Jet jive (Musical)

TOP GUN! THE MUSICAL by Denis McGrath, directed by Colin Viebrock, with Drew Carnwath, Dmitry Chepovetsky, Steven Gallagher, Alison Lawrence, Racheal McCaig, Mary Francis Moore and David Collins. Presented by Cattle at the Factory Mainspace (125 Bathurst). July 5 at 9 pm, July 6 and 9 at 1:30 pm, July 7 at 8 pm, July 11 at 4:30 pm, July 12 at 9:30 pm, July 13 at 3 pm.

Here's the marquee copy: 'bit- tergirl warbles in Broadway-style send-up.

After a career in straight theatre, including the international hit bittergirls, Alison Lawrence finds herself back where she was in theatre school, wanting to be a musical performer.

'My New Year's resolution was to be in a musical, and the Fringe is the best place to try out those fledgling wings, she enthuses. 'Top Gun! The Musical is a musical-within-a-musical about a writer/director who's failed with previous works like Apocalypse Wow! and hopes to have a hit on his hands with a musical version of Top Gun. But he doesn't reckon with what the show's key investor, a four-star general, wants to unleash on the world.

Lawrence plays the stage manager, a character with a tinge of Busby Berkeley about her, who's in love with the director, who in turn loves the bitchy diva star.

'I have the first song that makes viewers realize that the material behind the scenes in Top Gun is also a musical. It's a classic bluesy number, the kind where she can sing flat out to an invisible audience what she can't say to the director.

The performer admits that the stage piece has fewer locker-room scenes than the original Top Gun ('the gayest movie I've ever seen), but it retains the Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer characters. Anthony Edwards's role, though, has been retooled into a female part.

'She's a female flyer with long hair in the navy. HmÉ what's wrong with this picture? At one point they play beach volleyball, and the investor probably wanted to see her topless.

Despite spending most of the past few summers working out of town, Lawrence still had some Fringe and SummerWorks involvement, last summer co-authoring Flush and performing in s & m.

'But I'm the Susan Lucci of the Fringe, she moans. 'I've applied for 10 years and never gotten in, so I'm in other people's shows. My bittergirls partners won't let me put my name on applications any more. JK