Still riding the 80s pop culture nostalgia wave, Heathers the Musical returns on tour to Glasgow’s King’s Theatre. What’s immediately noticeable before the overture has even begun is the number of young female fans who’ve arrived to the theatre in character cosplay and wearing Heathers merch. It’s an increasingly common sight amongst musical theatre audiences, but more on that later…
An early point of intrigue in the show itself is how quickly protagonist Veronica (Jenna Innes) makes her transition from wallflower outcast to member of the popular group – the titular ‘Heathers’. In fact, it happens within the show’s opening number in an American high school trope seen time and again. It’s a sign of things to come – that this musical is terrified of ever losing pace for even a moment. Musically, it’s a contemporary rock-pop fest (with surprisingly little reliance on any 80s synths or sound effects) and it’s easy to hear elements of other big hitters: Wicked, Hairspray, Legally Blonde…
One of the most surprising elements here is the incredibly sparse dialogue. Despite the lengthy runtime, the narrative unfolds at break-neck speed, packing in song after song after song (22 listed in the programme) without much else in between. The issue is that none of them are particularly catchy or memorable and eventually it becomes wearing. Does every single plot point – no matter how minor – really deserve its own entire tune, especially when it’s a struggle at times to hear the lyrics?
The performers must be praised, though. The lead cast’s vocals are all superb; Innes and Verity Thompson (Heather Chandler) in particular are powerhouse singers who hit every riff and high note with apparent ease. The audience clearly love them too, almost screaming for them at various moments. It’s all part of quite an odd experience, though. There is a growing musical theatre fandom demographic of teenagers and twenty-something women who are latching on to particular shows like this – Waitress and Six the Musical come to mind. They attend the shows repeatedly, like pop concerts. They yell when the lights go down. They jump from their chairs after their favourite numbers. They squeal at jokes and lines that aren’t particularly funny. And they choose their number one characters, dressing up as them. It’s a bizarre experience. Presumably, they are connecting with central female personas who are outcasts or atypical in some way. And that’s great. The irritating thing is, though… surely there are far better examples of musicals to become obsessed with?
It feels like the Twilight phenomenon of the mid 00s has shifted to the theatre world. Perhaps these young fans can easily see themselves in Veronica because, well, she’s not actually that interesting or distinctive. The opening number presents her as some sort of nerd but we don’t know why. She mentions her damaged relationship with her parents who we see on stage twice, briefly, and we don’t know why. She begins murdering classmates without feeling much remorse and we don’t know why. Yet the fans in the audience are dressed in her outfit and are screaming for her like she’s the biggest popstar on the planet.
Moreover, the perplexing thing about the success of Heathers the Musical isn’t the 2-D cartoonish characters; it’s the utterly muddled tone of it all. The original film was very clearly a black comedy, and the stage version attempts to borrow this – making jokes about suicide, bulimia, and date rape. But it doesn’t align with anything visual on stage and certainly not the jaunty pop music score. We’re left wondering where this is all pitched and who it’s for. One song in particular, My Dead Gay Son – clearly a favourite amongst the audience die-hards – is baffling. It feels like it was written twenty years ago circa Avenue Q‘s breakthrough when taboo-songwriting was hot and hyping up stereotypes was seen as edgy and outrageous. Now, though, it just feels uncomfortable and dated. Two fathers in the town attend the joint funerals of their murdered sons who they falsely believe were gay. After a heated argument, disco lights descend, rainbow costumes appear and the cast begin YMCA-dancing and singing joyously about dead gay men… in the USA… in the 80s… and we’re supposed to be laughing because ‘gay things’ are funny… or something…
Perhaps there’s an insurmountable problem when adapting a film that’s already an anomaly of genre-mashing. Heathers the Musical is a tonal jumble which somehow seems to be getting away with it thanks to primary colours, a bombardment of loud musical numbers, and lots of ‘cool’ swearing thrown into the second act to make us giggle, squeal, and buy a wild totebag on our way out.