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    Theatre Review: OSU Theatre’s Heathers for Fans Only

    OSU opened a lavish production of Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s adaptation of the cult classic ’80s dark comedy Heathers: The Musical directed by Mandy Fox on Thursday. Unfortunately, the production is so strong it lays bare faults in the original material more than it obscures them.

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    As in the movie it’s based on, Heathers: The Musical  follows a thinly veiled Thomas Worthington High School as Veronica (Shelby Martell), our Virgil, gets drafted into the popular crowd of Heathers with Heather Chandler (Hannah Halischak), Heather Duke (Jasmine Michelle Smith), and Heather McNamara (Abigail Marie Johnson). Of course, her good heart is tested first by the purity requirements of the Heathers as she navigates the Thunderdome of high school. She deals with – usually some version of badly – bullying, date raping jocks Kurt (Dane Morey) and Ram (Leo de Andrade), well-meaning but self-absorbed teachers like Ms. Fleming (Ellen Stokey), and old friends she has to betray like Martha (Angela DiCocco). Her “Baudelaire-quoting badass” new-kid boyfriend JD (Albert Coyne) tests it further as he slips from cynic into full sociopath on a Travis Bickle-like murder spree with hypocrisy in its sights.

    Albert Coyne as JD (L) and Shelby Martell as Veronica in The Ohio State University Department of Theatre's production of Heathers: The Musical. Photo by Matthew Hazard.
    Albert Coyne as JD (L) and Shelby Martell as Veronica in The Ohio State University Department of Theatre’s production of Heathers: The Musical. Photo by Matthew Hazard.

    The material has always relied on the audience to put our feelings about High School into its relatively thin material. It relies on the charisma of the actors portraying the characters and the rat-a-tat-tat rhythm of its acerbic comedy and its razor-sharp wit. There’s a reason lines from it are still quoted regularly by the generation who saw it and generations since. The movie, in 1988, also had the advantage of being one of the first films to take that dark and jaded a look at High School. Almost 30 years later, we’ve seen its moves co-opted, expanded, and sometimes improved upon. This is not one of those improvements.

    Most damaging for a musical, the songs suck. It bends over backward to cram memorable one-liners into full songs.  “My Dead Gay Son,” despite a fantastic full-throated revival performance by Chase Kuhn as Ram’s Dad with a hilarious Nick Trivelas as reluctant hypeman turns one of the funniest speeches from the movie into a tepid “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” from Guys and Dolls. It lets down the sharpness of the source by trying to shoehorn so many of the quotable lines into full songs. Beyond “My Dead Gay Son” lines like “Had a nice little swordfight in your mouth” turn into extended numbers (“Blue (Reprise)”) that remind us nothing’s less funny than belaboring a joke. Fox’s taut staging does as much to keep moving as it can but can’t obscure the numbers are operating on shaky ground.

    Hannah Halischak as Heather Chandler (L), Albert Coyne as JD, and Shelby Martell as Veronica in The Ohio State University Department of Theatre's production of Heathers: The Musical. Photo by Matthew Hazard.
    Hannah Halischak as Heather Chandler (L), Albert Coyne as JD, and Shelby Martell as Veronica in The Ohio State University Department of Theatre’s production of Heathers: The Musical. Photo by Matthew Hazard.

    While stretching jokes thin, the tunes also run from blatant lifts from Rent  (“Beautiful”) to songs crammed full of groaners in their lyrical turns of phrase (“The Me Inside of Me”), with a few memorable highlights sprinkled in. The times it tries to play on the material of the late ’80s when its set are an uncomfortable mishmash of faux-new wave and belting, wordy post-Sondheim. That blend mostly works on “Big Fun” as we see Martell’s Veronica seduced by belonging and her desperation for a deeper connection on “Prom or Hell” but more often falls flat. The production tries to wink at that by putting the numbers in the context of other classic musicals which never quite fits. Beyond “My Dead Gay Son,” “Our Love is God” makes clear JD is Sweeney Todd as Veronica falls for him but despite the total commitment and terrific singing of Coyne and Martell it feels tonally odd on the heels of her reactions to the first murder and her nihilistic seduction of him in the awesome “Dead Girl Walking.”

    This production of the musical does do the material justice in the charm of the performances. Shelby Martell’s red-blooded, wide-eyed Veronica is a delight the audience doesn’t have a hard time rooting for, and Coyne’s JD is the kind of damaged-sexy there’s no question could make the smartest girl in school melt. De Andrade’s Ram and Dane Morey’s Kurt are fantastic, proving again that it takes a smart actor to convincingly play a “dumb” character but also slipping easily between the bro-caricatures they are in life into the symbols of out gay pride they’re (falsely) lauded for after their death. Halischak as the lead Heather gets fascinating after her character dies and comes back to haunt Veronica. Angela DiCocco’s Martha plays a dark undercurrent to her earnestness that explodes in her blow-your-hair-back feature “Kindergarten Boyfriend” that’s staged in a cutting, ironic way perfectly in keeping with the tone of the original. “Kindergarten Boyfriend” is a number that hints at the interrogative, take-no-prisoners show this could be.

    Ultimately, this Heathers is recommended for super-fans of the movie only. If there aren’t pleasures for you in seeing how the moments you recall as they’re attacked in song and dance, there won’t be anything else besides a few excellent performances.

    Heathers: The Musical runs through April 21 with shows at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For tickets and more info, visit theatre.osu.edu/events/heathers-musical.

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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