Annie Golden and Jeff McCarthy in Barrington Stage Company’s “Broadway Bounty Hunter.”
‘Broadway Bounty Hunter’ is a wild ride at Barrington Stage | The Boston Globe
PITTSFIELD — If ever a show was powered by sheer adrenaline, it’s “Broadway Bounty Hunter.’’
Well, that and the fertile mind of composer-lyricist and co-librettist Joe Iconis. He’s the primary creative force behind this rollicking musical mash-up, now receiving its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company under the direction of Julianne Boyd.
The rowdy, funny, cheerfully cockeyed “Broadway Bounty Hunter’’ marries elements from 1970s movies like “Shaft’’ and “Enter the Dragon’’ with a twisted tale of showbiz ruthlessness. Annie Golden plays a fictionalized version of herself, a 60-ish, down-on-her-luck Broadway actress — also named Annie Golden — who winds up in hot and perilous pursuit of a fugitive drug dealer and pimp after she makes a radical career change to bounty hunter.
Iconis crafted “Broadway Bounty Hunter’’ as a star vehicle for the 64-year-old Golden, long known for quirky performances in everything from “Hair’’ (the film version and the Broadway revival) to the off-Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Assassins’’ to Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.’’ Golden does not yet seem fully comfortable in the driver’s seat of that vehicle. Her singing was sometimes off-key on opening night, and in certain respects she seems to be still getting her arms around her role. But it’s an endearing performance all the same, partly because the sweetly dazed affect that is conjured by Golden comes to seem like the only logical response to the unusual circumstances faced by the fictional Annie.