You walk in to a large warehouse-ish room. It’s all splintery wooden beams and black paint, huge red-and-black bat faces and unfinished walls. Smoke floats overhead. The slight beat of a drum echoes in the background, and bare risers surround a small stage. As you take your seat, the lights promptly go out, and you sit in the dark listening to three teenagers explore a cave. Suddenly you feel a presence slightly to your left and overhead?and you realize it’s a human. A man. And he is naked.
The premise of Bat Boy, The Musical is simple: a half-bat, half-boy is found in a cave, and proceeds to wreak social and emotional havoc on the town of Hope Falls. Taken in by a superficially photographic family, Bat Boy challenges the notions of tolerance, happiness and love of everyone he comes in contact with. The musical lightly yet cleverly plays with these intense themes, allowing its audience to leave happy, whether as a result of its static comedy, its scholarly literary and theatrical allusions, or the multiple emotional levels on which it plays.
At first, Bat Boy seems less than impressive. Mediocre voices (save those of Dr. and Mrs. Parker, the couple which take Bat Boy in) mar the performance. The script skirts the fine line between touching and corny, and the choreography is simple and clich?-ridden.
At the same time, it poses a clever contrast. Yes, the characters sing trite lyrics while moving in sync like a painstakingly rendered version of Cabaret, but the parody is made clear with the quick references to pop culture and the deft ability of the actors to draw laughs from the audience during abrasively heavy scenes. It’s a foolproof equation, and melodrama juxtaposed with sarcasm makes for an entertaining two hours.
The actors are good?very good. However, the only three who palpably catch the spotlight are Lauri Kraft as Mrs. Parker, Tara Giordano as her daughter Shelley, and Carlos Offutt in multiple roles, including a fabulous rendition of a James Brown-esque preacher. The fun that these actors have with their roles proves infectious, causing a chain reaction of laughter through the crowd as they play with the musical formula.
Themes of tolerance and change, phoniness and superficiality, and comfort and joy are nimbly laced through the dialogue so that each scene leaves a social question on the tongue. The only problem with Bat Boy’s wittily presented emotion is that there is almost too much of it. The musical addresses too many issues in our culture today. After leaving the theater, many questions remain: Where is the line of tolerance drawn? What is wrong anymore, and who has the right to damn? What are we reduced to when our comfort bubbles are invaded? What happens when we are caged? What are the bounds of love? Or charity? On what level are we all animal?
It becomes evident, however, that Bat Boy came to ask the inhabitants of Hope Falls the last question. He represents the stark contrasts within all of us between humanity and barbarity. The many levels on which the audience can choose to view the musical makes for a successful piece of performance art. Entertaining, amusing, and challenging at once, Bat Boy, The Musical forces its audience to leave the theater grappling with hiding its inner beast.
Bat Boy, The Musical is playing at Studio Theater Secondstage at 14th and P Sts., N.W. from Nov. 14 to Dec. 8. Tickets are $30.
