![]() ![]() As Act Two rolls around, the ensemble from Evil Dead II arrives-minus the character of Bobbie Jo, whose presence, as country boy Jake (Darryl Winslow) helpfully points out, would have been “redundant” under these circumstances. In particular, Coker’s dead-ified Cheryl is a hoot as she’s “confined” to a cellar, from which she repeatedly pops up like an actor on the old TV show Laugh-In to deliver wisecracks and deliberately awful one-liners. Ward, Jennifer Byrne, Brandon Wardell, Jenna Coker and Renée Klapmeyer bring plenty of spirit to their roles, but the characters really come to life once they die and come back as possessed ghouls (wearing nifty slip-on makeups by TV/stage veteran Louis Zakarian that allow for maximum expressiveness). The first song, “Cabin in the Woods,” even points up how iconic the essential story elements were (well before the Evil Dead films utilized them, in fact) before Ash and his four pals arrive at that location, where they’re doomed to raise and be attacked by the bloodthirsty spirits of that ancient book of evil spells, the Necronomicon. While they left a lot to be fleshed out for a full two-act show, their basic nature left Reinblatt a lot of room to move around and give the characters their own fresh quirks. The simplicity of the plotlines of Evil Dead and Evil Dead II (which have been combined in George Reinblatt’s book, along with choice lines from Army of Darkness) was both a minus and a plus for this adaptation. Otherwise, not much has changed (Montreal star Ryan Ward even encores as the hapless/heroic Ash), nor did it need to Evil Dead: The Musical remains a gut-busting treat, bursting with cleverness, energy and a whole lot of stage blood. And Tony Award winner Hinton Battle, joining the original creative team as choreographer, takes advantage of the extra space to whip up more elaborate dance numbers. Manhattan’s New World Stages at 340 West 50th Street, where Evil Dead: The Musical recently began its open-ended run, provides a setting that’s more expansive than the previous locale but not so large that it dwarfs the human-scale slapstick and splatstick at the heart of the show. Having seen and loved the show’s early Canadian incarnation in a Montreal cabaret setting two years ago, I couldn’t help wondering: Would the transition to a bigger off-Broadway venue subvert the homegrown charms of that previous small-scaled production? ![]() While fans of Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead were busy speculating this year on whether a mooted modern remake could possibly live up to the low-budget intensity of the 1983 film, this writer was nursing similar questions about Evil Dead: The Musical. Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on November 3, 2006, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files. ![]()
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