Is there any theater company within driving distance of the Twin Cities doing something as audacious, ambitious, and original as Heck at St. Croix Festival Theatre? I doubt it. If you’re tired of seeing the same old musicals, the movie adaptations, the IP extensions, the stories and songs you’ve heard before, then you’ll want to plan a trip just across the Wisconsin border to St. Croix Falls to see this brand new original musical before it closes on October 27th.
Well, you’ll want to make that trip as long as you don’t mind a little sacrilege (or a lot, depending on your religious devotion). And if you don’t mind audience participation (yours truly certainly doesn’t, as I proved when I was called up on stage on opening weekend — thanks for the kind words, Rob). And if you don’t mind your original musicals being a hot mess.
I use “hot” there in the literal and figurative sense, as Heck is indeed about hell. Specifically, it’s about the Devil (played by Kathryn Cesarz, executive director of the theater and co-creator of this musical) who is having trouble accepting a breakup…with God. As it turns out, Madam Satan — or Lucy, short for Lucifer — had a thing with God before she fell from heaven, but now she’s created the “emotional support demon” Belpho (Jesse March, the other co-creator) to help her cope, and maybe even win God back.
If that sounds a little risqué for St. Croix Falls, with its population of 2,200 people, and for the Festival Theatre, which kicked off its return to their magnificently renovated Historic Auditorium earlier this year with a musical about…a small town in Wisconsin, then you’re absolutely right. It’s a miracle this show is being staged (what’s the satanic version of a miracle?), but I applaud these folks for taking a chance on something completely off the wall and pushing boundaries that many companies here in the Twin Cities would be skittish about.
Yet, ambition doesn’t always lead to success. As this is a perfect show for Halloween, I’ll put it this way: When I left Heck and drove back to Minneapolis, I felt like I had just gone trick-or-treating, gathering up a bucket full of candy, some to my taste, some I’d rather toss.
Let’s start with the good stuff, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups of the bunch. While the Devil has been interpreted in countless ways in pop culture, from comedies to horror movies, Cesarz offers up a wholly original and seductive version: a female nightclub performer. The show is framed as a cabaret of sorts, with the fourth wall broken immediately, which helps give the musical an appropriate air of anticipation. While our host is beguiling in a red wig, shimmering suit, and dark lips, March as Belpho is the exact opposite: a spandex demon with a paunch and a speech impediment (on account of his fangs). March’s commitment to his character’s slapstick antics — especially in a scene that involves eggs, that’s all I’ll say — is the foundation by which the rest of the comedy rests on. Without March’s unique talents, it’s easy to see many of the laughs falling flat.
There are a few other pivotal characters of note in this underworld will-they-or-won’t-they: Alexandria Neyhart plays Gabby — that is, the archangel Gabriel, who’s decided to take female form and move in on Lucy’s territory. “I’m Mine,” her duet with Satan in Act 2, is undoubtedly the musical highlight of the show, with Neyhart and Cesarz breaking out of the contrivances to well and truly sing their hearts out. The only thing missing from that song is some drums to match the energy of the two explosive leading ladies, as the band is a three-piece of bass (Sky Yela), violin (Peter Clare, excellent) and guitar (Dan Rosen). There’s also Squee, a demon puppet with the hots for Satan, who is voiced by Evan Grande, but manipulated with the help of Lindsey Fry and Mary Margaret Hughes (all three also play demon chorus members). The puppet, built by Michael Pettit, is a wonder to behold in the hands of these artists. After 10 seconds onstage, you forget the human puppeteers are even there.
Now for the vanilla Tootsie Rolls in the pail. Heck is supposedly centered around Satan, but by the end of the musical, the character who feels the most fleshed out is the puppet demon, Squee. That’s a problem, seeing as he feels like he was tossed in somewhere down the line in the writing of the show for comedic effect. But Squee’s ascent obscures the larger issue: the three main characters — Satan, Belpho, and Squee — feel ripped from different musicals written by different people. (Apart from the two co-creators, the music and lyrics here are by Cesarz and Pete Irving. Yela did the arrangement and instrumentation.) Satan is a pouty, philosophical, provocative host. Belpho is a clown in a bodysuit. Squee is a conniving puppet with a Brooklyn accent that possibly got cut from James and the Giant Peach. If the show truly was treated like a cabaret, with Cesarz as the main performer, Belpho the host and Squee as a guest artist who comes on for one song, they could all live together happily in this hellscape. But by giving them equal footing and sidelining Satan, Heck loses its fire.
The most important thing Heck needs though — and I’m sure Lucy has one of these lying around — is a red pen. The sitcom-style jokes peppered throughout (references to Kenny G, Belpho saying “I won’t stand for this” then sitting down) take away from the truly novel laugh-out-loud lines in the show. Some of the lesser lyrics in songs, like the chorus in “Trash” at the end of Act 1 led by band leader Yela, take away from the most compelling ones, like those in “Fall,” Cesarz’s blistering second act opener that shows the promise of this material (in her performance but also the set, with a simple but effective curtain opening paired with blood red lighting). And speaking of the second act, this two and a half hour night could easily be 90 minutes with no intermission.
Cesarz, March, and company throw a lot of ideas at the wall in Heck. Some of them stick. Many of them don’t. I understand that sentiment won’t convince everyone to hop in their car and drive an hour to St. Croix Falls, but if you do, I can promise you this: this world premiere musical will give you enough to talk, laugh, and bicker about that you’ll actually relish an hour in the car on the way back to the Twin Cities to hash everything out. And isn’t that better than leaving the theater and having nothing to say at all?
Heck
St. Croix Festival Theatre
Historic Auditorium
210 N Washington St.
St. Croix Falls, WI 54024
October 11 – October 27, 2024
Buy tickets here
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