Heathers the Musical overview – darkish teen comedy is hammy enjoyable, if totally defanged | Musicals

Before Mean Girls, there was Heathers. The 1989 black comedy nonetheless stands up as a merciless, chopping satire of 80s teen movies, starring a younger Winona Ryder as Veronica Sawyer, a well-liked woman with the center of an outsider who’s in with the trio of cool ladies, all named Heather, at Westerberg High. Sick of the tyranny of the “lip gloss gestapo”, she falls for a mysterious new scholar, Jason “JD” Dean, and turns into an unwitting confederate to murders framed as suicides.

Heathers the Musical premiered in 2014 and has extra in widespread, aesthetically and tonally, with the movie’s millennial successors. A high-octane blast of color with a bombastic pop-rock rating by Laurence O’Keefe (Legally Blonde) and Kevin Murphy, the musical has gained a faithful fanbase. Seeing it on opening night time felt not in contrast to going to a pop live performance, with the costumed viewers emitting high-pitched screams the second the solid appeared on stage.

The younger solid shines, notably Emma Caporaso making her skilled debut as Veronica. Swapping Ryder’s apathetic cynicism for one thing hotter and extra likable makes the following antics much more jarring, although it additionally takes the sting out of a few of the character’s iconic, sarcastic strains, and her eventual redemption feels much less transformative. Caporaso’s hovering vocals elevate staple songs like Dead Girl Walking and the shifting, anthemic ballad Seventeen.

The Voice finalist Calista Nelmes embodies “mythic bitch” queen bee Heather Chandler, bedazzled in pink – her vocal gymnastics on Candy Store are spectacular, and he or she performs each flesh and ghostly variations of the character with campiness. Abigail Sharp as Heather McNamara has a shocking second with Lifeboat, displaying off her dynamic vary from a timid whisper to a bell-clear belt. In a intelligent little bit of stage design by David Shields, the Heathers are sometimes positioned a tier above the remainder of the solid, reinforcing their place within the hierarchy. Colour performs a robust, placing position on this manufacturing, too – the Clueless-esque colour-blocked outfits have matching spotlights, and it’s a real thrill when Heather Duke (Amélia Rojas) turns into the brand new chief, signalled by her inexperienced outfit and socks abruptly turning brilliant pink.

Conor Beaumont performs a brooding, Beaudelaire-quoting JD with sensitivity, giving the character flashes of tortured humanity as his murderous rage grows – one of the vital contentious adjustments from movie to stage, as Christian Slater’s authentic model is extra blatantly psychopathic. Alongside the wonderful Ellis Dolan as JD’s abusive father, Beaumont imbues a way of pathos. It’s a disgrace that his vocals aren’t fairly as sturdy, wavering on key songs like Meant To Be Yours; when he sings with Caporaso, although, the problem appears to soften away with sturdy and plausible chemistry.

Heathers covers severe points, from suicide and bullying to consuming issues, rape tradition and homophobia. The method to the latter two subjects has clearly modified in the previous few a long time and the musical is aware of it – the controversial Blue, a jokey quantity about date rape and “blue balls”, has been swapped out since 2019 for the extra specific You’re Welcome, in a scene the place Veronica faces actual bodily hazard from jocks Kurt and Ram (performed as goofy comedian reduction by Nic Van Lits and David Cuny). A one-liner from the supply materials has been reworked into an unlikely celebration of queerness (My Dead Gay Son). Slow-motion battle scenes additionally add to the schlocky humour of the piece, undercutting the true violence depicted.

Bigger missteps are within the newer songs reminiscent of I Say No, by which Veronica lastly rejects JD, evaluating him to a drug (“This troubled teen is getting clean” is certainly one of many on-the-nose lyrics). It does the viewers a disservice to need to spell issues out so explicitly, and whereas Caporaso carries it with admirable defiance, the unsubtle moralising erases the gray that makes Heathers such a wierd and compelling story to start with.

Heathers the Musical is extra bark than chew, and the stakes by no means actually really feel excessive – but it surely’s good, hammy enjoyable, and the solid and viewers alike are clearly having a ball. Its tonal chaos is the embodiment of the whiplash in certainly one of Slater’s chilling strains from the movie: “Our love is God. Let’s go get a slushie.”

• Heathers the Musical is in Melbourne till 9 May. It excursions to Adelaide 16-26 July, Gold Coast 30 July-9 August, Canberra 14-23 August, Sydney 26-29 August and 1-19 September, and Perth 30 September – 11 October. All dates and venues here