★★★★☆ Trevor Ashley’s directorial debut delivers a brassy, brazen and brilliantly ballsy brand of entertaining fun.

Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse
May 12, 2016

To coin a phrase from Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s musical based on the cult 1989 movie about vicious high school alpha-biatches and homicidal teenage romance: “What’s your damage, Heathers?” Unfortunately for the opening night crowd at the Arts Centre Melbourne’s Playhouse, some persistent sound desk screw-ups caused a frustrating amount of the afore mentioned damage to the vocals in the first half of the performance. A shame, given that in almost every other respect, this is a brassy, brazen and brilliantly ballsy staging, albeit with a few minor shortcomings.

Heathers takes a rather predictable trope – the familiar adolescent class-war between the oppressive cruelty of the popular elite and the awkward desperation of the hopeless nerds – and passes it through the neon prism of the 80s, adding a surprising murderous twist on the way.

We meet Veronica (Hilary Cole) while she’s still one of the lesser-teens at the bottom of the social food chain at Westerburg High. She may not have an ounce of cool, but along with her equally sad bestie, Martha “Dumptruck” Dunnstock (Lauren McKenna), she has managed to retain her humanity and a belief that the world could be “beautiful.” 

However, a chance encounter with the Heathers (vividly drawn by Lucy Maunder, Rebecca Hetherington and Hannah Fredericksen) raises Veronica out of the social doldrums, placing her shoulder-pad to shoulder-pad with this trio of “mythic bitches”. These three similarly named teen-tyrants’ “solid Teflon” spite, talent for torment, and red scrunchy’d top-knots have earned them the awe and adoration of the entire student body, and Veronica is now one of them. She may be higher up the popularity pecking order, but it’s come at a cost, tarnishing her innocence and burning the bridges of her old friendships.

Hilary Cole and Stephen Madsen

While mired in the inner-turmoil caused by her new social status, Veronica meets the achingly mysterious new kid in town, J.D. (Stephen Madsen), and is instantly magnetised by his edgy looks and quietly defiant intelligence. Little does she know that this appealing exterior hides a brutal killer, and while her moral compass wrestles with her newly awakened libido, the body count begins to rise. 

The plot is largely faithful to Daniel Water’s screenplay, but shrugs off many of the darker accents of its cinematic source material, muting the bleak psychologies of its damaged characters while amplifying the lurid kitsch of its period setting. It’s a shrewd move by Murphy and O’Keefe: the notion of teen-on-teen mass murder may have been an entirely fictional scenario in 1989, but three decades of high school massacres have now given this plot a macabrely prophetic quality. Wrapping these less palatable connotations up in bubblegum pop-rock helps to disguise any distasteful connections to reality.

Technical hitches aside, this debut effort from first-time director, long-time entertainer, Trevor Ashley, shows confidence and a keen understanding of this material. His production is unapologetically shameless in its rowdy, boorish brand of entertaining fun, and while subtlety may not be Ashely’s strong suit, he knows exactly how to land a gag, especially when it involves the crotches of over-sexed jocks. He’s also a consummate sentimentalist, extracting some genuinely touching moments from the handful of more emotionally frail numbers in this score, notably the utterly heart-breaking description of suicidal thoughts in Life Boat, delivered with great sensitivity by Rebecca Hetherington.

Lauren McKenna and the Heathers ensemble

Occasionally, Ashley’s command of the stage reveals his inexperience. Sight-lines are touch and go, and from my vantage point, there were several moments where important action was happening out view, on the far fringes of the stage. This production has scaled-up substantially from its premiere season at the more diminutive Hayes Theatre in Sydney, and some aspects of this transfer don’t seem fully considered.

Arguably Ashley’s finest quality is his ability to cast, and this is a seriously well-heeled ensemble. Hilary Cole may be at the start of her career, but her abilities are astonishingly assured. Offering sharply focused, nimble vocals paired with impeccable acting; there is simply nothing to fault in her performance. Equally accomplished is Lucy Maunder as the ice-queen supreme, Heather Chandler. Despite some extremely demanding choreography, her characterisation of this unfeeling despot never faltered. Laura McKenna also impresses in both her roles, switching with almost inexplicable speed between dowdy side-kick Martha, and hopeless hippie teacher Ms. Fleming. A gifted comedienne, she wrings every ounce of comedy from both characters, while showing off her expert singing prowess. 

The male cast fall a little behind their female colleagues, although they all make a valiant fist of it. Stephen Madsen is a smouldering psycho as J.D., but he could push the danger of this role even further if he wished. Vincent Hooper and Jakob Ambrose as the dopey, meathead jocks, Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly, fully commit to the crude toilet humour of these two horned-up morons, once again tapping into the OTT electricity that conducts through every fibre of this show.

Heathers – the Musical, is at the Arts Centre Melbourne until May 22, before touring nationally.

TICKETS