the vodka.