Hayes Theatre, October 15
6/10
It’s official: you can now make a musical from anything, even a subject more suited to a trashy teen flick. And if you’re as talented a first-time director as Chiara Assetta, you can daub enough lipstick and mascara on it to disguise its many defects.
Preston Max Allen wrote the whole shebang: book, music and lyrics, and perhaps he should have shared the workload. The book is zany and sometimes quite funny, the lyrics intermittently share those qualities, and then there’s the music. Gulp. What do you say about an 18-song show in which only one differentiates itself from the rest? Can you imagine the inanity of Frederick Loewe writing the same musical style for Higgins as Eliza in My Fair Lady? That’s precisely what Allen does here for all but one character.
The Tigers are a high school cheerleading squad that botched last year’s comp, and have assembled at the home of their captain, Riley (Brianna Bishop), for a sleepover to bond and rehearse. More is afoot than pizza and pom poms, however. A slasher is on the prowl, as firstly Chess the druggie (Chelsea Dawson) and then Farrah the drunk (Artemis Alonzetti) are found stabbed – the latter in an amusing rehash of the shower scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho.
It’s that sort of show.
Reese (Caitlin McCallig) has just found Farrah’s body when she sees a stranger in the dark, and – well-meaningly – bludgeons him to death. That swiftly terminates the show’s lone male role of Clarke (Pippin Carroll), the boyfriend of uber-Christian Annleigh (Annabel Jamieson).
Stay with me because we’re not done yet. The squad also contains Cairo (Olivia Vasquez), supposedly Riley’s bestie, although you’d be hard pressed to pick it amid their cattiness. It’s she who hatches the plan to blame Mattie (Jenny Guigayoma) for the murders, which leads to that lone differentiated song, when Mattie’s pining in prison. Then there’s Kate (AF Betts), Chess’s girlfriend, and Eva (Millie Seeto), who joins from a rival squad.
We’re not meant to care about any of these people or their relationships; merely be amused by them via the dialogue. While the songs have some cute lines, you’re so pummelled by the relentlessly unchanging pop-rock, with everyone singing in the same register, that during them it’s pleasanter to admire Alice Vance’s nifty set, Lily Mateljan’s character-defining costumes, or especially Assetta’s sharp choreography and direction, notably in the climax’s series of amusing tableaux.
That’s not to say there’s no scope for the performers to shine, and leading them all is Bishop, who has a natural flair for comedy, vocally, facially and bodily. The others make the most of their chances, with special mention to Seeto and Betts for their ensemble work, and Jamieson for her hilarious mixed-message heavy-petting scene with Carroll. As for who’s the murderer, I guess you have to survive the songs to find out.
Until November 8.