All teens feel like lumbering monsters at one time or another.
In the zany, tongue-in-cheek musical "Zombie Prom," Jonny Warner feels that way all the time after a suicide dive into the stack of a nuclear reactor turns him into a truly toxic teen.
Seems Jonny - an orphan from the wrong side of the tracks - fell for Toffee, a sweet, pretty, popular fellow student at Enrico Fermi High School, and she for him. But Toffee's parents and martinet school principal Delilah Strict forced her to break up with Jonny, and in an epic fit of adolescent despondency, he threw himself into the fiery furnace.
Toffee mourns her lost beau, who was buried at sea in a lead-lined coffin with a load of nuclear waste. The intensity of her grief brings Jonny back to life, albeit as a green-skinned zombie sporting strips of dangling flesh.
The two young sweethearts are reunited, and love conquers all, even Principal Strict, with the aid of cheery muck-raking tabloid journalist Eddie Flagrante.
Theatre A La Carte's production of "Zombie Prom" seems to aim for the deadpan camp of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," but Wednesday night's preview performance (a final dress rehearsal) fell slightly short of the mark. As often happens at such previews, where actors and tech crew are tweaking their work in preparation for opening night, the energy picked up in the second act and was crackling like a Geiger counter by the boffo closing number.
The performance had an earnest, offbeat, goofy charm, thanks in part to Michele Ackermann's deft musical staging and clever choreography. Director Eric Hurst has salted his cast with truly wonderful singing actors who handled the difficult musical numbers with facility Wednesday night.
Rachel McCauley's delightful, sparkling voice - one of the highlights of TALC's 2000 production of "Tommy - the Musical," in which she played Mrs. Walker - was barely tarnished by a case of laryngitis as she romped through her role as the termagant Principal Strict. Her duets with Alan Nelson, who played newsman Flagrante, were particularly good, with Nelson's strong, tuneful voice blending beautifully with McCauley's.
As Toffee, Mara McElroy had the wide-eyed charm and sweet, pure voice of a true teen queen. As her living dead swain Jonny, Patrick Campbell nailed every song, soaring to dramatic heights with a tenor that would melt any girl's heart.
The ensemble - particularly TALC veteran Geo Seery - seemed to be having a great time on stage, delivering the songs' witty lyrics with verve and negotiating the sprightly, more-difficult-than-they-seemed musical numbers with relative ease. Musical director Sarah Hess Cohen's tiny ensemble was tight as a drum.
I predict that once TALC's production of "Zombie Prom" settles into its two-week run under Hurst's sure direction, the energy level will rise, as will the cast's urge to camp it up, and the show will glow with atomic power.
