For its annual gala production, New York City Center tends to go for heavy-hitter musicals, often the dramatic kind — recent years have included revivals of “Parade” and “Ragtime,” both of which transferred to Broadway, as well as “Evita.” So it might come as a surprise that this time around, the gala is serving up a Grand Guignol feast of cartoonish gore and questionable sex.
“Bat Boy: The Musical,” which ran Off Broadway in 2001, was inspired by a headline in the tabloid The Weekly World News announcing the “discovery” of a human-bat creature. Its title character looks, in his first appearance here, like Nosferatu in a loin cloth. That he evolves into a sensitive charmer wearing a fancy frock coat is among the head-scratching plot twists of this riotous musical, which has returned in a springy, antic incarnation directed by Alex Timbers.
The townspeople who find Bat Boy (Taylor Trensch) in a West Virginia cave take him to the local vet, Dr. Parker (Christopher Sieber), and his wife, Meredith (Kerry Butler). The couple make the bald, pointy-eared foundling part of their family, alongside their teenage daughter, Shelley (Gabi Carrubba). Alas, a new identity and new wardrobe, along with an improved vocabulary, may not be enough to curb Bat Boy’s thirst for blood. His efforts to join society are further undermined by a late-emerging villain and some locals, including the jealous Dr. Parker and Mrs. Taylor, (Marissa Jaret Winokur of “Hairspray”).
Timing-wise, this is a propitious moment for “Bat Boy,” which features a book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming and music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe. The production caps a good year for O’Keefe: “Heathers: The Musical” is enjoying a successful Off Broadway revival; and “Huzzah!,” which he wrote with his “Legally Blonde: The Musical” collaborator (and wife) Nell Benjamin, recently wrapped up its premiere run at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. Rediscovering “Bat Boy” confirms O’Keefe’s status as one of the 21st century’s finest musical-theater talents.
Over the past two decades, the show has dropped and added numbers. The City Center staging includes the Bat Boy and Shelley duet “Mine, All Mine,” a catchy power ballad that sounds like a close cousin of “Seventeen” from “Heathers.” The bouncy “Deer in the Headlights,” a more recent addition to the show’s score, integrates a soft reggae lilt and touches of hip-hop.
Perhaps more striking is O’Keefe’s ability to bend modern vernacular to fit musical-theater narrative demands, while also being comfortable with the genre’s classic forms. “Three Bedroom House” starts off like an outtake from a golden-age show, while the jaunty “Show You a Thing or Two” is a verbally deft song in which Bat Boy learns how to speak as if in a deranged version of “My Fair Lady.” (Too bad muddy sound sabotaged the orchestra, expanded to 12 members with music director Andrew Resnick conducting, at the performance I attended.)
“Show You a Thing or Two” is one of several showcases for Butler (“Xanadu,” “Heathers”), playing the mother of the character she took on in the original production. She lands every opportunity to be funny while imbuing her character with a relatable warmth. In that she is ideally paired with Sieber (“Death Becomes Her”), whose deceivingly milquetoast mien adds to the surrealism of such scenes as the intimate examination of a cow.
Trensch lends Bat Boy genuine poignancy as the character is torn by the contradictory longings of his dual nature, while also nailing the physical comedy of a teen who happens to be half bat. He stands out in an ace cast that also includes Alex Newell bringing down the house as the god Pan (don’t ask).
Finally, after what might be the single most insane flashback — inventively staged with shadow puppets — to ever grace musical theater, the show ends in an operatic mix of tragedy and grotesquerie, hilarity and emotion.
Indeed, therein may lie the secret to the durability of “Bat Boy,” a show that has overcome its appearance of novelty: The story may be nutty, but it proceeds with a straight face and a firm commitment to feeling, laughter and craftsmanship. Now that’s a hybrid that’s hard to breed.
Bat Boy: The Musical
Through Nov. 9 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
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