The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals with Music and Lyrics by Jeff Blim. Book by Matt & Nick Lang. Originally Produced by Starkid Productions. Directed by Kari Boutcher, Music Directed by Elias Condakes. Scenic Design by Bradley Boutcher & Josh Telepman. Costume & Prop Design by Josh Telepman. Lighting & Sound Design by Michael Jay. Produced by Yorick Ensemble at BCA Plaza Theatre at 539 Tremont Street, Boston, through February 22nd.
By Charlotte Snow
Whether we like to admit it or not, being surrounded by theater people is a special kind of Hell. We’re overly extroverted, overly annoying, overly… everything! So when I saw that Yorick Ensemble was producing The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, a musical that is self-aware about musicals being a plague to humanity, I was jazzed as a chorus boy’s hands. Despite being about musical theatre and its culture, this show has never made it to Broadway. Although it’s famous, it’s YouTube famous.
In 2009, a troupe of Michigan undergrads, probably to avoid studying for their finals, banded together to create A Very Potter Musical, an irreverent parody of the Harry Potter series told through song and dance. Upon uploading a proshot (filmed performance) of their show to YouTube, they received instant virality and infamy. Since then, the theatre troupe has blossomed to create musical parodies of Aladdin, Star Wars, Batman, and The Trail to Oregon. All their shows captured and built upon the madcap, raunchy absurdist humor of their original hit while maintaining their DIY fringe theatre aesthetic and brand. Around 2016, the company ventured into writing original musicals that kept their outlandish humor but left the recognizability of IP-driven parodies. Thus, the half-musical, half-demented science experiment The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals was born.
If you’ve seen Starkid’s 2018 production on YouTube, you’ll be pleased as an alto with a solo to know that this iteration lives up to, and often surpasses, the zaniness of the original. If you are going into it blind, as I did, you’ll be pleasantly baffled and flabbergasted by this musical’s audacity. I truly believe it’s best to know as little as possible, so I’ll give a very bare-bones synopsis. Paul (Tom Marsh), the eponymous guy, one day wakes up to his fellow citizens of his small town singing and dancing… suspiciously in unison. It’s up to him and a small but almost mighty team to bring the curtain down on their town’s propensity for harmonies and dance breaks… OR ELSE!
Yorick Ensemble, who brought Starkid’s The Trail To Oregon to the Boston theatre scene last year, is no stranger to this unorthodox material. They wholeheartedly embraced this show’s quirks and expertly made up for its faults. As fun as this premise is, there were times when The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals really overstayed its welcome, with sequences that weren’t effective at moving the plot forward or establishing meaningful character growth. Thankfully, the script remains funny in these instances, but consequently, not all the jokes land as hard as they should in those meandering patches. There’s also a sense of real-world weight introduced three-quarters of the way through that feels unearned in this otherwise ludicrous world.
My main gripe, story-wise, is that the reasoning behind why everyone spontaneously breaks out into song and dance isn’t fully explained or consistent until much later. Even then, those later scenes continued to be bogged down by additional exposition despite some really solid gags and character development sprinkled throughout. It ultimately left me frustrated since I found the conceit of the story so clever, yet simple, that I didn’t see why the writers over-complicated their own hilarious premise. That is, however, the fault of the writers and shouldn’t be held against Yorick Ensemble, who succeeded at delivering a gut-busting good time at the theatre.
A cast of eight hilarious performers perform 30 or so different characters. The costume designer and artistic director (Josh Telepman) does a superb and inspiring job at differentiating all these many characters via his costume work. He is also one of the eight actors onstage, so he is PHYSICALLY differentiating his characters as well. Along with Telepman, the actors who play Professor Hidgens and Charlotte, Bradley Boutcher and Katie Iafolla respectively, are also standouts. They commit to their characters’ extreme archetypes without ever resorting to the obvious or cliche. Even the most bizarre of scenarios and lines felt grounded.
The direction from Kari Boutcher is also spot on, consistently nailing the comedic and horror tones as the script bounces between genres. There’s always a real buildup of tension, and Boutcher never quite lets you know whether it will be released from a laugh or a gasp. There are tons of costume and location changes, sometimes within the same scene, and the show never halts its action to make those changes happen.
The music direction from Elias Condakes goes the extra mile to turn out some really solid vocal performances when it could have been easier to let the jokes and the lyrics do all of the work. The choreography takes its cues from Starkid Productions, allowing visual variety for the audience without expecting intricacy or years of dance experience from the actors. Some of the mics were a bit off, and the mixing throughout did leave a bit to be desired. However, I do expect those bugs will be ironed out as the performances progress. That said, when the sound cues were needed to emphasize the dramatic and bombastic moments, sound designer Michael Jay sold them like they were tickets to Hamilton.
Overall, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is not without its faults. Most importantly though, it remains hysterical throughout, with each laugh cleverly crafted to be bigger than the last. It’s evident that so much hard work, joy, and talent went into this production because the good energy from all involved is truly infectious. The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals may not be as thematically rich, but I haven’t laughed this loudly in a theatre in a really long, long, long time. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.yorickensemble.com/
