A must-see unique and hilarious genre bending deconstruction of musicals, cosmic horror and zombie flicks
I let out an embarrassingly big yippee! the moment I saw this musical’s flyer. It’s been one of my favourites since I first saw its original production on the Team Starkid productions YouTube channel. It’s a superb parody of musical tropes while still being a love letter to a much loved (and maligned by some) genre of theater. Starkid are known for often subverting genre tropes while simultaneously being love letters to the very things they satirise. The chance to see this musical live, and see how well it stands up live was one I couldn’t turn down.
The writing is the standout here. The plot and dialogue, is both whimsical and straight up more fun (and interesting) then most musicals including some much better known shows which I won’t name. The musical itself takes place diegetically inside the show’s narrative of an alien body snatcher invasion that turns humans into wannabe Tony award winners – apart from one man who just really doesn’t like musicals (GWDLM). This meta narrative creates a sense of surrealist horror that lets the jokes aimed at musicals land, as well as just really good (or bad – depending on how you see it) one liners in a way that doesn’t come off as full of itself. As much as the original writing has aged like fine wine this is only made possible by a production that channels this energy properly which it does every beat of the way.
The production is inventive and makes good use of a small budget, chairs double as fridge doors, helicopters and more. Prosthetics and gore might not be fitting of a Hollywood movie but works perfectly for that surreal cosmic horror parody the play often slips into, goofy looking disembowelment has never been so fun! The cast however is the best example of good production choices. The two main characters Paul (the aforementioned GWDLM) and Emma are well casted (played by Calum Philp and Lauren Troy respectively) put on a great performance in an atypical musical. Calum is a comedic foil to the shenanigans, heightening every joke and scene he’s in. Lauren likewise plays a foil but her twist is that she falls far deeper into the horror theming as the show goes on, resulting in what is one of my favourite genre bending finales to a musical I’ve ever seen that sends the surrealism meter over 10.
Lauren is the standout star here both in acting and vocal performance. Ewan Little as professor Hidgens is scintillating. His camp rendition of the “mad scientist/failed theater kid” character is hilarious and dominates the stage with energy fit for a circus. The real challenge of acting in a musical that has so many contrasting and opposing themes is one the main actors & actresses arise to stupendously. If not for great physical theater across the board the themes would collapse together into a mess, but instead they’re kept in tension with each other to hilarious effect.
Sadly as much as I enjoy the show there isn’t really a particularly amazing vocal performance. The songs as originally performed don’t really have any songs or vocals that make you go “wow” either so this isn’t the productions fault so much, but it does suffer from not being adequately mic’d up – and a good amount of the ensemble cannot adequately project their voice during songs. This doesn’t really impact the plot as it’s only noticeable in ensemble songs but its still annoying, especially when the songs are great moreso through the humour rather than musical composition.
That being said you might think, “well surely great songs are what makes a great musical” which I think is fair within reason. However this stands to me as a personal favourite for its deconstruction of the genre. It’s a lovingly crafted Frankenstein’s monster of alien body snatching, zombie horror, musical theatre, and genre parody. It hits every beat like a drum solo taking you from laughing at the dry opening act, before enjoying the genre deconstruction as the singing and dancing apocalypse takes hold before a finale that descends into genuinely unnerving cosmic horror. Sure it’s not Sondheim but it’s a wholly unique musical experience that is definitely worth seeing if you like musicals at all. It’s highly improbably that a scrappy publicly fundraised musical is genuinely one of if not the best mash up of genres in a musical, but it is. Happy Sad Productions had big boots (or tap dance shoes) to fill but they do it with all the scrappy charm of the original.