Gil Hates Everything

(This is the soundtrack to the stage musical, but there are different versions thereof; there’s a movie soundtrack as well.)

I saw this show here last year. Now I’m listening to the CD, it’s a definite case of “Oh, so that’s what the lyrics were…” – good old Vancouver theatre sound…

This is a spoof public information film, with a Rod Serling-esque narrator commenting on a dark tale of a straitlaced American boy lured off the straight and narrow by the evils of reefer and the Bad People who smoke it. It would be easy to glance at this and say “this must be a pro-drugs satire” and confront it head-on from that point of view. But I’d be surprised if the writers of this show meant it as a satire of anything more than the original 1936 ludicrously over-the-top private-church-funded alarmism movie. It doesn’t come across as a specific endorsement of weed, although I’m sure the authors don’t complain if random potheads mistake it for that and buy tickets as a result ;-) There’s some nasty stuff in here: the thug’s girlfriend notes that “the stuff” helps her numb herself after he rapes her, and the baby in the crib sings a brief and final lullaby, born an addict. In some ways it’s a musical of “Trainspotting”.

It falls into the same general category of twisted American retro occupied by Little Shop Of Horrors and Hairspray, but in the absence of a giant man-eating plant, it isn’t quite as interesting as the former. A lot of the music is very pastichey, effectively done, but therefore not all that thrilling. But then in comedy the music often exists to foreground the lyrics through its horrifying muzak-like pleasantness. But there’s not much in the way of big hooky songs.

While I was listening to this, I got the distinct feeling that I wasn’t in the mood, and the probable reason is that this is a dark comedy where the comedy doesn’t really work for me – it’s “The Producers” syndrome again, although at least it’s not Mel Brooks’ sense of humour… the squeaky-clean young lovers sing about Romeo and Juliet, convinced that when they read to the end of the play they’ll find a happy ending, and the narrator furiously compares reefer to other notable American witchhunts which we all know turned out badly (communism, negroes, jazz, etc).

It was a bit better live, anyway.

I was oscillating about whether to rate this, but whatever – this is “Gil Hates Musicals”, not “Gil Gives A Balanced View About Musicals”, nor indeed “Anyone Else Is In Charge Here”, so Random Panda awards this four out of ten pieces of bamboo.

Next week, a couple of things I might actually want to review, starting with “Rent”… but also including a couple of jukebox shows… sigh.

(originally posted 2009)