Since his mom's auto accident death10 years ago,
Hero Batowski has stayed home helping his dad run a Milwaukee comic book shop.
Hero also works nights in a bar but, at 28, yearns to publish his comics art.
As by his high school girl Jane who left for college and marriage, Hero's been
rejected. Caring dad Al wants him to submit, not art imitating famed super
heroes, but the graphics Hero keeps in notebooks based on his own life and
thoughts. Now divorced, Jane's back to live and teach in town and very much
open to resuming their relationship. Helped by her, family and friends, will
Hero find his interior superhero and embrace his purpose? From his singing of ÒMy
Superhero LifeÓ do we ever doubt he's at ÒThe Start of Something GoodÓ? And
will that go as well for his pal Kirk, Jane's pal Susan, and all who regard
dad's shop as a family home? In its area premiere for Asolo Rep, the musical
takes 2 hours, forty minutes to get
answers telegraphed from initial scenes.
Pop, rock, even hip hop musical numbers manage to
be old fashioned in a traditional, endearing sense as they punctuate Hero's
creating his own life rather than imitating any superhero's. Like his actions, too many of his
decision put-offs are unnecessarily repeated, while real fantasies are limited.
The show has two endingsÑone a natural, happy one (after which another
appearance by Hero had the opening night audience clapping, thinking it was a
curtain call); the last, a sadder but wiser one following a
rarely-seen-in-a-family-musical death. Of course, Asolo Rep had a chance to
show off its typical super production feats with the semi-final sequence ÒTime
Flies ByÓ that has the cast changing dress as the turntable stage spins through
a year's holidays while projections overhead show budding treetops to bright
sun to falling leaves to snow. (Quick changes are popular, even if they actually
prolong textual
outcomes.)
I've come to think the real hero of this and other
Asolo Rep shows is Vic Meyrich, production supervisor with his staff, whose
achievements dwarf those of the non-tech creators. HERO the Musical is
stuffed with scenery, especially projections, and propsÑas in a cute but
irrelevant Karaoke number with place indicated by a gigantic hanging sign
encased and spelled out in blue neon. Al's shop bursts with myriad real comics.
Yet two slackers, his nephew, Hero and friends seem to be the only patrons--
despite available bit players who could double as same occasionally. Hero is shown supposedly bringing out
Jane's beautiful characteristics in a drawing simultaneously projected, yet
that sketch makes her look like the teen girlfriend in Zits. With a real if unlikely-for-the-time ÒPhone
BoothÓ song and structure, Hero has to be coaxed into the box three times to
ask Jane for a single get-together and later the number gets reprised.
Repetitions add little except familiarization with lyrics that tend after a
while to use too many predictable, if not banal, rhymes. Why is there an
iteration of Jane and Hero's ÒOrigin StoryÓ? Aren't three parts of ÒEverybody
KnowsÓ enough?
HERO The Musical is
lucky to have charismatic Brian Sears so clearly projecting in song and gesture
Hero's personality and feelings. He couldn't do better than gain the love of
Laurie Veldheer's supportive Jane, whose voice soars beyond expectations. An
engaging subset couple are Matt Mueller as Hero's groovy, flirty cousin Kirk
and Dara Cameron's full-of-surprises Susan, Jane's proper fellow teacher.
Smultzy Matt's sung, danced, and strummed ÒA Vampire's Kiss Means ForeverÓ is
the show-stopper. Don Forston is
lovable as Al, father surrogate to effective Owen Teague's adolescent
smart-tongued escapee from bullying. Amiable Ian Paul Cluster and Norm Boucher
play slackers who live in a comics world, encapsulated in Al's shop. Their
roles are undeveloped. A few others fill in well as postal worker, doctor,
comics publisher, and frequenters of such scenes as bar and dance where they
can sing too. (In the Midwest they might be called necessaries, which is ÒniceÓ
for chorus or extras.) I'm not
sure why these roles couldn't be cast locally or even use FSU/Asolo
Conservatory students or alumsÑexcept to please originators of HERO that world-premiered in Chicago. David H. Bell
does direct all as if the play were written for them.
Under admirable musical direction by Ryan T.
Nelson, Michael Mahler heads a small band with a big (sometimes too big) sound
and plays his own orchestrations of his music on keyboard. Matt Deitchman adds
more of the latter plus guitar. Jed Feder supplies percussion; Trevor Jones,
bass; Tahirah Wittington, cello. Dramatic sound is provided for by Kevin
Kennedy. Scott Davis' complicated scenic design incorporates Aaron Rhyne's many
projections and Jesse Klug's multifaceted lighting. Ana Kuzmanic elevates
tee-shirts to a major achievement in costuming and produces detailed comics-character costumes (from Star
Wars to Planet of the Apes) as called for.
Who's the intended audience for HERO The
Musical? I think Asolo Rep aims
to interest younger than typical local audiences while pleasing those of any age who like family-friendly, romantic love,
arts-related themes. Incorporating these in a musical adds a bonus. The show
seems to me, if its production values are more modest, most likely to succeed
after further development in
regional theaters and eventually in community ones. I doubt it will disappoint
lovers of comics too if it's honed to the sharpness of a printed issue.