Welcome to Toronto Theater! Come on in, make yourself at home...but oh...don't stay a while!

I just finished reading the Globe and Mail review of Bat Boy ("Quite Simply Bloody Awful" by Kamal Al-Solaylee in the Globe and Mail, February 24, 2005) and -- wow -- that smarts! He gave it a zero!

Now that's harsh. Even the movie Road Trip 2 got a 1/2 star in the Globe! I haven't seen it yet [Bat Boy the Musical, not Road Trip 2], so I can't comment on whether he was off base, but you can't help feeling badly for the production when a critic (origin of the word: CRITICAL!) really goes to town on a show. No matter how correct he/she may be, you know a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into bringing it to stage. I know how devastated I felt after reading the Queen's Journal review of The Pajama Game (Queen's Musical Theatre, 1984) and the critic said of my portrayal of Gladys Hotchkiss that I was "mincing and simpering". It still haunts me twenty years later...revenge is a dish best served cold....but I digress. After a review like Kamal's, the show is bound to close early. At least that's what happens in New York. Money and dreams down the drain. Excuse me, I need a tissue!

Kamal hated everything from the book, music, lyrics, direction, cast...even the money ($500M). How can you criticize cash? Theater reviewers seem to have a problem with "businessmen" investing in theatre unless they have been starving for twenty years. Now, I did listen to the CD and didn't really care for it, but I was hoping the production would give it more life.

And Toronto casts always seem to be a bit, well, not top notch. (which I used to think was due to the lack of talent here, but it turns out I am constantly running into amazing musical theater singers, so I think the problem is the casting, not the talent). But I still wanted to see it, damn the review!

Until I read these four words "...miked to near deafness...". Now I will definitely NOT go to see it. I cannot stand when shows are too loud. I know I sound like that Huey Lewis character in Back To The Future -- "you're just too darn loud". But Toronto seems to have a problem controlling sound! And I don't expect to have my eardrums permanently damaged when I go to the theater. Same damn thing happened at Mamma Mia, and Hedwig and The Angry Inch. (Oh and during Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" at the Juno's some years back). Rock/Pop music in a show can be loud enough to be exciting (eg. The Boy From Oz in New York, Cher's show at the ACC) but doesn't need to be so loud that blood starts to trickle out of my ears.

The Toronto Star piled on with its own 1-star review ("Bat Boy a low-flying creation" by Robert Crew in The Toronto Star on February 23)

At the end of Bat Boy: The Musical, a character rushes in, looks at the dead bodies sprawled across the stage and asks, "What happened here?"

To which the sheriff solemnly replies: "It's a long story. I don't know where to begin."

Know that feeling. But let's try this: Bat Boy, which opened last night at the Bathurst Street Theatre, is one of the most over hyped, underachieving musicals to hit town in a long time.

It has been touted as the latest cult hit but any wit or style seems to have deserted the show in its Toronto incarnation...Mind you, they and everyone else weren't helped by the fact that the performers were all vastly overmiked...Director Michael McGinn fails to exploit the environment to the max. Too often, the cast ends up strung across the stage. No bite, no charm, no fangs, no thanks. This particular Bat Boy has struck out.

Now, I'm not 100% sure what's going on here...this musical seems to be garnering extremely mixed reviews. They loved it in NYC, but hated it in London, and now in Toronto. And the movie is in production...