I'm not sure how or when such epithets as "Armpit of the East" or "Scrotum of the Nation" rained down on New Jersey, but they were certainly commonplace before the onset of The Sopranos or Chris Christie. It's also clear that when Lloyd Kaufman and Joe Ritter cooked up their 1984 screenplay for The Toxic Avenger, they weren't intending to prettify the Garden State's battered image. About the only love they showed for Jersey was shooting the film there.
A mere 24 years elapsed before Joe DiPietro and Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, following their successful collaboration on Memphis, hooked up on a Toxic musical adaptation. The record-breaking reception of the show in New Brunswick, before its off-Broadway transfer in 2009, only underscored how highly Jerseyites cherish their notoriety.
DiPietro liberally refashions Kaufman's original plot, but political corruption, organized crime, unconscionable pollution and unchecked violence are still among its hallmarks. Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, newly resurrected on Freedom Drive after its recent homelessness, embraces all of these horrors with the merry glee it applied to Evil Dead The Musical seven years ago. Billy Ensley directed that 2009 gorefest on Stonewall Street, but ATC artistic director Chip Decker takes the reins here, reminding us that crass sci-fi musical parodies are at the core of this company's DNA.
Journeying from screen to stage, Melvin Ferd the Third has lost his signature janitorial mop, but he's still a hopeless nerd and still smitten by the blind Sarah, who is now a librarian. The new Melvin is an environmental crusader from the get-go, and his plunge into an oozing drum of green toxic goo is far more malignant, ordered by corrupt Tromaville mayor Babs Belgoody. Where does Melvin find the goods on Mayor Belgoody's polluting schemes? At the library, of course, cleverly filed away by Sarah where they are least likely to be found: among the important policy speeches of Michele Bachmann.
Something underhanded seems to have occurred here, since Bachmann didn't achieve her peak infamy until the 2012 election cycle. Suspicion falls on the prankish Decker, who compounds his violations of DiPietro's script by introducing the image of Donald Trump later in the evening. Hopefully, that glorified groper will be forgotten by the time the Avenger concludes his rampages on November 12.
Yes, if you didn't already know, what doesn't kill Melvin makes him Toxie, the avenging mutant monster. This is exactly where Actor's Theatre upstages the off-Broadway production once again. In 2009, Ensley simply had the luxury of a better pool of actors to choose from for Evil Dead. This year, Decker enjoys no luxuries whatsoever. ATC and City Hall couldn't dot all the i's on permits for the new location at 2219 Freedom Drive in time for opening night last Wednesday, so Decker & Co. were obliged to move next door to Center City Church & The Movement Center on very short notice. So the set designer is listed as Dire Circumstance in the playbill while other members of the design team have vanished altogether.
Whether by accident or design, then, Decker doesn't make the mistake that plagued the off-Broadway show: overproduction. In the New York version, when Melvin emerged from the chemical dumpsite as Toxie, the green carbuncled mask that covered his head was not only horrific, it robbed actor Nick Cordero of all further facial expression.
Jeremy DeCarlos doesn't have to combat that handicap. As cool, graceful, and intelligent as DeCarlos has always seemed onstage, I expected both the nerdy Melvin and the homicidal Toxie to be difficult stretches for him. Clearly, I had no idea how well DeCarlos could channel the dopey sound and body language of Jerry Lewis as the socially inept earth scientist. When he emerged from the flimsy façade of chemical drums as Toxie, there were some wrappings on his arms to offer a semblance of might, but it was Decker at the soundboard who offered the more telling boost, amping up DeCarlos' voice and synthesizing his monster roar.
- The Toxic Avenger
No, the wrappings and the roars don't close the gap between DeCarlos and fearsomeness — but that's another reason why his Toxie is so much more hilarious than the more technically polished off-Broadway version, which often forgot it was a spoof. Leslie Giles certainly isn't forgetting her spoofery as Sarah, helpless ingénue or aggressive vamp as the occasion demands — and her blind stick shtick with the hapless Melvin is a corny gift that keeps on giving. Sarah's big number, "My Big French Boyfriend," struck me as the best in the show.
Lisa Hugo, who was so precisely calibrated in the complex leading role of Stage Kiss earlier this year, the last ATC production at Stonewall Street, gets to loosen up in multiple roles. When she isn't the melodramatic, megalomaniacal Mayor, she's usually Melvin's disapproving Mom. These two nasty women turn out to be old enemies from their school days, so their "Bitch/Slut/Liar/Whore" confrontation deep in Act 2 was a manic reminder of a similar duet in the Jekyll & Hyde musical. Ma Ferd also gets an effective "All Men Are Freaks" duet with Sarah.
Ryan Stamey and Dominique Atwater divvy up nearly all the remaining roles, more than I could keep track of, with Matthew Blake Johnson subbing for Atwater on opening night. Somebody needs to terrorize Sarah, toss Melvin into the toxic goo, get their asses kicked by Toxie, scurry around with missing limbs, and represent the hordes of Tromavillians who idolize the grotesque mutant. Stamey and Johnson performed every one of these worthy missions, and more, with the suave sophistication you would expect.
Yes, the middle school auditorium atmospherics of the Movement Center hall are somewhat against the grain of the gorey Toxic Avenger irreverence, but it served better than expected for what turns out to be a unique guerilla theater project. If you arrive early for one of the remaining performances, you might get a brief tour of the new ATC space next door. What's going on now on Freedom Drive bodes well for the company and the resourceful artists who make it go.
Jon Jory is best known as the artistic director who brought renown to the Humana Festival and the Actor's Theatre of Louisville — and widely believed to have penned Keely and Du, Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage, and Anton in Show Business under the penname of Jane Martin. When it comes to adapting Jane Austen, whose Pride and Prejudice is currently on view at Pease Auditorium in a CPCC Theatre production, Jory is no dilettante. He has also adapted Sense and Sensibility and Emma.
Even if all the subtleties aren't always pointed under Heather Wilson-Bowlby's poised direction, it becomes obvious that Jory's adaptation preserves the style and thrust of Austen's liveliest masterwork. Most of the credit goes to Moriah Thomason as Austen's prejudging heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, though it's hard to deny she is amply counterbalanced by the hauteur of Brian Logsdon as Fitzwilliam Darcy. Thomason unveiled her elegance in the ATC production of Stick Fly back in February. Here she adds vivacity and wit, so I couldn't get enough of her.
We see where Elizabeth gets her wit from in Tony Wright's slightly jaundiced portrait of her father, and Anne Lambert's rendition of Mrs. Bennet has more than enough vanity, giddiness, and silliness to distribute among the younger Bennet sibs. My chief disappointment was the hoarseness that afflicted Lexie Simerly as Liz's elder sister Jane. If only she could have borrowed some extra decibels from Iris DeWitt, whose towering presence made the imperious Lady Catherine De Bourgh a perfect victim of Elizabeth's punctiliously polite sass.
