Vulcan Lyric’s ‘Heathers’

The problem here, truth be told, is the piece itself. Heathers can’t make up its mind whether it’s a melodrama or a comedy. Are we to root for the “nice” kids to get away with murder? Or should we be horrified by their crime spree?

Heathers might work as a surrealistic comical adventure story with an eerie twist. In that case, however, it must be presented tongue-in-cheek. The villainy of the mean girls and jocks should be exaggerated, and the naive innocence of the “nice” kids must be extreme to the point of ridicule. But Vulcan’s production plays the whole high school revenge scenario as a serious drama, even when the action swerves into illogical developments: The most dominant of the bullies demands to be gently pleasured with a chainsaw, and sexist supremacists sing about how a young woman “swallowed” their “swords.” This is cause for a chuckle, not homicidal anger.

Maniacal terrorist

Despite these reservations, I enjoyed the energetic presentation. Gibson’s staging of “Shine a Light” was especially striking, abetted by Nate Golden’s choreography. Costumer Amy Chmielewski’s sassy coordination of primary colors made a good impression.

As the central character, Veronica, Loulu Luzi displays an intelligence that makes us identify with her, especially at the opening and closing, when she reads from her diary. Nate Golden is the brooding outsider in a trench coat to whom she becomes attached, and we side with him as he instigates reprisals against the bullies — at least until the script turns him into a maniacal terrorist.

Hanna Gaffney provides a commanding presence as the bitchiest of three girls named Heather who dominate the school’s hallways. Katie Johantgen and Sarah Moya strike effective poses as the other two Heathers, but their characters are not sufficiently defined by the script. Joe Chubb and Adam Kaster make hilariously obnoxious hunky jocks. Lindsay Ronaldson is sympathetic as an overweight girl who becomes the butt of the mean girls’ cruelty. David Schwartz, Lindsay Mauk, and Michael McClain perform well in multiple roles. The actors’ relative inexperience serves them well here because they’re mostly portraying teenagers.

Sound problem

Composer Laurence O’Keefe — who premiered The Mice on this stage in 2000 and went on to compose Bat Boy and Legally Blonde — provides a catchy score in collaboration with Kevin Murphy (who wrote Reefer Madness: The Musical) on both words and music. (“Seventeen” is a particularly lovely ballad.) Their bouncy and exuberant music fails, however, to parody the bubblegum songs of the 1980s as Grease did with its earlier period setting of the 1950s. Michael Pacifico expertly led the seven-piece pit band.

On opening night, the microphones’ volume was cranked up so high that it caused the sound to echo from the sides and rear of the large proscenium stage, muffling much of the dialogue. I hope that problem has since been adjusted.

A further improvement would be trimming the overlong first act. An obvious break for intermission could be taken immediately after the first death, instead of 15 minutes later. The second act is briefer and moves more swiftly.