Tennessee Toombs and Olivia Gouthro as J.D. and Veronica. Photo by Stoo Metz.
YPCo’s production of Heathers: The Musical (Teen Edition) showcases the incredible talents of the company this year. I was so blown away by their professionalism, their incredible voices, and how every single person in the ensemble cast is performing at the absolute highest caliber. The show runs until October 27th, 2024 and is almost completely sold out. If you are still looking for tickets, visit this website as soon as you can!
It was quite audacious of Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy to decide that the film that needed a musical adaptation in 2014 was the 1989 cult classic black comedy Heathers. Baked inherently into the film was the absurdism in 1989 of suburban teenagers killing one another at school. Thankfully, I think here in Halifax that absurdism still exists to a certain extent, but it is still hard to forget that there have been more than 385 school shootings in the United States this year alone. There is power in looking at our worst fears and finding a way to laugh at them, and in attempting to render them absurd, and I think that it is in that spirit that Heathers: The Musical was written. It’s a hard, hard line to walk, and I don’t know that Heathers is Brechtian enough that it fully pushes beyond the horrifying realism of our contemporary society and becomes something so outrageous that it actually becomes farcical. This is more a criticism of our society than it is of the musical. Regardless, though, Heathers: The Musical has garnered an avid fanbase, especially with those who are young enough to have been subjected to active shooter drills in school, which makes me think, perhaps, for younger folks, there is something cathartic about this show, and that, perhaps, it may be more difficult for older people than it is for teenagers to watch without the seriousness of the world interrupting the musical’s tone.
The musical is set in the fictional Westerberg High School in a town in Ohio in 1989. Despite the fact that it is made very clear that the Senior Class have largely been together since kindergarten Veronica Sawyer (Olivia Gouthro) and her best friend Martha Dunnstock (Nelanga Mtshali) are being tortured daily by the popular jocks and the clique of bitches known as ‘The Heathers.’ In a twist of what first looks like good luck Veronica is begrudgingly accepted by the Heathers, and it changes her personality and her relationship with Martha. Still, when the new kid, J.D. (Tennessee Toombs) suggests that, perhaps, everything would be better if all the bitches and assholes just disappeared, and maybe they could help them to do so, she is initially intrigued. After all, he does have a heroic outlaw or vigilante aura about him.
The audience, I think, is encouraged to initially at least have empathy for J.D’s point of view. The Heathers and the jocks, Ram and Kurt (Will Robertson and Connie Pottie) behave deplorably. The adults we see behave deplorably. The entire town seems mired deep in a toxicity that keeps getting passed down from generation to generation and J.D. isn’t wrong in his cynicism about finding a realistic and organic cycle breaker. There is no easy or obvious answer for how to deal with abusive or toxic people and it’s to the musical’s credit that it doesn’t purport there to be.
Nadia Tonen’s Heather Chandler, who is described in the musical as a “mythic bitch,” sets the tone of the school at ruthlessly vicious. Jill Wishart’s Heather Duke is excellent at being a photocopy of Tonen’s Chandler- the same image, but with lower resolution, and you can see that Duke knows she’s inferior and is quietly humiliated about it. Ella Murphy, on the other hand, as Heather McNamara tries to play both sides of the coin- she wants to both be liked and to be popular, and she knows this is a losing experiment. Together the three are formidable. There is so much truth in each of these three performances, unfortunately, likely because we all know versions of these three girls.
I found the portrayals of Ram and Kurt by Robertson and Pottie interesting because director Laura Caswell could have had them be even more realistically dangerous than the Heathers, which would have been an extremely dark direction for a YPCo show to go, but instead they are much weaker and goofier than the popular girls, which helps to remind us, like Martha says throughout, that not that long ago all these hormonal ‘psychopaths’ were just little kids who cared about one another.
Tennesse Toombs gives a beautifully nuanced performance as J.D., capturing both the ways that he is sensitive and smart and trying to lead from his heart, and the ways in which he is sadistic and full of rage, hurt, and a deep sense of injustice. It feels very real in a way that feels kind of sad because there have been teenagers so much like J.D, and in many cases we know and remember their names. Olivia Gouthro also is brilliantly nuanced as Veronica as she oscillates between being a goody two shoes kid to selling out her best friend for the chance of a scrunchie, to getting deep in over her head and fast. Together you believe in their attraction and their connection, and that’s sad too because, as Veronica sings, perhaps if they had met earlier, everything would have turned out differently.
In complete contrast to all this sadness is O’Keefe and Murphy’s bubblegum pop score, that is trying so hard to be the score of Legally Blonde, which, as other critics have pointed out, has no connection whatsoever to the tone of the film or the late 1980s. However, perhaps this is how O’Keefe and Murphy are attempting to create Brecht’s alienation effect. The music is the one element that consistently keeps the musical from feeling real- regardless of how nuanced the acting, regardless of how sad and empathetic the characters are, or how dark the story gets, the music is always there to remind you that you aren’t supposed to get sucked into the dark, or the real too much: get carried away by the beat and buoyed back up by the bounce. And to some extent, this works.
This wasn’t my first time seeing Heathers: the Musical. It’s not my favourite (although, it’s intellectually interesting!), BUT this was definitely my favourite production of it. These YPCo students are all stars. I will not be surprised if I find out in ten years that some of them are performing on Broadway. So catch them before then, if there are still tickets available.
YPCo’s production of Heathers: The Musical: Teen Edition plays at the Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Studio Theatre (1589 Argyle Street, Halifax) until October 27th, 2024. The show is almost entirely sold-out! Check for tickets online here, or call the Box Office at 902.429.7070 or visit in person on Argyle Street. Please be aware that this show is Recommended for ages 13+.
Please note: this show contains: coarse language, gun violence, suicide, physical violence, attempted sexual assault, abuse in a romantic relationship, and haze.
Run Time: approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes (including intermission).
