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The Musical Genre Turned Upside Down
Guess who’s coming to town? Well, yes, Santa Claus. But following St. Nick by a month and a half is Bat Boy of Bat Boy: The Musical. Flying in from runs in New York, London and L.A. (and boy are its wings tired, ha, ha), the cult ironic musical — billed as “a cross between My Fair Lady and Edward Scissorhands” — is arriving at the Bathurst Street Theatre in early February.
Ripped from the headlines of the Weekly World News, the titular flying rodent-child will be played by Jay T. Schramek, a Mamma Mia graduate who is also the voice of Satoru Kakuta in the animated series Slam Dunk and “the voice of Air Transat Holidays.”
Torontoist’s question is this: After recent shows like Urinetown, Top Gun: The Musical, and Evil Dead I & II: The Musical, can the musical genre withstand any more ironic abuse here in Toronto? Or have these ironic musicals gone beyond irony and achieved some sort of post-ironic earnest state? Yes and yes, we say.