To provide a peek behind the curtain, I’ve had considerable trouble figuring just what I wanted to write. Given that it is Halloween season, it only felt right to focus on a “scary” musical. In doing research, certain things quickly became clear that this was going to be difficult because, while there are many that qualify as really good pieces of entertainment, there wasn’t one that spoke so directly to my heart that I wanted to write about them. So, as a result, I present to you a survey of musicals that in different ways reflect the spookiness of the season, the supernatural aura that can be brought to life on a stage, a haunted house of spectacle.
Despite having a strong affection for Universal Horror and monster movies, this is one area of theater that I never grew a strong attachment to. I think it’s in some respects because I was never really exposed to the campy highs with an audience. I couldn’t tell you what Repo! The Genetic Opera is about. For as much as I recognize the delightfulness of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), it always felt more designed for teenagers exploring parts of their identity. Also, for as much as I enjoy The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), I don’t feel like I have anything substantial to say that hasn’t been said better by more passionate fans.
The only real “horror musicals” that I’ve formed any strong attraction to are shows that I honestly don’t feel right lobbing into this camp. To me, a horror musical is more about the theatrics, the attempt to thrill an audience like you’re seeing a William Castle movie in theaters. It’s the Smell-O-Vision, the actors jumping out of dark corners to scare you. That is why it’s difficult for me to consider The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, or Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as mood-setting works. To me, those shows are first and foremost human dramas driven by core emotions. Are they scary? At times the tale of an outsider usually is. However, it’s often scary in the same way Eponine singing “A Little Fall of Rain” in Les Miserables is. You’re more feeling heartbreak than anything resembling a thrill that would make you dress up and go trick or treating.
This isn’t to discredit any of them. I personally find all three to be masterful works. The issue is that when I think of Halloween, I often think more of the cheap thrills. I don’t have big, complicated emotions to make me concerned for our protagonists. That is why I’m shifting towards stories that are more rooted in silly genre works. Yes, they have some core empathy to make them likable, but as a whole their core feature is an ability to surprise you, recognizing the lyrical wit of a good songbook and stagecraft that is a thing to behold.
I think the easiest place to start is with what most people consider the best horror musical in history: Little Shop of Horrors. It’s the show that gave the world Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, producing a sassy singing plant and muses that were directly out of a Supremes-knockoff girl group. There’s wacky humor and tributes to the Corman original, all adding to this weird sensibility that these outcasts of “Skid Row” a.k.a. Los Angeles are from another world even if they’re so familiar in their ability to relate to the economic and romantic struggles of every audience member who steps inside. Add in characters that lampoon greaser and drug culture, and you get one of the most euphoric experiences you can have on an Off-Broadway stage.
Besides the music, the biggest draw is of course Audrey II, better known as the mutant plant who grows demanding. He’ll scream “Feed me Seymour” while becoming a tale of Faustian bargaining, watching a metaphorical demon overtake this shmuck’s life, ignoring the richness of those around him. It’s full of dark humor and one of the greatest use of props I’ve seen in a theater. Slowly evolving from a miniature hand-puppet, Audrey II eventually fills up the stage, choking the air out of surrounding characters. For as much as this doo-wop and swing pastiche gets by on fun characters and a wired premise, it’s the ultimate horror musical because of how it grounds these antics in complicated emotions. “Somewhere That’s Green” is filled with jokes that should be comical, but underneath hides the pain of a woman unable to find a stable relationship.
It’s the subversion that one wishes more shows provided. There are elements of a throwback that also reflect how the supposed great suburbia was a myth. Not everyone in the 1950s was happy, and it doesn’t do a great job of hiding under the music. At a point, the pretense is ignored in favor of bold emotions and it’s a delightful experience. There is something genuine in the artifice, and all in favor of a peppy underdog tale.
It should be noted that the remainder of the musicals referenced are shows that I have not seen onstage. Provided local productions ever crop up, I may consider them. For now, I mostly put them on your radar in hopes that they bring you as much joy as they do me. It should be noted that most of these are more tongue in cheek, playing towards the theatrics than a deeply complex drama. That is, of course, solely based on the cast recordings and shouldn’t be a judgment of the plot’s entirety.
Among the most noteworthy that I’ve discovered is Evil Dead: The Musical. For those familiar with the Sam Raimi-directed trilogy, it does a fairly admirable job of recreating the atmosphere of Evil Dead II (1987) by making the antics as wild as possible. None of the music is necessarily subtle, going in on eccentricity full force. I’ve heard stories that performances often have a splatterfest element and that the action is just as wonderfully insane as you’d expect. You’re in the theater as much for this wild reinvention of a cult classic as you are to have the story reenacted in all its over the top glory.
I would love to see what this show can pull off in person because it does seem like a loving tribute to an idea that is genuinely insane. The music is fully committed, even having demons singing whole numbers with brazen language while protagonist Ash (whose arm is eventually implanted with a chainsaw) tries to fight his way out of this madness. If you’re looking for something on the comical side, I highly recommend tracking down the music and adding it to your horror musical playlist.
I would also like to recommend The Addams Family Musical, which has a similarly over the top sound. Given that it premiered on Broadway with actors like Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth playing key roles, there’s clearly more effort put into the stage design and music, finding a balance between the deadpan humor and this macabre approach to the family unit. This is a show designed for fans of the bigger franchise, who expect Uncle Fester to have some gross, deranged gags alongside a deeper emotion. It helps that the show at its heart features the comfort of outsiders finding connection, but it’s also one that inspires the audience to snap along and have a good time.
One of the shows that I’ve been morbidly curious to watch is Silence! The Musical. As one of the more popular Off-Off-Broadway musicals to emerge over the past 20 years, this parody of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is for a very specific kind of mindset. It’s one that’s designed to be downright vaudeville at points, turning the gross and vile actions of serial killers into peppy numbers. There’s subversion there that clearly draws in an audience, making them revel in psychopaths gleefully singing about women’s organs and burying corpses. As an album, it’s extremely poor taste and I’m sure that it’s downright cynical as a read. It’s partially why I want to see the show, if just to know if there’s more to this than lampooning the world of Hannibal Lecter with a tonally dissonant songbook that basically does the same plot, but as comedy.
Through deep-diving, I managed to discover a show that as far as I can tell hasn’t been staged often but definitely should. Halloween the Musical is a tribute to the John Carpenter classic Halloween (1978) and, like Silence!, takes a comical approach to the serial killer themes. I think what makes it different is that the perspective is focused on a group of naïve teenagers, themselves feeling reminiscent of theater kids doing everything to give their life the old razzle-dazzle. It’s a tribute to big, earnest musicals with limited instrumentation, with plenty of antagonistic humor to back it up. By the time that Michael Meyers appears, there’s such a strong understanding of characters that any rapid change in tone only adds to the madness of this world.
More than any show I’ve mentioned, I look forward to the Halloween season just to spin the John B. DeHaas production. Maybe it’s just my appreciation of musicals broken down to their core components, but the way that this show handles characters is superb. There’s enough balance of comedy and motivation while not overstepping too much into meanspirited farce. What’s here is a loving tribute the likes of which are clever and filled with effort. What it lacks in the budget of Evil Dead or Little Shop of Horrors more than makes up for overall exuberance. If you know of anyone doing a show around Southern California (whether you read this in 2021 or even 10 years from now), let me know because this sounds like A LOT of fun.
I’m deciding to end with the production I’m most likely to see sooner than later. It is arguably one of the few horror musicals that I think stands to rival Little Shop of Horrors in the pantheon of acclaimed productions. If nothing else, the online fan base has been very adamant about it, helping the show not only survive pre-pandemic, but resurrecting it stronger than ever. With one of the most delicious songbooks of any recent musical, Beetlejuice is a show that I think has legs and will be one that sticks around.
For starters, it has one of the most striking set designs of a recent show, filled with the familiar swirling madness of a Tim Burton-inspired dreamscape. I imagine that there will be impressive puppetry and Beetlejuice will be a character capable of breaking the fourth wall and adding layers to the show’s comedy. Given that the story centers around themes of grieving, it manages to have layers that appeal to the outsider and gives everyone enough of PG-rated macabre humor. I’ll admit that it falls more on the gimmicky side, but that’s exactly what you want for a delightful Halloween experience. Everything is over the top, jokes abruptly inserted like Robert Lopez wrote them. So much of the cast recording straddles the line nicely. It’ll either be a show that appeals to the Winona Ryder shrine teen in you or be a confusing mess. I fall somewhere in the middle, but on a good day, I am pumped when the music comes on.
This is obviously only a small sampling of horror musicals that you should be checking out. Obviously, I have so many more to discover. Maybe this week I’ll take some time to finally listen to Jekkyl & Hyde or Young Frankenstein (which given my indifference to The Producers, has been tough to build enthusiasm for). Whatever the case may be, the thing I love most about Halloween is discovering horror musicals that are more off the beaten path, written clearly by people who wanted to do something different this year. They didn’t want to just make a haunted house, but put on a show. The only downside is that I can’t see them all because boy do they sound like fun little experiments.
Comments
Post a Comment