Musical’s dark comedy plays on teens’ struggle for acceptance
For the unfortunate unpopular kids, high school can be a nightmare.
“Heathers: The Musical” highlights the dark side of high school while satirizing its cliquish extremes.
The Ohio State University Theater Department will present the rock musical, which will open tonight in Drake Center’s Thurber Theatre.
“It’s a cautionary story about the high school from hell and about what some kids do to make a change into a world of acceptance and compassion,” director Mandy Fox said.
Authors/composers/ lyricists Laurence O’Keefe (“Batboy: The Musical,” “Legally Blonde: The Musical”) and Kevin Murphy (“Reefer Madness”) based the two-act musical on “Heathers,” the 1988 film about a clique of popular high-school girls in a fictional Ohio suburb.
“The writers re-envisioned this darkly satirical movie as a bawdy, hilarious and touching tale,” Fox said.
The darkly comic twoact addresses teen suicide, homophobia and bullying. The show, which ran off-Broadway in 2014, is suggested for audience members 16 and older because of sexuality, profanity, partial nudity and violence.
“It’s a surprisingly challenging piece,” Fox said.
“One difference from the movie is that we see Veronica with her best friend, Martha, before she joins the popular girls.”
Another difference: When characters die onstage, they return as ghosts.
“They haunt Veronica, the only one who can see them,” Fox said.
Shelby Martell plays 17-year-old Veronica Sawyer, the role that
launched Winona Ryder’s film career.
“Veronica is labeled a nerd,” said Martell, 19, a freshman.
“She dresses in her mom’s clothes and has a best friend who’s another nerdy outcast, but she’s very smart and observant, with bitingly smart sarcasm.”
Frustrated by the fierce hierarchies at her new school, Veronica yearns to rise above it but is drawn into the clique of Heathers, the three most popular girls.
“In all of us, there are times when we can act as Heathers,” Martell said.
“Sometimes we assert power in our friendships or relationships to our advantage and, sometimes, to the detriment of others.”
Albert Coyne, an OSU junior, plays JD, the role played by Christian Slater in the film.
“I love getting inside his mind,” said Coyne, 20.
“JD is a fascinating character — dangerous, very much a loner, with all this bad stuff that’s happened to him and his family but with a charismatic, cool side that gets Veronica to fall in love with him.”
While JD has good motives, Coyne views his violent tactics as highly questionable.
“He has been trying to destroy things to level the ground and start the world anew, get rid of all the jerks and mean people,” Coyne said.
“By the end, he realizes that he has been going about it all wrong.”
Martell, who is in her first leading role at OSU after graduating from Wapakoneta High School in Wapakoneta, Ohio, found it easy to relate to her role.
“A lot of the show is blown up and heightened beyond reality, but there are some parallels that come really close to some of my highschool experiences,” Martell said.
“There is a big emphasis on being popular.”
Fox, meanwhile, was Veronica’s age when graduating from Hilliard High School in 1989 — the year the musical is set.
“These are the same stereotypes — the popular kids, nerdy kids, bullies, the stoner chick, the hipster dork — that exist from high school to high school and certainly when I went to school,” said Fox, 45.
“These are recognizable human beings striving for happiness and love, like any high-schooler, and driven by their hopes and fears to take extraordinary actions.”