The cast of Bat Boy (Andrew Schwartz)
It’s hard to say that Bat Boy: The Musical is exactly a good play, but when it comes to a work based on a 1990s tabloid cover story about a beasty bat-child found in a cave, “good” is really beside the point. Bat Boy was designed to have a cult following, and it accomplished that nearly immediately following its 1997 debut (and even more so after its 2001 Off-Broadway run). For cult favorites, fun, wacky, campy, and edgy elements typically take precedence over objective quality. And Bat Boy fits that bill.
That’s not to say that Bat Boy is a bad play either. (Cult faves don’t adhere to such binaries.) Audiences’ mileage will vary wildly based on personal taste here, but the musical has a lot going for it, starting with some anchoring performances in the production currently running at Music Theater Heritage.
In the musical, Bat Boy—the “bat child” who graced the cover of Weekly World News in the early 1990s and inspired Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming, and composer and lyricist Laurence O’Keefe to create this play—is discovered in a cave in the fictional West Virginia town of Hope Falls. The townspeople hate and fear him due to his pointy teeth and ears, but Meredith, the wife of the town veterinarian, takes Bat Boy under her wing, renaming him Edgar and giving him a My Fair Lady-esque makeover.
Bryson Kendall is solid as the titular Bat Boy, but it’s Jessalyn Kincaid as Meredith and Taylor Jennings as her daughter Shelley who really hold down the production. Jennings is wickedly funny, and Kincaid exudes both humor and heart in her journey to protect Edgar from the world.
O’Keefe’s musical score is perfect cult-show material. Lyrics like “Hold me Bat Boy, touch me Bat Boy/Won’t you help me through the night?/Make it all turn out all right” are the kinds of refrains that sound like they were written in a single afternoon, but that stick in your head for weeks after leaving the theater. If you are turning up to see a play about a tabloid bat child, this is likely exactly what you’re looking for. But other elements that must have seemed “edgy” 25 years ago now feel dated. Jokes about “prison wives” and “welfare mothers,” and an unsettling amount of sexual assault for a campy musical beg to be cut or rewritten.
Director Ernie Nolan’s staging is a bit frustrating as well. MTH has a ¾ thrust stage, but much of the action is aimed almost exclusively at a proscenium. Still, things move at a swift clip, the music (under Ty Tuttle’s deft musical direction) is catchy, Dante Lawrence’s lighting design is over-the-top dramatic, and the performances are strong enough to keep audiences engaged. As far as spooky season plays go, Bat Boy is a really fun option.
“Bat Boy: The Musical” runs through November 1 at Music Theater Heritage at Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd. For more information, visit musictheaterheritage.com.
