Durango High School Troupe 1096 shakes us up again.
“Ride the Cyclone” opened last weekend and runs through Saturday. The dark musical comedy has a cult following. It may not be as broad or bawdy as “The Rocky Horror Show,” but it’s spectacular and has a serious core.
“Cyclone” is also a gutsy choice. Credit co-directors Ben Mattson and Jenny Fitts Reynolds (no relation) for guiding the players to consistently vivid performances. Like last spring’s “Hadestown,” steeped in the ancient myth of Eurydice descending into Hell, ‘Cyclone“ travels to the Underworld to explore life-and-death issues. The central question is: What is a life well lived?
Canadian creators Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond chose a simple plot:Ssix high-school singers from St. Cassian’s School Choir go to an amusement park for fun. In a freak roller-coaster accident, they die and awaken in Limbo, imagined as the amusement park’s warehouse. The students encounter The Amazing Karnak, a mechanical puppet, who serves as their seer and guide. Each student must justify why he or she should return to life on Earth. The group will vote to send only one back.
The idea of a competition is an old dramatic device Inherited from the ancient Greeks. Competition drives the musical’s action in a cabaret-style structure. Each student tells/sings a personal story. Because individual content varies, elaborate differences surface – in costumes, choreography, projections and musical styles. There’s a haunting Klezmer section, a tango, even a waltz.
“The Ballad of Jane Doe” is the most mesmerizing story-song. Beautifully sung by soprano Sadie Hanson in May 1’s Cast Roller performance. The song laments Jane’s mysterious fate as blue lights flicker and the ensemble swirls around her with umbrellas. If you know musical theater history, “the umbrella number” dates back to British music halls. It’s another convention that the creators have added to their rich homage. For the “Ballad” song, story, music, movement, lighting and twirling umbrellas come together in an effervescent waltz. Theater magic.
Technical Director Natalie Cohn and her creative team provide a split set for a terrific onstage band and a curtained mini-stage where still and film projections appear and where players enter and exit. Costumes, lighting and sound designers create numerous special effects that support the stories. Imaginative choreography by the mother-daughter team of Jenny Fitts Reynolds and Gillian Reynolds transforms each biography. Credit Mattson as musical director for merging voice and instrumentation to honor the many musical styles that pepper the score.
Hopefully, the ending will surprise viewers and fans of musical theater. Although dark and macabre in overall content, “Cyclone” offers another way to explore big life-and-death questions. Kudos to Troupe 1096 and the DHS staff members who support brave dramatic choices.
“Ride the Cyclone” is as old as its high school protagonists. So, it’s interesting to see Troupe 1096 essentially play their own age in a production.
In 2008, Jacob Richmond’s theater piece simply began as a play. Triggered by an untimely death in his family, Richmond said he wanted to explore grief and our complex relationship with death. Consequently, the idea of loss at an early age drives the story. Within a year of the play’s completion, composer Brooke Maxwell joined Richmond to shape a musical fantasy around the idea of one’s own life being cut short.
Since then, the fictional tale of six teenagers who die prematurely has undergone many changes. In March 2009, “Cyclone” had its world premiere in Canada. Seven years later it opened off-Broadway. A teen version evolved and has won various prizes at festivals. The musical continues to be performed mostly by high school and community theaters.
In both content and style, “Cyclone” has been compared to other dark musicals such as “Rent,” “Avenue Q,” “The Drowsy Chaperone” and even “Cats.”
Troupe 1096 has never backed away from presenting challenging works that explore concepts of life, death and the notion of purgatory or an underworld where souls await their ultimate destiny.
Last year, the Troupe mounted a fluid, almost filmic production of the Broadway hit ‘Hadestown.“ Illuminating the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the characters descended into a bleak warehouse to symbolize the Underworld. Several of the players who appeared in that stunning production have returned for ”Cyclone,“ Sofia Guiterrez and Gillian Reynolds to name only two.
Back in 2011, Troupe 1096 visited the Underworld in another production of a contemporary play. The company staged Sarah Ruhl’s retelling of the “Eurydice” myth. As it happens, the student who played the father, Joey Panelli, is currently portraying the Baker in the Merely Players production of “Into the Woods.” The legacy of Troupe 1096 at DHS continues. May Durango’s history as a thriving, live-theater town continue.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.