Just in time for the Halloween season, Brat Productions brings what is sure to be an entertaining mix of horror and camp with its drag interpretation of Stephen King’s horror classic “Carrie. ”
The first novel published by the mega-successful horror novelist in 1974, and the 1976 film adaptation, tells the story of a teenage girl who’s a social outcast in her high school and lives with her unstable religious mother. She soon discovers she has telekinetic powers, which come in handy when some of her classmates conspire to humiliate her at the prom, leading to an impressive display of revenge, death and mayhem that pretty much destroys the whole town.
Over the years, the story has been extremely popular inspiring a remake, a sequel and a Broadway musical, the latter of which starred Betty Buckley, which famously tanked faster than a bucket of pig’s blood.
Playwright Erik Jackson tried to acquire the rights to the musical without success but later got permission from King himself to do a non-musical version of the story starring drag performer Sherry Vine, which debuted off-Broadway in 2006.
Surprisingly enough, it was this version of “Carrie” that Michael Alltop, director of Brat Production’s take on the play, first encountered.
“Believe it or not, the first actual connection that I had to the story was reading the script,” Alltop said.
Shut up!
Really?
“I knew about the book, I knew about the movie from pop culture,” he said. “I knew about the story but I had never actually read it. I happened to be looking for playwright for another project that I was working on and I asked him to send me some of his work and he sent me the script for ‘Carrie’ and I loved it. I immediately wanted to direct it. That led me to the book. And after I read the book, then I watched the movie and saw just how well he head adapted the book. I’ve read other Stephen King [books] and I’m a fan but for some reason I had never read ‘Carrie’ until I picked up the script.”
Out actor Erik Ransom, who plays the titular role, said he too was first introduced to the story via the theater, but his exposure goes further back.
“I was a fan of the movie and the musical,” he said. “My first introduction was the flop musical. I got a bootleg copy when I was in high school. I was obsessed with obscure musicals and I love the Betty Buckley performances.”
Both agreed the universally understood horror that is high school is one of the main reasons “Carrie” — in whatever form people have chosen to enjoy it — has endured for so long.
“It’s often in the horror section but I don’t see ‘Carrie’ as a horror story, really,” Ransom said. “I see it as the story of a downtrodden outsider who kind of gets revenge. The way she’s depicted in the movie, and the book much more so, she’s just torn apart, degraded and debased by her peers. So when the horror aspect comes in you really feel for her so much. I think that because of the outsider status and how many people feel like they are not part of the mainstream, people connect with that and have very strong feelings about the story.”
“The world of Carrie is high school and this all-important event of prom and how it’s kind of a teen’s entrance into adulthood,” Alltop added. “It really resonated with the cast. They talked about their own prom horror stories and just high school in general. Everyone goes through high school. Everybody identifies in one way or another as being an outsider or not fitting in during high school. That part resonates more so than a story about a killer car or a killer dog. Perhaps there are more supernatural works of King’s that were popular but haven’t stood the test of time. But the idea of being young and awkward and feeling put upon by the people at home and school is something that you identify with from your own perspective.”
Of course in this version, having Carrie played in drag adds to the drama and tension. Ransom said this depiction of her most closely resembles the book version.
“It’s another trait that makes her an outsider,” he said about drag Carrie. “There are some jokes in the show where she’s referred to as burly and mannish. We all have that image of the beautiful Sissy Spacek playing Carrie, but in the book she’s not a pretty girl. It’s emphasized many times by many characters in narration. She’s referred to as bovine and pimply. That’s part of the joke there.”
Alltop said this version of “Carrie” should appeal to fans of the book and the movie, as well as to those who know nothing of either one.
“I think the play does a very good job of just being a play,” he said. “So if you somehow don’t know anything at all about ‘Carrie,’ about the book or the movie, you’re going to enjoy the piece.
“But it’s definitely best enjoyed having read the book or being familiar with the book or the movie. What I find very interesting about what Erik Jackson has done is that this is an adaptation of the book. We don’t have the rights to do anything with the movie. If you read the book, he does such a good job of mining what’s going on in a certain scene. Some of the comedy is coming from a little bit of artistic license in what people’s motivations could be. The gym teacher [one of Carrie’s few allies], for instance, he’s playing the female gym teacher stereotype where they are assumed to be lesbians. So there’s that tweak on top of Stephen King’s material. There’s that kind of implication.
“But also, when you read the book and also see the movie, you see the gym teacher looking at Tommy Roth, the senior stud, and you think, wouldn’t it be interesting if she had a total gym-teacher crush on this studly high-school guy? Erik has taken this possibility and blown it up for comedic effect.”
“It’s definitely high camp,” Ransom added. “The humor comes from the melodrama that’s inherent in a story like this, and we just exaggerate it a bit further while trying to maintain some of the heart. Erik Jackson is clearly still reverent of the source material. We’re not really poking fun at it: We’re exaggerating what’s already there.”
Part of that exaggeration for this production included special effects not often seen in live theater. The prospect of bringing Carrie’s powers to life in a play is exciting for everyone involved.
“It has always been a dream of mine to do something like this,” Alltop said. “Most theater tricks are slight-of-hand tricks. But you almost never get to work on something that is actually trying to sell something magical. And we’re having to figure that out on an indie-theater budget. This is the second-most expensive show we’ve ever produced. We’re pouring a lot of money and resources into it. But compared to Broadway, this is a pretty do-it-yourself situation.”
Ransom noted that a show with this many effects comes with the potential for mishaps, but that the staff behind the scenes is trying to make it as safe as possible.
“They’re trying to sort out all the tricks as we speak: the blood, the telekinesis, the explosions,” he said. “Anything with fight choreography is dangerous but we’re being very careful with everything. The tech people are sorting that stuff out without the actors involved, and then they’ll have us come in when they are more secure.”
Like Alltop, Ransom hopes that “Carrie” will appeal to longtime King fans and neophytes alike. He said word of the play had fans of the movie and the book excited before it even opened.
“More than any show I’ve done, when I say I’m doing ‘Carrie,’ I’ve had really emphatic responses,” he said. “I just think it’s going to be ‘Carrie’ fans who aren’t all Stephen King fans. But there are a lot of ‘Carrie’ fans out there. Hopefully the camp people will come out too, because this is definitely up their alley.”
Brat Productions presents “Carrie” through Nov. 7 at Underground Arts at the Wolf Building, 340 N. 12th St. For more information, visit www.bratproductions.org or call (215) 627-2577.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].