Review - The Toxic Avenger: They All Deserve To Die

You know you're in for a good one when there's a huge laugh before the first person on stage can even let out the third syllable of the show. But by the time the actors start growling to customers, "There's no intermission!" and "The show's eight hours long!" The Toxic Avenger has firmly established itself as one of the funniest musicals in town.

Based on a low-budget horror movie I've never heard of and composed by this guy who used to be in a band called Bon Jovi - which I have heard of but I have no idea what any of their songs are - The Toxic Avenger is the kind of mindless, aggressively tasteless junk food musical bound to please the discriminating musical theatre connoisseur who fondly recalls delightful Off-Broadway fare like Evil Dead: The Musical and Slut: The Musical. (Guilty as charged.) The fact alone that The Toxic Avenger doesn't include "The Musical" as part of its title makes it a refreshing addition to any recent theatrical season.

As in Lloyd Kaufman's original film, Joe DiPietro (book and lyrics) and David Bryan (music and lyrics) set their story in the fictional New Jersey town of Tromaville, which has become the dumping ground for toxic waste sent over by those mean elitists across the river in Manhattan. Geeky greenie Melvin Ferd the Third (Nick Cordero) has his mind set on cleaning up the town but his heart is set on the really hot and blind librarian, Sarah (Sara Chase) who spends most of her work hours writing erotic fiction that she dictates into a recorder; avoiding work by answering any request for help with, "I'm blind!" Sarah is convinced that Melvin has a beautiful soul, but when she gets a feel of his face she decides it's best that they should just be friends.

But after a pair of goons rough up Melvin and leave him in a barrel of sludge, toxic chemicals transform him into a big, green, ultra-violent ecology advocate just in time to rescue Sarah from a pair of abductors by tearing off their limbs and pulling vital organs out of their bodies. "I don't mean to be mean / But I'm about to remove your spleen," sings our hero as John Dods' prosthetic designs take the lyric literally.

But it seems Sarah - who calls her new beaux Toxie and thinks he smells so bad because he's French - is a devout pacifist ("Violence is always wrong, even though it's often entertaining.") so the Avenger must find non-violent ways to fight polluters, or at least hide his mean streak. Sarah's blindness is the source of numerous sight gags devised by the authors and director John Rando; their logic seeming to be that you can't really offend blind people with sight gags. But when the horny ingénue mistakenly pours Drano into her boyfriend's coffee or just wanders off stage in the middle of singing a love song, it comes off as innocent fun. And though Toxie seems fixated on her hotness (In the introspective ballad he sings, "When your face gets decayed / It's hard to get laid.") the awkwardness of their romance is sweetly played by the earnest couple.

But it's the three supporting players who get the real juicy stuff. After a brief appearance as a nun, the terrific musical comedy vet Nancy Opel uses her piercingly high belt and masterful broad-stroke humor technique to get the most out of her two main roles. Dressed in Nancy Reagan red by David C. Woolard (Mark Adam Rampmeyer's wig completes the deed), Opel is an over-the-top hoot as Tromaville's maniacal mayor who hopes that deals with corporate polluters can lead to a governorship. (In a cleavage-bearing tango she seductively heaves her credo, "Evil is Hot.") Opel also appears as Toxie's judgmental mom and, in the evening's high moment performs a maddening duet with herself, wearing a half-costume for each character, shrieking out the dramatic aria, "Bitch/Slut/Liar/Whore."

Assisting Opel in that bit of business is Demond Green, serving as the world's least effective body double. That's actually a good thing and it's just one of the five or six roles he plays as "Black Dude." Paired with Matthew Saldivar's "White Dude," the two make rapid-fire switches from street hoods to girl-group backup singers to solo turns as the easily seduced scientist (Green) who knows the secret to destroying Toxie and a Springsteenish guitarist (Saldivar) who wails "The Ballad of The Toxic Avenger."

Bryan's music serves the show well by contributing a driving pulse that rams the plot-driven festivities down our throats and pushes the very funny lyrics to the forefront. Rando and DiPietro keep the gags coming at a furious pace (set designer Beowulf Boritt provides some good ones, too) as the company plays the frat-house humor with hilarious sincerity.

The only thing I couldn't figure out is why the little old lady Toxie attacks in a rage is named Edna Ferber. Or maybe I just heard that wrong. Anybody got a script?

Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: Nick Cordero and Sara Chase; Bottom: Nancy Opel