By Timothy Ruppert
A few years ago, the great Tig Notaro hosted Under a Rock, a talk show designed to foreground her woefully insufficient knowledge of contemporary popular culture and its celebrities. I have long appreciated Notaro’s honesty, given that I too have scandalized many of my colleagues and intimates by my almost total unfamiliarity with many of the best-loved films and television series of my lifetime. Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic, Evil Dead, and the franchise that (apparently) evolved from it, provide a case in point. And so, when I was assigned to review Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s presentation of Evil Dead: The Musical, I hadn’t the faintest idea what to expect beyond the impressions of supernaturalism that the title imparts. What I found at PMT’s West End Canopy was one of the most gloriously ridiculous shows that I have ever seen, complete with a stellar cast, a committed audience, and a profoundly crimsoned ‘splatter zone’ (luckily) several rows off.
Evil Dead: The Musical brilliantly parodies the horror-cinema genre to which Raimi’s 1981 film and its myriad descendants belong, leaving no opportunity for humorous metacommentary unexplored. The show succeeds, in fact, by virtue of its shamelessly forthright absurdity, helped along by an incessant torrent of visual non sequiturs, frightful puns, and puerile sex gags. Beyond offering amusing tongue-in-cheek takes on the tropes of the silver-screen nightmare, going so far as to give us a mounted moose head possessed by pernicious spirits, Evil Dead indexes the last forty years of Broadway musical history, alluding freely to The Rocky Horror Show, Little Shop of Horrors, and A Chorus Line, among others. The relentless self-reflexivity of this show makes it a joy throughout, even for those who are new to the joke.
While nobly ludicrous in its own right, PMT’s version of Evil Dead: The Musical benefits terrifically from the buy-in of the cast, crew, and patrons who invest such positive energy into the production. The performers, led by Brett Goodnack as the demon-dispatching Ash, all merit accolades for the immense amount of work that this show asks of them. Kamilah Lay (Linda), Zanny Laird (Chryl), and Michaela Isenberg (Annie) were particularly impressive among a praiseworthy group. Nick Mitchell directs the broad comedy with an admirable dedication to detail (Mitchell also plays Professor Knowby, the historian whose research into ancient texts sparks the hilarity). The music is terrifically entertaining as well, with “Housewares Employee” (Goodnack and Lay), “Look Who’s Evil Now” (Laird, Moose, and House Spirits), “Ode to an Accidental Stabbing” (Isenberg and Ben Sheedy as Jake), “Do the Necronomicon” (Demons), and “It’s Time” (Goodnack and Company) landing especially effectively. Cheers to all the souls comprising the production staff, particularly Gemma Mitchell (choreographer and production stage manager) and the team of Avery Ferrell, Michael Fitzmaurice, and Christopher Patrick for makeup, wigs, and special effects. I respect the work that went into this show—and can scarcely imagine the labor necessary to clean up when the evening’s over.
I reserve a final word to acknowledge the spirited audience. Their affability and passion for this show (now playing its seventh year at PMT) enriches the event for all, including reviewers living under rocks.
—TR
For more information on Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s performance of “Evil Dead: The Musical,” please visit https://pittsburghmusicals.com/evildead/.
