One of the boons of having a little more discretionary income in the past year and less exhaustion (and J's new freedom from a crazy schedule) is that we've actually gotten to see some live theater with some more to come in the next few months, Beetleljuice was the touring Broadway production at the Auditorium while this weeks adventure was on the other end of the spectrum entirely when we saw American Psycho in the tiny little black box stage on the lower level of the Chopin Theatre.
As a former theater kid, it was appalling how many years it had been since I had seen any live show, much less a musical, but this was a good one. There is much online of the ways this once successful London production faltered when it hit the States and could not manage to keep its footing in an uber-competitive pre-covid Broadway season. I am actually not much of a fan of Easton's novel or work in general, and had met the film version with interest but was sort of meh, which was surprising at how much I loved this musical adaptation dripping with blood (well metaphorical), 80s consumerism, and music.
I've watched most of the Broadway production, which was a bit slicker and bigger than what I saw in the Chopin basement with interest, and listened a few times to the London recording, and have to say it lent itself equally well to the tiny runway stage in the black box with basically no set and very few props. Since I used to do occasional readings in that basement space in the mid-aughts (also the mainstage upstairs for the Gwendolyn Brooks event one summer) I wondered what exactly this was going to look like. Instead of blood, it relied on glitter and confetti. The audience was practically in the show, with the actors moving and dancing around us in the darkness which made it almost an immersive experience.
What was perhaps most surprising, however, since I have little tolerance for toxic masculinity (which this whole franchise is about constructing and deconstructing) I may have felt the first flickering of sympathy for a character the novel and the movie had failed to create in me. So much so that I was nearly in tears by the final musical number--an especially bleak ending (especially compared to Beetlejuice's cheery one.) The lyrics, which I've listened to several times today are a knife in the gut. The original compositions by Duncan Sheik (whose CD from the 90s I have rattling around somewhere) are rounded out by great 80's throwbacks like New Order, Tears for Fears, and Phil Collins, songs that have never been my favorites but are somehow perfect in these contexts.
