By Nick Divito
It’s a musical about the only American ever convicted of cannibalism. There’s a love story between a man and his horse. It’s based on Homer’s The Odyssey. And it’s written by Trey Parker, of South Park fame.
Cannibal! The Musical is a curious oddity, to say the least—a satirical college movie-turned-play with no stage directions and an off-the-wall song list that includes such snappy ditties as “Let’s Build a Snowman,” “Hang the Bastard” and “Shpadoinkle.”
It’s the kind of show that, on its face, wouldn’t work—shouldn’t work—one that could easily be dismissed as too wacky even for the staunchest of fringe-theater fanatics. (Think of it as a marriage between Spamalot and Sweeney Todd, giddy and gory.) And yet, almost despite itself, Cannibal! continues to thrive as a cult favorite.
“What you are looking at is 10 pounds of show in a five-pound bag,” joked John Beane, artistic director of Insurgo Theater Movement, which is staging the show at the Onyx Theatre beginning March 14.
But why Las Vegas, and why now?
“Actually, we’ve been talking about Vegas for a while, but there was never the right group who could pull it off,” said producer Jason McHugh, who starred in the original movie version of Cannibal!, and does voices for the South Park cartoons.
Parker—an admitted musical-theater fanatic—wrote the student film while studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It’s based on the true story of miner Alferd Packer and the bloody details of a westward trip that left his five fellow travelers dead and partially eaten.
Soon after its cinematic release in 1996, stage versions of Cannibal! sprouted up across the globe. But there is no stage direction—no road-map, so to speak—leaving troupes on their own in terms of how they want to stage it.
Although the loose nature was a welcome obstacle for the folks at Insurgo, it did present its challenges.
“It’s satire of the form—basic choreography with clichéd performances,” Beane said.
“The trouble that you get into with the stage version is that you have to be kind of commenting on the cheesiness of the genre, but you can’t just stage ‘bad cliché theater.’ Otherwise, it will just look like bad staging.”
The Vegas production has a few surprises in store for knowing fans of the cult classic. The pivotal character—a horse named Liane, named after Parker’s fiancée who called off their wedding at the last minute—will be played by Heather Chamberlaine, “a gorgeous physical actress and dancer,” Beane said. (Other staged productions have seen the role of the horse portrayed by a bicycle, a fake metal horse or a wooden toy horse.)
Other changes include new choreography and new musical arrangements. Beane also hinted of secret star-power: “To anyone that’s a fan of South Park, you’ll be seeing and hearing some very familiar folks” during the show.
Naturally, Beane expects audiences will, uh, eat it up.
“The whole process has been laughter and chaos,” Beane said. “And that’s a good place to live.”
Cannibal! The Musical
March 14-April 5, Thu.-Fri. 9 p.m., Sat. 8 p.m., $10-$15. Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave. 732-7225.