Review by anonymous
June 09, 2017What I liked
What I didn't like
My overall impression
First off, no “werewolves” ( i’m sorry, a bad Elvis wig does not a werewolf make) Second, there was no “rock” in this “rock musical.” Third, " nothing bad?" They are wrong on that score too. Talk about a misleading title… (*Place eye roll emoji here.)
What I liked, Jake Saenz and Lexi Eisermen were both excellent, I would say the cast overall was extremely committed, and made a noble effort with varying degrees of success. But as for Jake and Lexi, I would be eager to see them in anything else.
Now for the bad.
I agree rape song was awkward. Not ill-intended. Just ill-conceived – and not because rape shouldn’t be addressed on stage, but because the way it was clumsily plopped in the middle of this horror satire (?) during which, the rapist and his girlfriend fluctuate in and out of real time…? Sorry. It’s not staged very well and the music itself doesn’t possess the power worthy of such a traumatic event. They can cut it. Overall the show needs serious editing anyway. The story I saw could and should have been an hour or even 45 minutes. Refrains are repeated endless at nausium “Dreaming, screaming.” Also please note: just because there is a verse/course structure that keeps 4/4 time doesn’t make these “rock” songs. The mid-tempo melodies drag on without ever reaching emotional peaks, and instead plunk along with accompaniment similar to the built-in demo of a Casio keyboard. The lyrics are unclever placeholders for exposition, telling us not showing us, how the characters feel. Hokey dialogue rules, and couldn’t be saved but the writer’s sneaking in of titles and lyrics of other well-known songs; like when a character comes in saying “I heard the news today Oh boy!” Another big problem is the script takes itself too seriously, as if it’s not content to be a horror parody but is reaching for something larger that it can’t come close to pulling off. None of the characters are scary outside of their terrible rock wigs. Did that dude with the wolfpaw tattoo have earphones under that Elvis wig? (What was that??) Instead the “bad boys and girls” stride around on the stage, leering menacingly at the audiences as if confident that their leering and strutting alone will prove some sort of point about how badass as they are. Oh Lordy, it sure doesn’t. It’s just silly. Like a bad college experiment. All the characters are all pretty two-dimensional, which is fine if this was a show that really leaned into the B movie style that it promises in the beginning. Unfortunately it doesn’t, so it comes off as neither funny, or emotional, preaching it’s themes of the importance of, or perhaps the danger of rebellion, or lust, or something… I don’t know.
