You know when you’re scrolling on your social media feeds, late at night, and your algorithm stumbles into dark web territory, delivering you the most bizarre content, leaving you wondering, “WTF did I just watch?” (Asking for a friend.)
That’s Open Stage’s “Ride the Cyclone,” a dark humor musical set in a long-decayed carnival sometime in the afterlife, with music, lyrics and book by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. Director Stuart Landon and Assistant Director TJ Creedon invite you to step right up and try your luck with a mechanical fortune teller named The Amazing Karnak (Josh Dorsheimer) emceeing a contest more compelling than skee-ball or a dunk tank: storytelling.
Six teens are tragic casualties of The Cyclone roller coaster, and they return from the dead to tell the stories of their lives. The prize for the best life story isn’t a giant panda or a squirt gun. It’s the chance to regain their lives and continue their stories. But only one teen can win the prize.
Open Stage sets the mood even before the play begins. While waiting in the lobby, tune your ears to the ambient Halloween-themed music. It’s the grown-up version of trick-or-treating and visiting the house that blasts “Thriller” and “Ghostbusters,” and then hands you a full-sized candy bar. There are other Easter eggs in the lobby, like a wooden photo prop. (As long as no carnies try to guess my weight, we can all stay friends.)
With its optical illusions, burned-out neon signs and peeling paint, the show’s setting becomes a character in its own right–an abandoned carnival weathered by time. The smell of the smoke machine transported me right back to looking in a fun house mirror at an amusement park, or getting lost in the maze of blacklights and velvet posters at Spencer Gifts.
The cast of “Ride the Cyclone”
Then the show begins. Enter The Amazing Karnak, wheeling himself across the stage inside a box reminiscent of a 1980s arcade game. In his robotic delivery, Dorsheimer brings forth an unsettling character who can predict the date of someone’s death, including his own. His presence feels forbidden, like playing with a Ouija board in your friend’s treehouse after twilight.
All six teens are (were?) members of their school’s choir. So, we know the music will be good. And it was. I didn’t catch all the jokes sung in the lyrics, but I will admit, I’m getting to the age in which I need a little closed captioning to help a fogey out when young people talk too fast. But the humor that didn’t whizz by my eardrums landed long enough to make me laugh.
As Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg, Maggie Haynes delivers a neurotic politician in the making. In her breakout song, “What the World Needs,” her dancing reminds me of a more wholesome Britney, bragging about her virtues while undercutting her competition. Her main threat is her best friend, Constance Blackwood (Jasmine Graham). Just as easily as Graham intones the wistful doo-wopping “Jawbreaker/Sugarcloud,” she brings the audience along on a sacrosanct part of her life journey: her soliloquy on how she enjoyed the rollercoaster ride as it killed her.
Ethan Hommel, as Noel Gruber, not only rocks his French accent during his Cabaret number “Noel’s Lament,” but he also looks lithe and sassy in his negligee. Never mind the body hair. Or the bromance brewing with the passionate Ukrainian, Mischa Bachinski (Drew Patti). Patti shows his range with the hip-hopping, “This Song is Awesome,” that turned into disco somewhere near the end, and a longing ballad about “Talia,” the girl he left behind.
Then there is Ricky Potts (Em Kase), the tambourine-shaking, sci-fi loving alien with a big voice, who belted out one of the strangest performances I’ve ever been in the same room with, “Space Age Bachelor Man.” Kudos to them for this half-deaf writer being able to hear their voice over the fire alarm that went off during this already peculiar anthem.
The last student, the headless Jane Doe (Emily Reusswig), showed off her operatic stylings with “The Ballad of Jane Doe.” Her voice gave me one kind of chills. Her movements–contorting her broken doll joints and walking across the stage like a corpse with rigor mortis–gave me another kind. Reusswig’s performance makes me walk a little faster in the dark now.
The live band, led by band director Brad Barkdoll (tripling as guitar player and Virgil the Rat), provides quite a range of music genres for the show’s soundtrack, plus a little comedy sideshow.
The finale, my favorite song of the evening, was full of haunting harmonies, sung by the entire company. The song’s title and message hold a poignant allegory for life: “It’s Just a Ride.”
P.S. If you pay your admission for the amusement that is Open Stage to “Ride the Cyclone,” you must be this old (14) to ride. And be sure to visit the all-gender bathroom prior to curtain, because there is no intermission. Once the ride starts, it doesn’t stop until the end.
“Ride the Cyclone” runs Oct. 12 through Nov. 2 at Open Stage, 25 Court St., Harrisburg. For more information, check their website at www.openstagehbg.com/shows/ridethecyclone.
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