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‘Cannibal!’ musical at Dad’s Garage
THEATER REVIEW. “Cannibal! The Musical.” Grade: C+ 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 8 p.m. Monday. Through Oct. 18. $15-$25. Dad’s Garage, 280 Elizabeth St., Inman Park. 404-523-3141, dadsgarage.com. Bottom line: Bloody well bad — in a good way. But where’s the beef?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To say that “Cannibal! The Musical” is an eye-popping, leather-chewing, blood-curdling exercise in tastelessness would not be exaggeration. It would be a fact.
Based on a low-budget 1996 film by “South Park” creator Trey Parker, and first produced for the stage by Dad’s Garage in 1998, the blood-splattered spectacle about real-life convicted cannibal Alfred “Alferd” Packer (1842-1907) has reared its ridiculous head again at the home of the city’s most raucous schlockmeisters.
Fair warning to the lily-livered: “Cannibal!” is rude and crude, intentionally disgusting, unevenly performed and —to this gore lover’s eyes — not nearly as funny or successful as last season’s ensemble-generated “Song of the Living Dead.”
A spoof of musical-theater and courtroom dramas, the show imagines Packer (Doug Graham) as he sits in the stockades awaiting execution. It’s 1883, and he’s been charged with devouring his five posse members as they trekked across the Colorado wilderness in search of gold. Their gruesome journey — replete with silly songs, fantastic fight scenes, horrific sight gags and dubious sexual adventures — is recounted in flashback form while Packer spills his guts to Polly Pry (Jessie Dougherty-Dean), a reporter who eventually falls for the seemingly sweet and sympathetic flesh-chomper.
But the love of Packer’s life is his horse, Liane. A bicycle mounted with a fake equine head, Liane eventually disappears and is later remembered in the song “When I Was on Top of You.”
As Packer and his mining buddies venture westward, they clash with a group of trappers. (Steven Westdahl plays the poachers’ furry, pot-bellied leader.) And Packer’s “diggers” endure cold rivers, snowy mountains and long shiver-y nights under shared blankets — situations which lead to gratuitous racist jokes, homosexual innuendo and extreme hunger.
But the real clincher is the ancient Civil War Cyclops (Kevin Huey) and his gaggle of sheep. Truly one of the most revolting figures I’ve ever seen onstage, the war-ravaged man spews pus from his one eye while his naughty sheep (Dougherty-Dean and Jon Carr) try to seduce Packer with their soft-shorn porn. They’re baa-aaa-baad. Director George Faughnan and “master of gore” Chris Brown never squander a chance to pump up the gross factor with puddles of blood and other bodily fluids. If only the quality of singing was in the same vein.
As funny as it may have been in its time, this “Oklahoma!” riff — a paean to the beauty of blue skies, the warmth of baked potatoes, the cheer of snowmen — has since been usurped by such subversive anti-musicals as “Urinetown,” “Avenue Q,” and “[title of show].” You can understand how Dad’s would want to honor its past with some “Shpadoinkle” fun. But after all the cannibal nonsense, there’s really not much to chew on.
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