“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” (part two)
After prying himself free from Mr. Davidson, Paul decides that he really should get some coffee. Bruh, really? You're going to head to the place that was already overly musical before all this started, instead of running back to your coworkers who you know are still themselves for now?
I know, it's a comedy. Still.
Paul enters Beanie's, and there's an *excellent* fakeout when Emma comes up to the counter mid-song with musical accompaniment and Paul starts back in panic. Upon seeing his reaction though, she stops singing and asks him what the hell has him so spooked. She also explains that, as of this morning, her stupid manager is now requiring them to sing whenever interacting with a customer, regardless of tips.
Paul shakily explains to her that there's something terrible going on with all this singing around Hatchetfield today. And that, while it really doesn't sound scary when you describe it, it IS scary if you think about the implications. He begs her to think about the implications.
Once again, the faux-horror movie dialogue scenes here are gold, and it isn't just thanks to the script. Or even mostly thanks to the script, honestly.
She evidently hasn't seen quite as much of the weirdness today as he has, just yet, so while she's a bit creeped out by her surroundings she's more creeped out by his paranoid ramble. To the point where she actually seems relieved to be called back to the counter that he's dragged her away from by her demanding manager and bitchy coworker. Someone gave them a tip, so it's time for the entire staff to perform the new and improved tip song. And dance.
A vaudeville-like number called "a Cup of Roasted Coffee," ensues. Not as catchy as "La De Da Day," but moreso than most of the others so far. The visual high point of this one is seeing Emma try to keep up with the other two, with her dance moves looking obviously hastily-learned and unenthusiastic while theirs are perfect. The difference in expressions is also great.
Emma's expression goes from stoic to enraged when her back is turned to the audience, too.
Finally, the dance proceeds beyond the point that they hastily trained Emma up to, leading Emma to give up and snap the other two out of it with an angry shout. They stare at her with plastic grins and ominously blank eyes as she tells them that this has gone too far for her, and she's quitting. She also tells them that she's been in musical theater herself back in high school, and considers herself to be infinitely better at it than them, so there.
Oof. I think that last bit might be considered a declaration of war where these aliens come from.
They simply stand in formation to block her from leaving, and tell her that she cannot quit. She hasn't finished the dance yet, after all.
Emma is getting really scared now. And it doesn't help when the coffee-drinking patrons all collapse, clutching their throats in agony, and the smilers chant in unison about how drinking their coffee is helping them reach apotheosis.
Emma opens the vat, and finds a mass of alien slime-mold hanging into the brew from the underside of the lid.
So you have to ingest it, I guess? Wonder how it first made the jump from meteorite to human hosts? Airborne dust, maybe. Or maybe you're just not supposed to think about it. Probably the second one.
The poisoned customers then get back to their feet, eyes blank and mouths smiling vacantly, and join in the infected café crew in singing a more sinister final verse to "a Cup of Roasted Coffee" that openly acknowledges that the coffee is "poisoned" and "toxic." Strange, that the infected people would refer to it as "poisoning," considering how they regard their condition as a splendid apotheosis. I don't think they'd consider it poison at all. Either a hint at the human victims still having a tiny bit of resistance in them, or just a lack of thought on the writers' part. In any case, Emma slips away with Paul and the two of them flee into an "alley" nearby.
They spend a little too much time wandering through the alleyways complaining about how cramped and full of debris they are for my taste. This might be one of those things that you have to be there in the audience to appreciate, though, so I can't properly judge it. In my theoretical Movie Musical adaptation of this, I think you'd cut this out entirely, as it appears to be mostly improv.
Finally, they find their way back onstage to a...um...a street or vacant lot or something, idk...where they stop and rest. There's a fairly hilarious repeat of the "it's not scary when you put it in those words, but think about the implications" scene, with Emma realizing to her horror that she hadn't thought through the implications until just now. Erm...everyone suddenly singing doesn't *inherently* imply contagious parasitic control, but I guess the context of the meteorite is also a factor they're taking into account. Anyway, it's funny, in large part due to Emma's actress' expressions and delivery. The two are startled back to their feet when Paul's coworkers emerge from hiding in a set of nearby trash cans.
Lucky coincidence, I guess. Either that, or this little vacant lot place is an area Paul and his coworkers agreed to meet at in case of an alien invasion ahead of time.
Tim explains that they fled the office complex after Mr. Davidson called multiple people into his office only for them to come out again as song zombies. I wonder what he did to them, and why he *didn't* do it to Paul? If it's as simple as getting someone to ingest the alien goop in their food or drink, you'd think this should be a lot easier. Ted starts being a jerk to Emma, and demanding to know why Paul brought her here. Couldn't he have at least taken the Latte Hotte, instead of that other, less attractive barista who's all grouchy and refuses to sing when you tip her?
Ah. I see.
Emma is about as tolerant of this sentiment as you might expect, but she's cut off before she can shove Ted's own dick down his throat by the arrival of police lights and sirens. Oh boy, here comes Charlotte's infected husband! Probably infected, at least. He and two other cops hop out of an imaginary patrol car onto stage right, and yep, they infected. They infected af.
They sing a very strange number called "Show Me Your Hands," which consists of them bragging about how untouchable they are, thrusting their hips around, and threatening to shoot everyone unless they comply with a rapid and contradictory litany of orders. Okay, no real behavioral anomalies then, false alarm with the infection thing. Song is okay. The best part of it is a rap segment near the end, with Sam taking turns free styling with his partners in brass. Charlotte tries to get through to Sam, and for a moment her husband DOES appear to come out and resist the urge to keep singing, but it quickly passes.
The dopey grin returns a second after this.
Maybe if their relationship was better this could have been slightly more effective. Or maybe not.
Fortunately, the infected cops can't seem to decide if they want to shoot them, arrest them, infect them, or just dance and sing in the general direction of the audience. This gives Ted an opening to bash Sam over the back of the head with a trash can lid, making him collapse. Charlotte grabs his gun, and the other cops run and scream like frightened children as their musical number is interrupted and their leader taken out; no telling if this is how they would have acted before, or if the infection just makes you cowardly and/or easy to panic.
It turns out that Ted is surprisingly not useless, for all that he's been portrayed as the incompetent jerk up until now. Too stupid to not attack when he sees a chance, I suppose, and it happened to pay off this time.
Charlotte wants to bring the unconscious Sam to the hospital, but that's in the middle of the downtown area that seems to be most densely infected. Also, some cursory inspection of Sam suggests that he might not be savable. A spongy mass of lichen-like growths was emerged from his head where it was struck. And man, I tell you, they really went all out with the special effects here at least!
That's like, summer blockbuster quality practical effects right there.
Also, a moment later his brain falls out of his skull. Somehow. Somewhere. Anyway, it's turned the same color as the alien fungus stuff, and appears to have become badly misshapen as well.
There's some pretty good black comedy involving the characters' lack of medical knowledge as they try to decide what this means and what (if anything) can be done about it. Finally, Emma suggests they go to the not-too-distant home of Professor Hidgens, her kooky biology professor. Okay, that's who that mad scientist pontificating at the meteorite was, then. She's his favorite student because she brought him his groceries once. He's a doomsday prepper (or, as Emma puts it, "a...what do you call a person who lives in a fortress?" Ted's first proposed answer, "a king," was not what she was thinking of, but she recalls the correct term on her own).
The talk of "doomsday" in relation to current events makes Charlotte think maybe they ought to go to a church instead. The others all roundly criticize her for forgetting that they're from different denominations, so that would never work.
The comedic banter in this scene is batting much higher than average for the show, and its average wasn't bad at all to begin with.
They take Sam's possibly-living-possibly-not body and brain, and pile into the imaginary squad car that the police apparently left. Sam had the keys on him, I guess.
Intermission! Which ends on another anachronistic radio news announcement. This time, the person listening to it is Professor Hidgens, who seems to have a pretty complete picture of what's going on and is reacting with despairing frustration to the newscaster's inadequate summary. Downtown Hatchetfield has been overtaken by a "musical riot," but the police (presumably all or mostly infected) insist that there's nothing wrong. Nonetheless, neighboring towns have raised their bridges and lowering their gates against arrivals from Hatchetfield, fearing some sort of epidemic. Lucky guess, or perhaps an early response from the Federal government cluing them in, one or the other. Also, Hatchetfield is apparently on an island, which is exceedingly lucky as well (if also sort of par-for-the-course for both earnest examples of cliched contagion horror movies, and for parodies of them like this one).
Professor Hidgens finally turns the radio melodramatically off, and starts pacing around the room, running ideas for how to stop this apocalypse in the making by his robot assistant, Alexa.
He's alarmed by a knock at the door, and has Alexa prepare his automated defenses while he creeps up beside the door with a handgun drawn. He demands that Emma and the others prove they aren't infected before he lets them in.
The very first couple of lines exchanged through the door are probably the bests, though.
“DR. HIDGENS: Who’s there???
EMMA: Dr. Hidgens!
DR. HIDGENS: Aha! Now I KNOW you’re trying to trick me, because *I’M* Dr. Hidgens!”
This actor is like Nick Cage at his absolutely most over the top. The fact that it's obviously a young guy with a shitty gray wig tossed haphazardly over his head somehow makes it better instead of worse.
They talk him into letting them in, and the funniest dialogue in the show up until now happens. Every sentence out of this guy's mouth is fucking gold, and the other character's "wait, what...?" reactions are even better. Highlights include, but are not limited to:
Dr. Hidgens having predicted an apocalypse-by-world-turning-into-musical thirty years ago and prepared for it, but not having any idea what would cause it or how it would work. Somehow.
The repeated use of Alexa as his "robot minion." I don't know why, but it keeps getting funnier with each instance. Probably the best part of this is that it's impossible to tell how the other characters are taking this. Is Alexa a normal thing for them the way it is for us? Did Dr. Hidgens invent a personal assistant who just HAPPENS to be identical to the mass market one we have? I can't tell!
Him and Emma diagnosing the alien goop leaking out of Sam's skull as "blue shit" and subsequently treating this like a clinical term.
I'm probably making this sound less funny than it is. It's the delivery as much as anything else that nails it. Really, you just have to watch this scene yourself.
They end up taking a sample of Sam's brain-goo and taking it into the lab room for study, and also getting booze (which Dr. Hidgens has stockpiled a great deal of. He's expecting to survive the apocalypse in this place, and he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who doesn't drink to get by). Also, Sam's brain is somehow back in his skull...
...
...oh my god.
The whole thing with his brain falling out was improv. The shitty costume fell apart when Sam's actor fell to the floor, and the others just rolled with the brain-cap coming off.
On one hand, that was some very good improv by the cast. On the other, apparently this show was crowdfunded with a 60K goal, and got more than twice that. You'd think they could have managed at least *slightly* sturdier props and costumes, with that?
...
Emma, Paul, Tim, and Dr. Hidgens exit stage right for the lab, leaving Ted and Charlotte with instructions to monitor Sam('s body?) where they handcuffed him to a chair and call the others back if he shows signs of waking up. Cue Charlotte and Ted having a stupid lovers' quarrel that ends with Ted storming out of the room and leaving the emotionally crumbling Charlotte alone with her infected husband and the key to his restraints, without either of them thinking to alert the others to Ted leaving her with him.
Guess what happens next. You'll never guess it.
Sam wakes up. At first, he dazedly calls his name, looking around in pain and confusion and asking why he's restrained and why his head hurts so much. Seems like having the blue shit in his head exposed might have freed him from alien control, at least temporarily. Charlotte eagerly tells him that she'll get the science person back right now to look at him and make everything alright, but he hastily urges her not too. And then the music starts playing.
Either he was only himself again for a few seconds, or it was just deception.
Next song! This is another good one, with a very Elton John vibe to it. "Tied Up My Heart" has the infected Sam use every weak spot that he can, drawing on all the same false hopes and lingering anxieties of their dying marriage to get Charlotte to unlock the cuffs. A lot of these same details were just alluded to in Charlotte's fight with Ted, and foreshadowed in her initial phone call way back at the beginning of the play, so it feels like a natural character arc.
The obviously possessed and unreliable zombie-Sam shouldn't be able to succeed with this. However, Charlotte is both neurotic and stupid, so he very well might.
She ALMOST manages to retain her good sense. But then he pretends to die, and this prompts her to...unlock his corpse. Because...that will help more than running for Dr. Hidgens, at this point, I guess? Eh, like I said, she's both neurotic and stupid.
Sam, predictably, gets back up moments after she unlocks him. They smile and embrace. He tells her that she's freed his heart, so now he'll free hers.
Several other hilariously fake internal organs of hers quickly follow.
Hmm. Didn't realize they were that kind of zombie. I guess this is what happens when you fight back against them hard enough. The scene ends with him hauling her disemboweled corpse offstage and the lights going dark.
That's another 30 minutes, putting as at the halfway point. So far so good, for the most part.
