Death Becomes Them

Having read such a great review for Ride The Cyclone, a musical from Atomic Vaudeville Theatre, amongst other positive reviews, I wanted to check out this show at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace for Summerworks. I stood in line for 1.5 hours to get a ticket and a good spot for the performance on Saturday. Let me preemptively say that it was so fantastic that I went back on Saturday and stood in line for another 2 hours to see it again, just in case this troupe from Victoria, B.C. do not mount in production in Toronto again. Although like the Globe and Mail reviewer, I hope they make it big with this hilarious musical.

The Amazing Karnak (first cousin to Zoltar?), recounts a sad tale. He can tell you the time of your death. This being a downer, his carnival owner switches him to "family fun mode". But he has another power: the ability to bring the dead back to life to tell their story. And so he does, at least until his own demise at the hands of a bass guitar-playing rat named Virgil.

The dead are 6 members of the St. Cassius Choir, high school kids from the small Saskatchewan town of Uranium (previously introduced 3 years ago in Legoland.) There's Noel Gruber (Kholby Wardell), the only gay kid in town, who lamented his banal death in a cabaret torch song about wanting to live (and die) a passionate life as an opium-addicted prostitute in post-war Paris. The over-achieving head of the choir is Ocean O'Carroll Rosenberg (Rielle Braid) who transformed herself from her need-to-please childhood balancing act between her Irish and Jewish kin into a skilled, and under-handed, debater who can argue any side of an issue. That is, until the angel Karl Marx showed her that "only your soul is keeping score". Misha Bachinski (Carey Wass) is an angry Ukrainian immigrant who'd rather be a gangsta rap star and leave Uranium to marry his Internet girlfriend from Kiev. Ricky Potts (Elliot Loran) is a non sequitur-spewing, comic-book quoting, piano-playing savant who may be the ruler of a distant planet populated by giant cat people. Constance Blackwood (Kelly Hudson), Ocean's much put-upon BFF, is tired of being labeled a mousy Uranium-lifer. Finally, there is Jane Doe (Sarah Jane Pelzer), who was unidentified because she had lost her head. She staggers about in a doll's head (Ms. Pelzer wears ringlets and black contact lenses), freaking out her fellow choir-members with depressing statements.

The cast members are excellent: singing, dancing, moving props and scenery - always in motion. When they are not doing the solo for their character, they help act out the other people in the singer's life story. So there's a real sense that it's a bunch of "theatre kids" who enjoy putting on show so they can sing, dance, wear silly costumes ... even in death, and even if the topic is someone's sad life. The songs are catchy and hummable, spanning all genres from musical theatre, glam-rock, rap, gospel, and so on.

Underneath all the humour and funny songs (except for Jane Doe's melacholic number), there is sadness. These teenagers won't grow up and leave their teenage angst behind. They won't get a chance to do something with their lives - to "live a life of glory" as Karnak says at one point. And for all their funny patter, as Ocean lamented at one point (although a bit over-dramatically) : "[their] death has really affected [them]". This sense of regret and loss elevate the show to more than just some catchy tunes and one-line zingers.

It was a great performance and I hope they come back to Toronto to put on this show for a longer run. Certainly, this 6 performance run would not have covered much of their costs. At 185 seats for $10/ticket, that would make their total to be just over $11000 for 6 full-house performances (which is likely). Even if the theatre charges minimally for the festival, there are 6 cast members and probably a few behind-the-scenes people. This article reveals that they needed to have a fund-raiser as well as an $18000 donation from their non-for-profit board to secure enough money to mount the production in Toronto. It's too bad they didn't have any CDs for sale. That would have easily netted them an extra $500+ per performance, assuming a profit of $10/CD.

The audience was a different mix at each performance. On Saturday, it was a mix of younger (20s/30s) and older (50s+) people while the Sunday crowd skewed to the younger set. However, next to me on Saturday was a cute girl in a short bob. She was dressed completely in black and didn't seem to react much (polite clap, no laughing). Her expression was one of bemused interest, like one of those anime girl robots who don't "get humans". I wonder if she's going to go out and buy those black contacts. Both days, most people standing in line around me seemed to be "in the theatre", related to people in the theatre, or friends with them. I stood next to Audrey (from Haunted Hillbilly) on Saturday and talked a bit to Rielle on Sunday while she stood in line with some of her friends. I find it a bit disappointing if true since it would mean that Summerworks is just the same people "talking" to each other. And economically, since we were just on that topic, it would mean that the same dollar is being passed around.

Anyway, I hope this Glee-like, but wholly original, piece of musical theatre gets the wide exposure and success it deserves. And if it returns, I will definitely go ride that cyclone one more time.