Heathers (1988) isn’t the most obvious choice for a musical adaptation. A subversive, darkly comic satire about high school social hierarchies, its murderous central couple and ironic take on everything from teen suicide to closeted homosexuality seem ill-suited to the musical genre’s earnest ballads and dance numbers. And yet, when Heathers: The Musical with book, music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy opened in Los Angeles in 2013, it was successful enough to earn Off-Broadway and eventual West End runs. For those like me who were either too cash poor or too skeptical to buy a ticket to see the musical onstage, Roku now brings a filmed version of the current West End production to its own streaming channel.
It stars Alisa Davidson as Veronica Sawyer, the smart but disaffected girl struggling to fit in with Westerberg High’s popular clique, the titular Heathers. Led by resident bitch on wheels, Heather Chandler (Maddison Firth), Heather Duke (Vivian Panka), Heather McNamara (Teleri Hughes) and a reluctant Veronica terrorize their fellow students — that is, until new student JD (Simon Gordon) appears. JD and Veronica quickly fall into obsession and their mutual hatred of Heather Chandler’s tyranny soon leads to a string of murders they pass off as suicides. While the musical borrows much from the original film, the consequence of adapting it to the stage is that it takes the film’s brutal acknowledgement of human nastiness and softens it into something a little more palatable.
That shift in tone is immediately clear from the opening number, “Beautiful,” an anti-bullying anthem led by Veronica and echoed by the ensemble in which the Westerberg High students wish for better lives. Davidson immediately grabs the audience’s attention and sympathy. She plays Veronica with a sort of childish cynicism, both desperate and clever enough to weasel her way into the Heathers but aware enough to quickly realize she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Her bright, infectious energy and impressive vocals carry the musical and without such a commanding central performance, the musical wouldn’t work as well as it does.
That said, Davidson is hardly the only standout. Vivian Panka as Heather Duke spends much of the first act as comic relief only to become a supremely enjoyable villain as the show goes on. Rory Whelan and Liam Doyle as Ram and Kurt respectively are hilarious as the school’s resident dumb jocks. But it’s Maddison Firth as Heather Chandler who nearly steals the show. From the Heathers’ first number, “Candy Store,” she bursts onto the stage with a vicious, scene-stealing gusto to wild applause from the audience. Heather appears once or twice after her death in the film thanks to dream sequences, but she becomes Veronica’s bitchy conscience here. On some level, the choice feels like an excuse to give any actress who plays the role more moments to shine and if Firth were any less impressive, her constant appearances might grate.
However, the only performance that stands out in the wrong way is unfortunately one central to the plot and emotional stakes: Simon Gordon as JD. As played by Christian Slater in the film, JD feels dangerously unpredictable, a boy clearly already on the edge of madness who’s pushed over the edge when he gets a taste for murder. Gordon, however, plays JD as a somewhat mansplain-y sad boy. There’s a lack of threat there that never makes him feel as evil as the Heathers or as sharp as Veronica. His actions don’t feel like they spring from the character, but as if he’s a living plot device to take Veronica’s own disaffection to a more violent end.
Still, while Gordon’s characterization isn’t as impressive as some of the other actors, his vocal work is strong enough to never let his numbers feel totally unnecessary. The same can’t be said for every song, though. There are a lot of songs here–even more than the Off-Broadway production–and the musical is so overstuffed with them that it almost feels sung-through. This is especially noticeable in the second half, when it feels like every side character gets a number. While the hippy teacher’s number “Shine a Light” feels merely unnecessary, some only serve to highlight how overwritten the musical has become in trying to explain every single character’s emotional motivations.
The most noticeable example is the Martha Dunnstock (Mhairi Angus) subplot. In the film, Martha is simply a target of the Heathers’ bullying. Here, she’s given a whole childhood best friends backstory with Veronica. On one hand, the change helps justify the moves Veronica’s arc takes in the second act. On the other, “Lifeboat” Heather McNamara’s number about her depression could get us to the same place. Moreover, you could probably eliminate the Martha subplot completely, giving the childhood best friends subplot to Heather McNamara instead, thereby maintaining the motivations Veronica needs to grow a conscience at play’s end.
However, regardless of the myriad structural changes one could make to keep Heathers: The Musical both emotionally resonant and well-paced, it’s perhaps worth considering that the show wouldn’t begin to drag so much in its second act if the way it’s filmed didn’t start to become so stale. Because every character seems to get an 11-o’clock number in the second act, it becomes too easy to notice how every number is filmed in nearly the same way. Lots of close-ups on characters’ faces that cut out the ensemble dancing in the background. Generally tight framing that eliminates the sense of scale that makes theater so thrilling. Surely, these things happen in the first act as well (the way the ensemble’s slow motion dancing is almost unnoticeable in “Fight for Me” or the cringeworthy angles during Veronica and JD’s sex scene in “Dead Girl Walking” are particularly egregious), but the repetitiveness of the second act makes those choices impossible to ignore.
Still, even if director Andy Fickman makes some major mistakes in capturing this production, he does make one brilliant choice: making sure the audience feels like a major part of the show. Not one joke goes by without us getting to hear the audience react. They scream with recognition and joy with every character intro and at the end of every number. Their energy is infectious and while some viewers may not love every second of Heathers: The Musical, it’s impossible not to be swept up in its energy just like the audience in the theater.
