Head Back to High School with UW Madison's "Heathers: The Musical"
Mean girls suck.
This truism is not just painfully relatable to everyone who has survived high school, it is the basis for an entire genre in entertainment, including three musicals that are as popular as a blonde cheerleader right now: The Prom, Mean Girls, and Heathers: The Musical. And while you can catch the other two on tour, it’s worth trying to bribe a stagehand for a ticket to the spectacular (sold-out) production of Heathers: The Musical, which is packing the UW-Madison Department of Theater and Drama’s Mitchell Theatre, through April 24.
This dark, irreverent, wildly funny, violent, and often profane hit musical was the brainchild of Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, the creators of stage adaptations of Legally Blonde and Reefer Madness respectively. Based on the 1989 box office flop of the same name, Heathers: The Musical is a tuneful indictment of high school bullies, a celebration of ’80s hair, fashion, and entitlement, and a perverse revenge fantasy all rolled into one. While the movie was written to mock the now classic, feel-good youth culture films of John Hughes (Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles,) the musical actually does include a message of acceptance and tolerance for teens caught in the “Thunderdome” of high school. But this is no after school special. It’s an affirmation of real friendships and empathy buried six feet under black comedy, blood, and shell casings.
The story starts like all good teen dramas, with an outsider girl writing in her diary that she is dreading her senior year, and the soul-crushing brutality that only 17 year-olds can wield at one another. With a plan aimed simply at survival, this smart, sensitive, wannabe poet with a gift for forgery, proposes an allyship with the mean girls who rule the school – the Heathers. Veronica is soon a little too “in” with the in-crowd and is becoming the thing she loathes – a mean girl who picks on her awkward, out-of-step friend Martha. If only there was some way to stop those stuck-up, sadistic Heathers!
Mean jocks also suck.
And the Heathers aren’t the only toxic squad on the quad – there’s also Kurt and Ram, the football players who have confused being king of a very small hill with being kings of the world. This testosterone overloaded, peaked-too-early, more-brawn-than-brains duo get off on terrorizing the weak and sexually harassing anything in a skirt. If only there was some way to cut those cavemen down to size!
Enter a brooding new kid, lurking in the shadows. JD (a charismatic Michael Decker) arrives, quoting French poets and looking like Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack’s boombox-holding, earnest kickboxer character from another ’80s classic, Say Anything). For a moment he’s Veronica’s hero, strong enough to smack down the bullies and smart enough to be his own outsider self. It’s hard not to fall for this sensitive soul from a troubled family who seems to stand on the right side of high school power plays. Until he starts killing people.
From here, Heathers: the Musical dives headlong into absurd, Lord of the Flies territory, accompanied by a fantastic, teen pop song score, crisp, energetic choreography, sparkly ghosts of tormentors past, and clueless adults who co-opt every new student death for their own middle-aged ends. If only there was a way to stop this murderous madness!
Not only is the material in Heathers: The Musical a complete blast, the UW-Madison Theater Department production of the musical is simply outstanding. Director Jake Penner pushes the frenetic high school nightmare just to the edge of excess, maintaining a delicate balance of humor and horror, caricature and humanity. Infusing the score’s two dozen songs with clever, challenging, and perfectly executed dance sequences, choreographer Brian Cowing keeps some signature moves from professional productions, while putting his own ingenious spin on group numbers. His movement for the mourners in Act II’s perversely comic “My Dead Gay Son” is particularly inspired.
And then there’s the extraordinary cast of 20 undergrads who bring Heathers to life (and death), including many freshmen and sophomores with majors from all across campus. Not only does the ensemble shine as a group in every big number, the depth of talent in all 8 main roles is astonishing.
As our protagonist and narrator Veronica, Caroline Hansen is unstoppable. Appearing in almost every scene of the show and singing solos, duets, and group numbers from beginning to end, she is the heart of the story and the heroine who ultimately saves the day. She is also the student who is pitched from high school clique to clique – from nerd to Heatherite, keg stand party girl to romantic accomplice to murder, outsider to leader of the student body. Hansen heightens every scene on her ridiculous arc with wide eyes and an expressive face, a strong, clear mezzo soprano voice, and a jumble of teenage feelings that are clearly competing with her brain. From her cynical and defeated anthem “Dead Girl Walking,” to her romantic longing in “Fight for Me,” to the sweet duet “Seventeen,” she is simply sublime in the role.
As the troubled but charming hero with an even more troubling TNT fetish, Michael Decker is also perfectly cast as JD. His journey from the handsome underdog to crazed killer is slow and steady and his textured tenor voice lends just the right bittersweet note to his backstory song “Freeze Your Brain,” about finding emotional refuge in a convenience store. As the damaged guy that teen girls love to love, he reels us in. And then he explodes. Nuanced enough to be compelling, Decker’s performance keeps the play from teetering over into zombie apocalypse territory until the very end.
And then there are the Heathers. Frightening in their withering gazes, standing tall in their perfect coifs, angular blazers, and high heels, they are the merciless, beautiful girls who look like they just stepped out of a Seventeen Magazine photoshoot. As the lead Heather, Corinna Smith is perfect, and perfectly horrifying, embodying everything I remember from my own high school Heathers trauma. (Hey Pam!) She delivers casual cruelty and demands for corn nuts (it’s not a party without corn nuts!) with the same haughty intensity. But she is so fun to hate that her resurrection song, “Me Inside of Me,” and her subsequent haunting of Veronica feels like a huge bonus.
While Heather number two (Natalie Matthai) plays her too-intense, too-tight ponytail, Lady M on a maniacal mission to the hilt, the third Heather (Natalie Wolff) has a surprising and lovely solo, “Lifeboat,” revealing that inside, mean girls are people too. (Who knew?) On their own, they are interesting and unique, but as a trio they are a force of nature, showcased in the very catchy popular-clique anthem, “Candy Store.”
As the obnoxious jocks Ram and Kurt, Joseph Green and Andre Canseco lean in to every sexist pig, alpha male, toxic masculinity, homophobic trope then can find. And to their credit as actors, they really own them. Partying hard, playing rough, and getting off on tormenting the student body, it’s a real treat to see characters embarrassed and defeated by Veronica in “You’re Welcome.” They are equally delightful as sparkly, scantily-clad ghosts attending to ghost Heather in the high school afterlife.
And finally there’s Martha “Dump truck,” the truly clueless nerd who somehow hasn’t matured past third grade in her relationships. Combined with her silly unicorn sweatshirt and her pudgy form, she is a sweet, insecure girl who is a too-easy target. (Hey Pam! There you are again!) But in Heathers: The Musical, even Martha gets a song of her own, “Kindergarten Boyfriend,” which Bree Bylak performs beautifully, even while enacting a Titanic meme. Bylak brings endless vulnerability to this defenseless teddy bear of a character, who needs even more understanding than everyone else in high school.
Scenic design by Keith Pitts presents a high school gym so realistically you can practically smell the locker rooms and the disinfectant they use to clean the mats. With a central staircase and a flexible upper level, there are plenty of great places for characters to make entrances – though none of them are as bold as the glorious trio of Heathers. Costume design by Shannon Heibler is also on point, from the letterman’s jackets, to the shoulder pads, power blazers, neon colors, and mini skirts. And the Laura Ashley look that Veronica sports before she goes over to the dark side was a tad too familiar (Milton High School, class of 1988).
So in 2022, is it cringey to see a high school guy in a trench coat plotting the murder of his classmates? Is it more horrifying than hilarious to see a teen opening fire on his school nemesis? Is it funny when two football players try and fail to gang rape the protagonist, but boast in school that they did, via song? Yes and no. Much like the subject matter and humor in Book of Mormon, there are a lot of lyrics designed to shock and delight in equal measure and it’s sometimes hard to know whether to laugh or choke. But the sold-out audience had no trouble with this dilemma on opening night. They laughed. And then they screamed and cheered.
(Seriously. Try to sneak in. It’s that good.)