Review: BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL at Morgan-Wixon Theater

Fall has fallen, and ‘tis the season – in Santa Monica at least - for deformed, half-human, blood drinking creatures, mob hysteria, murdered cows and some hypocritical and very back-woodsy West Virginians. Also for some turbo-charged camp by a company that gets it. Welcome home to SoCal, BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL and rock on players at the Morgan-Wixon Theatre for diving fangs first into Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming and Laurence O’Keefe’s wacked out little 1997 opus. From the second we enter the theater, ushered in by black cowl-clad members of the Cult of Bat Boy; when we see that pointy-eared effigy strung up to the rafters, we’re primed for two plus hours of four alarm horror camp. Director Meghan Ripchik, her 18-member cast and technical team are quite literally out for blood.

Mostly they get it, with the caveat that you really need to have an appetite for this sort of thing. Costume Designer Nia Heinrich and hair and makeup designer Lex Verdayes establish the over-the top horror palette, decking out our Hope Falls, West Virginians with frightening gusto. Martin Del Orbe’s multi room doll house of a set opens up space for interiors, caves, barns and revival meetings alike. Even without live music, Ripchik (also the performance’s choreographer) has this hard-working cast breaking out some seriously frisky dance steps, pushing the action along. The production’s one serious detraction: the sound. Working without body or stage mics, the actors sung dialog often goes unheard, particularly during instances when the crowd gets into it. Which is often.

Inspired by a tabloid tale reported in the Weekly World News, BB:TM tells of a feral creature (played by Aaron Ellis) who is brought out of a cave by a trio of spelunking siblings after he attacks one of them. The boy is fostered by Dr Parker, the town veterinarian (Connor Tyler Gray), his kindly wife Meredith (Lauren Josephs), and their daughter Shelley (Cassandra Caruso). Already on edge over a recent spate of cow deaths, the Hope Falls populace don’t take kindly to a freakish newcomer in their midst, particularly one who has already shed blood. But with patience, Christian charity, and a bunch of BBC language tapes, the Parkers civilize Bat Boy – renamed Edgar – clothe him, teach him to speak and give him a home. All the misunderstood creature wants, after all, is to fit in. The odds are not in his favor as slimeball Dr Parker, resentful of Edgar’s taking his place in Meredith’s affection, starts working to poison the town against him and inflame his bestial nature.  Think: EDWARD SCOSSORHANDS in the Ozarks rather than suburbia, possessed of fangs instead of digit shears, and set to a subversive score by the man who would go on to write LEGALLY BLONDE.

BAT BOY is more broadly satirical and bloodier than SCISSORHANDS; the humor broader. From an audience perspective, one needs a certain strength of stomach to watch a human being kept in a cage, screaming as the young woman (who is supposed to be humane) mocks him before her boyfriend comes in to fool around and get his taunts in. Or, much later, to witness a blood-soaked individual singing to the head of the cow he has just murdered and devoured. Credit to Ripchik’s cast for embracing the grand guignol elements of this tale with nary a flinch. Comedy, cringes and icks are fairly evenly distributed. It all adds up to an evening with plenty of laughs as well as a few instances where you may be ashamed of yourself for doing so.   

At the center of it all is a winning Ellis, small and unthreatening, transformed under Verdayes’s makeup and working a rummy British accent to wonderful effect. Josephs and Caruso are strong as the Parker mother and daughter who go from compliant to rebels (their rendering of the number “Three Bedroom House” is superb). This takes place out in the woods during the second act, shortly before the bacchanalian rendering of “Children, Children” – presided over by the actor Lorne as the God Pan.

By this point, you might think that things can’t possibly get weirder. Then, of course, they do.  Because that’s how BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL rolls. Tis the season for weird after all.

BAT BOY: The MUSICAL plays through Oct. 13 at 2627 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica.

Photo of Aaron Ellis by Joel Castro

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