Nitelife After Dark * * NITELIFE BEST BET * * *

Feeding into a glorious sense of the ridiculous, which is becoming almost the only way to go in this absurdist age, "Memoirs of a Ninja" takes a riotous dive into almost non-stop hilarity as "the world's first martial arts musical comedy." Keisuke Hoashi (Book and Lyrics) has concocted a wonderfully silly, irreverent musical ...

Hoashi's quirky lyrics and twirled-about concepts are a clever mix of fun, frolic and belly laughs with political, social, moral, ethical, and cynical commentary that hilariously sideswipe political correctness, stereotypes, traditional thinking, racism, sexism, ageism and every other 'ism' in between. If any group isn't lovingly slighted in these good-humored insights into multi-ethnic, multi-colored humanity, then it's surely an oversight.

The most appealing part of the play is the writer's, composer's, directors, actors' manifest ability not to take themselves seriously, an absolute necessity in a really funny comedy; everyone's having such a great time.

Brian Lewis' music is as lively and clever as Hoashi's lyrics, a fateful, bound-to-be-successful collaboration.

Derek Chin's direction captures the joy of Hoashi's play and he's blessed with an admirable cast-notably Baker, Boddie, the ubiquitous Hoashi, Chen, Rovel-Kirk, Lee and Yamamoto. (If I left anybody out, it was because they weren't in the play.)

... overall this is a superb effort by some very dedicated people. Make the short trip over the hill, - please!