Halloween musicals are never a good idea

Around this time last year, Josh, Todd, Jen, and I took in a viewing of Evil Dead: The Musical. I wish I could report that I loved it, but in truth I found it painful to sit through. The people around me seemed to be enjoying it, but I just could not find enough humor in the performances, spoofing, and massive amounts of fake blood to enjoy the evening. There was talk of leaving at intermission, which is something I used to never do and now only rarely do. But I was in favor of ditching. We ended up with a split vote and stayed for the duration.

Wednesday night Josh, Todd, and I tried again. It was Halloween, and though we didn't don costumes or score candy, we did try to get into the creepy crawly spirit by going to the new off-Broadway Frankenstein: The Musical (side note: the show is apparently suffering from massive ticket returns as fools who can't read think they're buying amazingly priced tickets to Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein musical, realize they aren't, and then try to get their money back. If a deal looks to good to be true, that's likely because it is). I went in with high hopes; the buzz hadn't been over the moon, but I'm a fan of Hunter Foster, who played Victor Frankenstein. He isn't always a hit, but his Bobby Strong was spot on and affords him the benefit of the doubt in my book. Sadly, there just wasn't much for him to work with here. Foster is best when comic, and this show was trying--oh, how hard it was trying!--to be atmospheric and dark. Steve Blanchard, as Frankenstein's creation, did a lot of heavy breathing and dragging of one leg to embody the monster. I wish he would have seen Eve Best in A Moon for the Misbegotten and done a bit of what she did. And apart from individual performances, the music just wasn't good. There was a great deal more synthesizer in action than any show this side of Jesus Christ Superstar deserves. Characters were never given an opportunity to interact with each other. Instead, the show raced through plot points with the chorus milling around the stage synopsizing the action and individuals rhapsodizing about their angst through song.

Todd began the night by warning us that if the show was bad, he wouldn't be pressured into staying. Intermission came and after talking for a while about what was and wasn't working, we decided to bail. Apologies to Hunter Foster and team, but it was a lot more fun to get drinks together for the rest of the night than stare forlornly at the playbill counting how many songs we had to go before the end.