Build Date: Wed Jan 22 01:20:15 2025 UTC
I disappear in a puff of logic!
-- Doctor Murdock
Bat Boy -- The Musical
2006-11-06 10:55:06
The mountains are a horrible place to raise cows. No doubt about it. When people try, strange things happen. Like Bat Boy.
There's something sadistic about musicals in this town as of late. A case-in-point was the runaway raunchiness of "Debbie Does Dallas." It should come as no surprise that the latest oddity in the stage musical genre is being offered by several people responsible for bringing Debbie to her knees--er, I mean, dreams.
"Bat Boy--The Musical" could have taught Elton John and Bernie Taupin a few things about bringing the undead to the stage via sustained notes and a live orchestra. BB skips the self-important dramatics and relies heavily on camp. Presented in almost "Li'l Abner" fashion by James Iglehart, this lightly moralistic romp through a hillbilly town's hysteria when something odd is brought up from the local abandoned mine by a few intrepid slackers. Like a far more incestuous "Edward Sissorhands," Bat Boy becomes the focus of all life in this hickoid hellhole where a good year at the slaughterhouse is all the locals can ask for.
There are several standouts in the cast. DaRon Williams is absolutely hilarious in each of the roles he plays, with a deft sense of timing and delivery. Leanne Borghesi does a frightening job of channeling Faye Dunaway's channeling of Joan Crawford without getting as creepy as the latter. Eli Newsom manages well enough as Bay Boy, though some characterizations he presents could use a little more free-thinking and exploration. Nonetheless, he is enjoyable and fits well with his supporting cast.
BB--TM takes some odd chances and the payoff from them is variable. Sometimes poignant, sometimes tragic, and sometimes just the unvarnished truth about who and what we are as Americans. If the opening number starts to put you off, hang in there for the next scene and let the fun run away with you. This is a great show to go see and have your everyday world comically distanced from you. It's silly, it's bloody, it's goofy and light. Don't think of it as a musical; consider it a classic horror piece with a pulse.
Riding hard on the heels of All Hallow's, this show runs through November 12th at the Ray of Light Theater in San Francisco. For tickets and information, head for: roltheatre.com.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
As has been recently reported in the PDJ, Christopher Walken, evil s00per villain extraordinaire, will be appearing next month in Disney's newest release, The Country Bear Movie. Always playing some wicked and very disturbed badass in movies like Sleepy Hollow, Illuminata, The Prophecy I, II, III, Pulp Fiction, Batman Returns, The Milagro Beanfield War, A View to a Kill, The Dogs of War, Heaven's Gate, and The Deer Hunter, Walken is unsuprisingly a big favorite in the PDJ news room. (More...)
Johnnie Royale's Guide to Wakes
Wakes can present problems for Bad People of the Future. (If you don't know what a BPotF is, you need to read more of the PDJ.) Sure, your friend is gone and you miss him and that really sucks; it does, I know. But all Bad People of the Future are gonna die, and they have all accepted that fact. They do deserve, however, to have one final kickass party to celebrate all the bad things they've done in the past, present and future. And you, as a friend, have to make sure that their desire for a final send off is well executed (sorry for the pun). That's just the way of BPotFdom. (More...)
What do Computers and Skateboards have in Common?
They both sprang from the mind of John Mauchly that's what. (More...)
NASA's Mars missions keep blowing up and crashing, but dammit, when you reach for the stars you have to expect a few minor setbacks. Drink a toast to the men and women of NASA! Toast them with a Lost Probe mixed up with your own two (or three) hands! (More...)
Paranoid Strippers & Psychotic Crack Dealers (Tales of Christmas Eve)
Christmas day, for the last 17 or so years has bored me. I find that the real fun and excitement always takes place on Christmas Eve. Every other year, it's the excitement of the metaphorical hunt instead of the kill. Otherwise, it's just plain bad craziness. (More...)
Eavesdropping on Geeks: 'Star Trek: Discovery' vs 'The Orville'
If you broke into Pigdog's top sekrit headquarters, spying on their mysterious mix of weird science and old-skool geekiness, you'd overhear this conversation: (More...)
