ajhlovestheatre

TEETH

Book and Music by Anna K Jacobs

Book and Lyrics by Michael R Jackson

Directed by Sarah Benson

Playwright’s Horizons, New York City – until 28 April 2024

https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/teeth/

Inspired by the low budget 2007 comedy horror flick of the same name, Teeth is a wild, vivid and altogether marvellous new off-Broadway musical with a cracking score, terrific performances and, if you’ll pardon the pun, some genuine bite. Set in a creepily devout New Testament Village in small town America, the story turns on teenager Dawn (Alyse Alan Louis), step daughter of fire and brimstone preacher (Steven Pasquale) and suffering from a nasty case of Christian fundamentalist guilt….oh yes, and vagina dentata. That’s right, she’s got teeth ‘down there’ and ultimately she’s not afraid to use them.

Oklahoma! this ain’t. Hell, it’s not even Little Shop of Horrors, which is probably the closest the American musical has hitherto ever got to marrying together the unlikely bed fellows of comic glee and all-out horror, unless you count Carrie which was funny for all the wrong reasons in its original iteration. Teeth is a darker, nastier, more outrageous work than Little Shop, although it reaches similar heights of inspired comic lunacy. Where the latter show has an underlying sappy sweetness, this one is savage. It’s also pretty irresistible.

One of the many wonderful things about Sarah Benson’s staging is that, with the exception of Pasquale’s thrilling, scenery-chomping turns as a gung-ho pastor pitched somewhere betwixt a better looking Billy Graham and Rambo, and a dishonourable gynaecologist who makes Little Shop’s Orin Scrivello DDS look like Mary Poppins, the show is played straight. Accordingly, the ludicrous but infinitely catchy ‘Modest Is Hottest’ duet for tormented Dawn and her milquetoast boyfriend (Jason Gotay) has a worldly New York audience screaming with laughter but is performed with such sincerity that the comic stakes are upped only higher.

Sensational Alyse Alan Louis fleshes out Dawn’s self-abasement, uncertainty and anguish with such conviction that it’s almost hard to watch, and if she’s funny (which she unquestionably is) it’s because co-creators Anna K Jacobs and Michael R (A Strange Loop) Jackson have given her lyrics such as “my panties are wet, and it’s not blood or sweat” which she delivers with nary a nod to the absurdity. This pays off richly when the production and show snap their own tether and Dawn becomes the embodiment of a mythical feminist goddess, righting gender-based wrongs by indiscriminately ripping off male genitals with her voracious, razor sharp downstairs department. It’s completely nuts (again, no pun intended) of course, but done with such craft and ferocious go-for-broke commitment that it’s pretty hard to resist.

That said, the gear change between angsty hilarity and full-out batshit crazy is handled quite clumsily at the moment. Although Teeth has, and should have, jagged edges as a musical, the alteration in emphasis and tone feels fudged and rushed. That’s frustrating as there are specific moments – such as an authentically chilling number where Pasquale’s preacher whips his rebellious biological son (Will Connolly) to agony after catching him masturbating – where the lightning fast switches in tone really work for the show. This is equally true of the contrast between the sunny, glazed-eye evangelism of the perennially pure Promise Keeper Girls in the congregation and the murky, cowed group of threatened, lonely young men, the self-appointed Truthseekers, who meet online to bemoan their beleaguered masculinity. It’s witty and disturbing.

I also feel it would benefit from an interval. Although it runs just under two hours, which fly by incidentally, there is a lot to process here, from the shock value to the sheer rollicking bonkers-ness of it all, and there is a point just after Dawn performs her first, er, mutilation, where a break naturally occurs. It would give audiences a breather and, most probably, the chance to chat about how much they’re loving it and will be recommending it to their more broad-minded friends. Leaving the theatre after yesterdays matinee, on a considerable high, I was hearing comments from various people along the lines of “that’s the best thing I’ve seen in ages” and “I can’t wait to come back”.

So, this has the potential to be massive. It’s too rude for family audiences and possibly too graphic for the squeamish (the prop department has provided some very convincing male members that are hurled around with gusto at key dramatic moments, along with lashings of fake blood) but it feels of the zeitgeist with its twin themes of the life-strangling hypocrisy behind religious fervour, and feminism taken to a murderously extreme conclusion. Most crucially, the songs are well-crafted, eclectic bops, reminiscent at times of a more twisted Spring Awakening. The sense of the wells of pop, folk and gospel being subtly poisoned feels absolutely, consistently right; some of the writing is white-hot, and the whole thing is a heck of a lot of unsettling fun.

There’s not a weak link in the cast. Gotay never overplays the apparently wholesome jock whose true colours land him in blood-curdled waters, and Connolly finds troubled, troubling layers in the disaffected preacher’s son. Jared Loftin is hilarious as the unhinged ally whose motivation for befriending the unhappy Dawn is more to do with seeking absolution for his rampant gay-ness than actual altruism. The six-strong ensemble of smug schoolgirls who transform into vengeful, sexually voracious harpies is just fabulous. The singing throughout is roof-raisingly fine.

Moving forward, the show will need sensitive but fearless producing to fine tune and aim it at a wider audience that will cherish it. Teeth is simultaneously puerile and sophisticated, snarky and sincere, and many of its elements require some polishing but not to gleaming blandness: a huge part of the shows appeal is down to how “out there” it feels. It’s more subversive than Heathers and kinkier than Rocky Horror.

Not all of Raja Feather Kelly’s bump-and-grind choreography feels necessary and Adam Rigg’s aggressively ugly set, all nondescript beige walls, neon cross and hideous cheap scarlet carpet, could do with an upgrade when the show gets its inevitable longer life, although its apocalyptic transformation is quite something to behold. Jane Cox and Stacey Derosier’s lighting and Jeremy Chernock’s SFX designs are very effective.

Previous musicals that Playwright’s Horizons have nurtured prior to Broadway include Sunday in the Park with George, Once on this Island and the aforementioned first post-pandemic Tony winner A Strange Loop. This one equally deserves longevity, although whether its natural place is on the frequently homogenised, financially treacherous main stem is a question. Either way, this is a rambunctious good time in the theatre, and one I would happily, if uncomfortably, sit through again in a heartbeat. Culty, gory and unforgettable.