Theater review: “Bat Boy” delightfully off-kilter.
Crouched in a cage, actor Ricky Cona tentatively reaches out a hand toward a co-star. As the title character of “Bat Boy: The Musical,” he’s a lost soul, trembling with fear.
But it’s not the pointy ears or the plastic fangs that Cona brings to “Bat Boy” that make watching his performance so exciting (though Kyla Swanberg’s costume design is perfectly swell). It’s Cona’s heart. Not to mention his powerful set of pipes.
Cona, last seen in “Totally Electric,” is at the center of Gen Y Productions’ sly production of this uneven but often delightfully off-kilter musical. The concept for “Bat Boy” was ripped from a headline in a trashy supermarket tabloid trumpeting that a creature — half-boy and half-bat — had been found in a West Virginia cave.
The story actually follows much more conventional lines than the premise suggests — sweet soul is deemed a monster by the judgmental, morally bankrupt people around him. It’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” meets “Edward Scissorhands,” with a little “Dracula” and possibly some “Deliverance” thrown in for good measure.
Writers Key the Farley and Brian Flemming hide their moralizing under a good deal of laughter, and director Kenny Howard mines the humor with flair, though not always as outrageously as he could. He has assembled a top-notch cast that plays off one another extremely well.
Cona, as mentioned, gives a star performance: fragile one minute, then raging, then mournful. He’s sometimes inhumane but always human. Vocally, he proves adept at any of Laurence O’Keefe’s song styles: gospel, show tune, ballad.
He’s well supported by actors such as Rebecca Fisher, who gives a lovely turn as the strong-willed woman who cares for Bat Boy and shines on the poignant “A Home for You.” In the ensemble, where actors play multiple roles with no thought to gender, Adam McCabe brilliantly sketches a crotchety old granny. David Lee scores as a slick tent-revival preacher and makes other lesser roles pop.
William Marchante’s choreography is fun without overwhelming the stage, and Bonnie Sprung’s children’s-book set design works well with Roy Brown’s dynamic lighting. John deHaas leads a fine band, through the music often is too loud.
The second act drags on as things get heavy — a good editor could really have helped the writers — and themes such as rape and incest mean “Bat Boy” isn’t for everyone. But for those ready for a bloodsoaked ride, this is a Halloween treat.