Andy Gapin

Last night, I was a very lucky dude, I got to see the Toxic Avenger musical for free thanks to it being Bloggers Night and me, well, knowing people. Yes, I know people and you don’t. I’m awesome, you suck. The show is currently playing in NYC at New World Stages, the same place that hosted Evil Dead: The Musical while it was in NYC.

I’m going to get straight to the point, this was great. Pure fun from beginning to end. As a lover of the Garden State, there was a lot to relate to. They really drove home the whole New Jersey being polluted thing along with many other references to things we take as standard New Jersey staples. Corruption, Turnpike humor, Springsteen, misplaced stereotypes. Hilarious stuff, I promise.

The stage setup was really neat. I’m not a big theater person and so I can’t say I’ve been to see a ton of theatrical productions, but of what I have seen, this set was easily the most innovative. I tried to grab a picture before it started, but that plan was quickly thwarted by an overeager usher. All around the stage, there were big drums representing the barrels of toxic waste from Manhattan. These drums actually took up most of the stage, even in the center. However, the drums in the center were on a big rotating platform that allowed them to change the set really quickly. And the band–the music was a very rock based sound with a ton of guitar distortion–was set up on top of the drums on the left side of the stage rather than in a pit. There were even lights on them. It was pretty cool and kind of reminded me of one of my favorite things about New Jersey, basement shows.

The cast was phenomenal and only made of up five members. The actors for Toxie and Sarah were steady, but the other three members played multiple characters and pulled off very quick costume changes. Two of them are listed in the playbill as simply playing “White Dude” and “Black Dude” and pulled off at least five or six roles each, including Sarah’s female friends and the townspeople. They did a great job, but the real star of the show was Nancy Opel who plays both the mayor and Toxie’s mom. The script actually uses this fact to poke a lot of fun at itself making references to it being possible for the two of them to be in the same room at the same time. This conflict really climaxes toward the end of the production when the two characters have a huge argument/fight with each other while Nancy Opel runs back and forth behind some curtains to do some quick costume changes in between lyrics. At the end, she comes out dressed with one side as the mayor and one side as the mother, very Harvey Two-Face esque. She takes turns facing each direction so that the characters can pull off a really fast name calling bit. It was ingeniously done.

I’m not going to mention anything about the movies, but I will say that this was insanely fun and everything that it should have been. Comparing this to Evil Dead: The Musical is a fairly obvious thing to do and as much as I hold on to the statement that that was literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, this comes very close. Oh, so very close.

Do yourself a favor and go see this.