No film is secure from a musical reinterpretation. Broadway has been dazzled with reinventions like The Producers, Sundown Boulevard, and Demise Turns into Her, whereas off-Broadways bought weirder with choices like Heathers, Tooth, and Little Store of Horrors.
However how do you flip The Exorcist, a really iconic horror film about demons and sacrilege, filled with sensible results that appear unimaginable to recreate on stage, right into a musical comedy?
For author Michael Shaw Fisher, you come at it from a whole lot of angles. Impressed by the madcap humor and fourth-wall-breaking of John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Offended Inch, Fisher created Exorcistic: The Musical. Fairly than enjoying like a straight-up parody (like Tooth), Fisher not solely recreates scenes from William Friedkin’s well-known movie, but additionally presents them as a play-within-a-play. Confused? Oh, simply you wait.
For each really rousing musical quantity or solidly foolish gag, Exorcistic: The Musical is cluttered by bits and large concepts that simply do not play out.
Exorcistic: The Musical is greater than a parody of The Exorcist.
Jaime Lyn Beatty and solid of “Exorcistic: The Rock Musical.”
Credit score: David Haverty
Fairly than rolling proper in with the primary quantity “A Christian in Iraq (Pazuzu Theme),” Exorcistic: The Musical units up the solid and crew behind the rock musical. The solid piles onto the stage, introducing themselves as actors or actor/producer, actor/author, and so forth. Amongst them are acquainted archetypes: the elegant main girl, the formidable ingenue, the playboy main man, the pompous creator, the egotistical character actor, the cheerful elder, and the infuriated stage supervisor.
Fairly than simply following the plot of The Exorcist, Fisher is introducing a thread about warring egos, pretentious showmanship, and poisonous showmances. However that is not all. At first, the solid welcomes the viewers to a stage studying, then begins performing out the film — initially with minimal props, like a sheet music stand. However then they pause to do an “anatomy of scene.” In these segments, which pop up all through the present, the actors get away of their Exorcist-inspired roles as possessed youngster, involved mother, and plagued priest to lecture the viewers about what the supply materials meant. However even right here they’re performing, enjoying actors explaining The Exorcist.
Frankly, these sections are tedious. Even when the insights revealed are fascinating, they really feel like a lecture, or worse, but a justification that The Exorcist is necessary sufficient to benefit a parody rock musical to start with. It is a hat on a hat on a hat. A parody about The Exorcist — even an unofficial one — may have introduced the irreverent enjoyable of Puffs, an unofficial Harry Potter comedy that wowed audiences by specializing in the much-ignored Hufflepuffs. Piling on the play-within-a-play to make Exorcistic: The Musical not solely a parody of The Exorcist but additionally a parody of parody musicals is formidable sufficient. Then, Fisher provides on the “anatomy of scene” interludes. A number of the components of the play parody and the Exorcist parody work. However altogether, it is a tangle of concepts and feelings that make the precise manufacturing arduous to observe and fewer enjoyable.
Emma Hunton is well worth the ticket value of Exorcistic: The Musical.
Emma Hunton as Megan in “Exorcistic: The Rock Musical.”
Credit score: David Haverty
This musical parody works finest when it delivers on what the title guarantees. Emma Hunton stars as Megan O’Neil — the legally distinctive parody of The Exorcist‘s Regan MacNeil. And whereas the repetition of characters saying issues like “Regan — I mean Megan!” will get outdated quick, Hunton is on hearth on that stage. Her first massive quantity is “Howdy Captain Rowdy,” which entails a Ouija board, a demon with horns and cowboy apparel, and a none-too-subtle metaphor for locating masturbation. It is outrageous, and Hunton revels in it with a mesmerizing gusto.
As Megan turns into more and more possessed by Captain Rowdy, Hunton’s conduct turns into extra aggressive and sexual. This units the stage for the reenactment of some epically disturbing scenes from The Exorcist, involving peeing on a rug, projectile vomiting on a priest, enjoying with a crucifix, and levitating off her mattress. Surprisingly, the spectacle bits that work finest are easy, relying mainly on Hunton’s efficiency over what an off-off-Broadway price range may handle when it comes to results.
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Emma Hunton as Megan in “Exorcistic: The Rock Musical.”
Credit score: David Haverty
Hunton explodes on stage, singing vibrant and brash like a Broadway diva. By way of her bodily comedy, she relishes within the pre-established transgressive behaviors of Regan — together with taunting this critic in the course of the urination scene by flicking the move of liquid nearer whereas making eye contact. However she’s completely phenomenal within the second act break quantity, “Your Cunting Daughter.”
Carrying the harrowing realization of simply dangerous issues have gotten on this D.C. dwelling, Megan unleashes a scorching track quantity that not solely rocks, it goes full-on Fosse. A fast change reveals a puke-green fringe costume, which Hunton shakes with deliberate abandon, whereas pulling dance strikes that appear stolen from Chicago. It is deranged and completely exhilarating.
Exorcistic: The Musical does an excessive amount of.
The solid of “Exorcistic: The Rock Musical.”
Credit score: David Haverty
This turducken of a play will get extra complicated because it goes. Basically, throughout the play it is not that Emma (the fictional character) is getting nice at enjoying a possessed Megan, it is that she has additionally been possessed.
Then, in between acts, the fictional solid makes the leap from off-Broadway to Broadway, as we’re knowledgeable by an untraditional post-intermission curtain speech. Over the course of the present, the actors (performed by actors) have seen the manufacturing develop over months, whereas we see small modifications, like higher props and flashier costumes. Nonetheless, the present itself doesn’t develop in the identical method.
Whereas there are suitably foolish songs like “A Movie Star With a Fucked Up Kid” and “The Jesuit Blues,” the present suffers when Hunton is not on stage. Her co-stars, whereas earnest, haven’t got her capacity to undertaking. The evening I attended, the sound combine was off, so the lyrics of a number of numbers was completely drowned out by the rock band meant to be backing them. In dialogue scenes, Jaime Lyn Beatty was a standout, enjoying the stage supervisor decided to get her second within the highlight. However when it got here to songs, Hunton by no means bought drowned out.
To director Chadd McMillan’s credit score, the solid tries to profit from the house. Carried out on the Asylum in New York (the place this critic beforehand noticed and praised the musical comedy Cellino V. Barnes), Exorcistic: The Musical has a small stage to work on. So, from the primary scene, the solid makes clear the entire of the theater is their play house.
They stomp off the stage for group numbers, and storm up the steps, deep into the audiences’ seating. They even work together, urging viewers members within the entrance row or the aisle to get in on the motion. This might imply holding a prop for a personality break, grabbing a boob from a consenting actress, getting flirted with by a demon, or getting drenched in glittery confetti. (I can communicate from expertise, you will be discovering confetti in your hair for hours, if not an entire day after.) A much less welcome facet impact of the actors’ getting this near the viewers included inadvertently being spit on. In fact, this may be part of passionate singing. However, be warned: There’s a splash zone, and it’s the entrance row.
Whereas I recognize the manufacturing’s moxie in utilizing the house so totally, it truly makes seats towards the entrance a foul view! For a number of numbers I needed to crane fully round to see what was happening behind me. And as a number of the gags — like a lackluster projectile vomit second — did not impress, I wanted the main focus had been much less on the steps and extra on the way to make these massive moments actually shine.
Positive, an off-Broadway manufacturing cannot compete with the zany perfection of Demise Turns into Her‘s stair-fall sequence. However as Cellino V. Barnes proved final 12 months, a small stage can work nice if the idea is concentrated. Right here, Fisher appears like he is throwing so many concepts on the viewers, certainly one thing will hit. However within the barrage, I used to be usually extra flustered than enthralled.
Exorcistic: The Musical has a whole lot of power. However the bits of it which are not a rock musical take away from the components of it which are. The ingenue getting possessed idea is enjoyable, enjoying into the concept the film was cursed — and thereby would not a parody of or not it’s too? However Fisher bogs down the play with an excessive amount of flare and loses focus.
Merely put, this parody works finest when it leans on what we liked about The Exorcist — the creepy visuals, Linda Blair’s legendary efficiency — and provides them a loving however foolish sendup. On this moments, Exorcistic: The Musical is devilishly beguiling. Sadly, these highs are too few and much between.
Exorcistic: The Musical is now enjoying on the Asylum in New York.
