Blessed with some of the un-phattest fashion statements around, including leg warmers big enough to clothe an entire mountain village, “Poppin’ and Lockdown 2: Dance the Right Thing” is a highly diverting salute to the brief Reagan-era break-dance movie genre — both “Breakin'” and “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” came out in 1984 — as well a broad array of urban vigilante revenge dramas.
You don’t need to be up on all that, or down with it, to have a good, semi-raunchy time of this Factory Theater sequel, a follow-up to the first “Poppin’ and Lockdown,” which played L.A. in 2000 and Chicago two years later.
In the new show, crack is the disease and break dancing is the cure. Caesar (Derrick Nelson, a game and engaging comic, who also handled the fights) has just gotten out of prison. It’s 1989. His old pal Turbo (Jeremy Glickstein, who wittily puts the “oaf” in “ofay”) has bad news for him: The streets have changed, and the future is threatened by drug lord Mendoza (Sid Feldman, screaming at the slightest provocation every second but somehow pulling it off).
Nowadays, says Turbo, “people would rather smoke crack than dance.” He knows first-hand: His former girlfriend Emma (Amanda Putman, ferociously perky) has become a “crack skeeze” of the first order.
Time to fight the power! Playwrights Michael R. Meredith and Kirk Pynchon manage to sustain their Osterizing blender of a spoof quite nicely.
The show gets off to a weak start, with a too-straightforward re-creation of the “Do the Right Thing” opening-credits dance sequence. But with the first real dance-off between Caesar and Turbo, at the neighborhood rec center, the fun begins.
A later dance sequence choreographed by Czarina Mirani showcases the dance and comic stylings of, among others, Andre Vawdrey, who plays Little Jesus, now a member of the Nation of Islam. With his big black horn-rims and slit of a bow-tie, Vawdrey doesn’t look like prime break-dance material. He is, though.
The material’s uneven. We’ve all had it with the sociopathic Vietnam vet in this satiric context. Much of the cartoon violence is a drag (though some of the fights are kinetic and funny). And you want a big, stupid dance number for a finale. How could you not?
All the same, director Steve Walker and the best of his cast members deliver “Poppin’ and Lockdown 2” in style, even when the buddy-protagonists betray nothing of the kind. It’s hard to act cool wearing the checkered dork-shirts and dork-hats sported here by Glickstein and Nelson. It’s hard, but someone has to.
The deejay Brian Jackson (a.k.a. “Senior Love Daddy”) keeps things moving between scene changes.
The pre-show mix is terrific, including Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick.” I couldn’t say that “Poppin’ and Lockdown 2” represents a rebirth of slick. But it does contain an expositional exchange boasting the phrase “renegade dance monks,” and surely that must count for something in this movie-spoofed-to-death day and age.
By now the only thing left to satirize on stage may be “The Cannonball Run.” Why not? Half the original cast is probably available.
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“Poppin’ and Lockdown 2: Dance the Right Thing”
When: Through Oct. 3
Where: Factory Theater at Prop Thtr, 3504 N. Elston Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Tickets: $18 at 312-409-3247
