Toe Tapping Lambs & Lyrical Lotion

Let’s face it: if there’s one thing the world of musical theater needs, it’s more manufacturing of skin dresses.

Come on now. We have mutants...

Scarred madmen who drop chandeliers on people...

Singing and dancing presidential Assassins...

And even the occasional telekinetic teenager with an itch to slaughter her entire graduating class.

Theater snobs may wring their Playbills in ire over the new trend of turning popular films into musicals, but every now and then, the right one comes along, mostly because it involves wearing dead men’s faces and discovering rotting heads in pickle jars. Much like the snappy Evil Dead: The Musical, Silence! The Musical, is a pretty joyous ride into classic horror territory with catchy showtunes that would make Angela Lansbury blush. Back in the nefarious Napster days, I heard a few of its songs (written by Jon and Al Kaplan) online while the play had an official premiere in 2005 at the NYC Fringe Festival, where it won the coveted Best Musical honor. Currently, Silence! has a limited run directed and choreographed by Christophere Gatteli down at Theatre 80, a cozy spot on St. Mark’s Place.

Silence! The Musical follows all the beats you know from Jonathon Demme’s film, and wonderfully so. There’s Clarisch M. Schtarling (Jenn Harris)’s breathy pleas for help from the elegant Hannibal Lector (Brent Barret, though soap star Paul Michael Valley played the role the weekend I attended), who quid pro quos her into a delightful tango (called, of course, Quid Pro Quo). A Greek chorus of sorts made of human lambs (and led with supreme energy by Jeff Hiller). Buffalo Bill’s show-stopping number, “I’d Fuck Me,” complete with the wardrobe (and lack thereof) you remember so sexily slung over Ted Levine’s shoulders. A touching and musically clever lullaby sung by Senator Martin as she reminds her daughter's kidnapper that "Her Name Is Catherine, Catherine's Her Name." Even the smarmy-as-ever Dr. Chilton gets a number, as does the underappreciated (and possibly underloved) Ardelia Mapp, played with fantastic 11th hour sass by Diedre Goodwin. 

Did I mention there’s a song called “Put the Fucking Lotion In the Basket?”

Some of the jokes are a little broad (both literally and figuratively, as evidenced by Bill’s cowboy-esque hoedown, “Are You About A Size 14?”) but it’s hard to not smile at any musical that finds a way to make “eating Ray Liotta’s brain” into a lyric. If you’re in the New York area this summer, it’s a pretty delightful way to spend an evening, although you do run the risk of later finding yourself humming the way-too-catchy signature song, “If I Could Smell Her Cunt.” 

That could result in awkward office moments.

The show runs through the end of August, with tickets set at half what you’d pay for a Broadway show. The official website is here so check it out, providing you, like me, consider the marriage of choreography and cannibalism the best thing since peanut butter and chocolate opened up its marriage and invited in banana.

We are all the better for it.