Bat Boy The Musical: Gladstone Production Enhances the Material
The cult status of some shows can often be mystifying. Take the 1997 off-Broadway musical Batboy which has romped onto the Gladstone Theatre stage in a spirited production far more worthy than the material itself.
With its unapologetic excess of camp, its determination to send up the conventions of both the horror movie and the Broadway musical, its cheeky disregard of the need for psychological plausibility or characters which go beyond the stereotype, Batboy (which was inspired by a spoof news item in the satiric publication, Weekly World News) may strike purists as a mess. However, rather like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, it’s a mess that insists we like it — but to serve that purpose, you need ensemble playing which goes beyond the call of duty. We get that thanks to director Dave Dawson, obviously an adroit ringmaster when it comes to this sort of thing. Even so, what we’re left with is the tritely familiar story of the loner kid who wants to belong; that the musical is also seeking to send up this cliché plot merely adds to the thematic confusion, given that despite the show’s anarchic disposition, we actually feel sorry for the title character. …
