The Last Two People On Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville

As the REM song goes, “It’s the end of the world as we know it — and I feel fine.” But for the two mismatched characters in “The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville,” life isn’t so free and easy — at least not at first —  as they deal with their last-man-standing status with song, dance and schtick. Existential angst is here performed by appealing opposites Mandy Patinkin and downtown performance artist Taylor Mac. The odd coupling works well, each playing to his own strengths in this musical two-hander that starts off twee but ends up terrific. The show will please both artists’ camps and looks promising for future engagements, but whether it crosses over to the mainstream will depend on theatergoers’ attraction to high concept and low comedy.

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Patinkin and Mac share a wonderful chemistry. They’re like chalk and cheese, their differences in demeanor and energy contrasting nicely and bringing out the best in one another. The program notes tell us that Patinkin and Mac came up with the show when they realized they liked a lot of the same music.

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One is a bouncy bald guy in a bowler hat, eager to please. The other is a scraggy bearded fellow hiding in a trunk, resigned to solitude. They are the last two people on Earth, and they meet on a scrap of land that has survived a flood of global warming proportions. Somehow, they need to connect, despite their differences in temperament and their inability to communicate through anything but song.

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“It is a vaudeville, but within that vaudeville, it’s about two people coming together and understanding each other’s quirks and personality,” says Susan Stroman, the show’s director. “Two people who, being alone, ultimately know that the only way they will survive now is if they get along.”

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Patinkin and Mac play the two survivors of a flood of biblical (or global warming) proportions. Gaining each others’ trust through their common language — song and dance numbers — the pair run through a wild range: Rodgers and Hammerstein to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).”

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A savvy theatergoer could be forgiven for supposing that the only circumstance in which Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac would create a show together would be if the two theater artists, each with very different bodies of work, were the last two people on earth.

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