Book, music, and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy. Directed by David C. Jones. A Gently With a Chainsaw Artists’ Collective production. At the York Theatre on Friday, January 8. Continues until Sunday, January 17

Youth and talent: what a great combo. And it’s all over the stage in this Equity co-op production of Heathers: The Musical. Like the 1988 film Heathers, which became a cult classic, Heathers: The Musical tells the story of Veronica, an ultra-smart high-school student in Ohio, who teams up with J.D., a Baudelaire-quoting newcomer with a God complex and a gun. A clique of three beautiful, mean girls, who are all named Heather, dominate their school. Among the guys, the top dogs are Kurt and Ram: gay-baiting, date-raping football players. The adults who are supposedly in charge are no match for the popular kids, so, in this dark satire, Veronica and J.D. start to kill those kids off and frame their deaths as suicides.

In both the movie and the musical, surprise, which is plentiful, often comes in the form of outrageousness, but the musical adds more political analysis, psychological depth, and even literary wit. It retains some classic one-liners, including “Dear diary, my teenage angst bullshit has a body count.” But while J.D. saves Veronica from being raped in the movie, in the stage version she takes charge of her own damn self-defence—and sex life. And when J.D. hits on the idea of framing the first Heather’s death as a suicide, he says, “She was reading The Bell Jar.”

Christine Quintana, who plays Veronica, describes Heather Chandler as “a mythic bitch”, and she delivers the line with wide-eyed wonder. Using understatement, she consistently gets terrific comic spin. Within the constraints of the musical, Quintana is not as credibly murderous as the 16-year-old Winona Ryder is in the film, so the character loses some complexity, but Quintana is a pitch-perfect singer and a charming, powerful presence.

As Heather Chandler, Synthia Yusuf rocks her physical characterization, swaggering across the stage like a dominatrix. And Colin Sheen’s physicality as Ram is so precise that he shines like a star.

With the combination of her gorgeous voice and colloquial delivery, Steffanie Davis impresses as Martha Dunnstock, the bullied big girl. And given her moment to sing the moving ballad “Lifeboat”, Devon Busswood makes a winning Heather McNamara.
Kamyar Pazandeh, who plays J.D., has a sweet, powerful tenor, with which he elegantly ornaments “Freeze Your Brain”, which is both a ballad of teen despair and an ode to 7-Eleven.

All of that said, the musical is a huge undertaking and this production, which David C. Jones directed, gets a little ragged around the edges. Ken Overbey, who plays some of the adults, overacts, and Lori Watt, who also takes on adult roles, sings well, but wimps out in her characterizations.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Sarah Mabberley’s set is ugly. No doubt working on a limited budget, she has created a bunch of modular units. Fine. But she has also painted them purple and added diagonal black stripes. Under Jones’s direction, sight lines are sometimes a problem on the crowded stage. Nonetheless, the band, under Steven Greenfield’s direction, is solid. And Overbey’s choreography is an energetic good time.
Both Heathers junkies and Heathers newbies should enjoy this musical.