It’s sold 100 million copies — and, thanks to its lurid prose, spurred sales of God knows how many electronic readers. Yes, it’s E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy, about the torrid, S&M-tinged romance between innocent, young Anastasia Steele and hunky (but twisted) millionaire Christian Grey.
Literary critics sneered, describing it as a virtual parody. And in that spirit, now comes “50 Shades! The Musical — The Original Parody,” for all those who simply can’t get enough.
A hit at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show has no nudity per se, but more than makes up for that with lots of profanity and hilarious explications of explicit sex.
“If you showed all that stuff, people would really be offended,” says co-creator and director Al Samuels of Baby Wants Candy, the improv troupe that’s the force behind this farce. “So we tried to make a ‘Book of Mormon’-style treatment that is funny and raunchy.”
Funny and raunchy certainly describes the scene in which Christian vigorously pleasures a willing (but clothed) Anastasia like a starving dog licking its bowl.
“That’s the highlight of the evening for a lot of people,” says choreographer Mindy Cooper. “We’re not going to strip naked and give you a peep show, but we’re going to make the sexuality funny.”
Amber Petty, who plays Anastasia, says her own father has seen the show four times during its national tour.
“It’s kind of surprising how not embarrassed I was by it, because it’s so silly,” she says of performing such songs as “Hole Inside of Me”:
“This hole inside of me keeps getting moister/Won’t someone put a pearl deep inside my oyster.”
“I can say double-entendres all day,” says Petty, who researched the role by reading all three books on her Kindle (“I didn’t need everyone to see that I was reading them”).
“I also did a lot of googling of S&M and stuff,” she adds. “I was kind of hoping that my husband wouldn’t be looking through my computer.”
All in all, it’s been quite an education, says Petty, who now knows what Ben Wa balls are.
The show uses a trio of book-club housewives as a framing device. Ashley Ward, one of the show’s writers, plays Carol, the club’s most repressed member, who nonetheless has a sexual epiphany with her washing machine.
Ward also enjoys the chance to flirt onstage with any male theatergoers, whose distinct minority is signaled by the pre-show announcement welcoming the “ladies and the gentlemen dragged here by their ladies.”
“Our first preview, there was a guy who was really into it,” she says. “He happened to be sitting next to my sister who came backstage and said, ‘You have to meet Joe.’ I went out to greet him, and he got down on one knee. He was really sweet.”
Christian is played by Chris Grace in a bit of unconventional casting that provides some of the evening’s biggest laughs. Let’s just say that the sight of the actor clad in a wrestling singlet is not one that’s easily forgotten.
The show also features a trio of scantily clad dancers, two men and one woman, who provide the necessary eye candy.
“I knew we needed incredibly hot, sexy dancers,” says Cooper. “But I needed people who didn’t just go to the gym and look good. They had to have comedy bones.”
A kiosk in the lobby sells items you don’t find at other theater souvenir stands — like riding crops, lipstick vibrators and pink fur-lined handcuffs. Apparently, this is one show that doesn’t mind encouraging us to try the things we’ve just seen at home.
“50 Shades! The Musical — The Original Parody” opens Wednesday at the Elektra Theatre, 300 W. 43rd St. Tickets, $49 to $79, at 888-811-4111 and 50ShadesTheMusical.com.