Reviewed by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move.
It a was like one big run-on, un-euphonious sentence that was 90 minutes too long.
Normally one of the more funny and inventive groups at the annual Hollywood Fringe Festival, Orgasmico Theatre Company’s, The Werewolves of Hollywood Blvd: A Danmable Rock Musical, didn’t quite cut it with it’s new production.
It just didn’t tell a good story.
From beginning to end, Werewolves was angry, angsty, frustrated and mostly confused about what it wanted to say.
It’s rather a violent script in some ways. Although not bloody or gory there is plenty of hatred, psychosis, damning of religion, murder and distress, crammed down the audiences’ throat with nary a pause for a breath of enlightening air about why any of this is happening. There are clues to be sure, but they are completely lost in this muddle of madness and mayhem, cheating, beating and revenge.
Lead character, Lawson Grace, a lit agent, is given a script about the history of werewolves which he initially blows off. Werewolves don’t sell. But when he is fired from his company in a corporate takeover, he is suddenly in need of a hit to support his entrepreneurial career rescue start-up. Skepticism turns into curiosity, then violence, then belief as he becomes caught up in the story and in his own personal transformation from man to animal.
Visitations from the ghosts of werewolves past (?) … jump out of the writing and lead him on until he is convinced he is a werewolf himself…but are they real or only in his mind?
The Werewolves of Hollywood Blvd: A Damnable Rock Musical tries much too hard to be a psycho-thriller and is unabashedly mediocre with half-baked, un-variegated songs, dismally unexciting choreography and a “post-it” ending. Of course, with the company of players being mostly singers, they manage to pull off the musical score, although at times vocally indecipherable, but without meaning or impact, emotional or otherwise. As a personal fan of this company’s work, it was a bitter disappointment. This show just doesn’t deliver.
If you dare, and werewolves are your unqualified thing or just can’t live without experiencing another quirky Fringe musical, then by all means, there are 4 shows left. Be prepared for a long night.
Listed as 80 minutes, but really 90.
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4 responses to “#HFF14: The Werewolves of Hollywood Blvd – A Damnable Rock Musical, reviewed”
Fair review. This show definitely needed more work. A LOT more work…
But isn’t any show with “werewolves” in the title inherently going to be angsty? What they had to accomplish plot-wise, in song was really ambitious. Anti-Catholic sentiment is a classic element of gothic literature, so I wouldn’t call it the damning of religion, so much as the use of the evil-clergy trope… I thought the music was awesome.
Unfortunately hayleyism, on the night I attended the show, I couldn’t help but notice that no less than 4 audience members walked out in the early part of this show. As ambitious as this production is, it isn’t interesting and it did not deliver. It did not accomplish what it set out to do which was tell a good story. Every song sounded exactly alike. There was no variety. And there needs to be because the story rests almost solely within the music. This is an experienced cast and writing group. They’ve done much better than this in the past. They know better.
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