Think back to your high school years: Did you eat lunch at the “cool kid” table? How many parties did you attend? How hard did you fight to climb the social hierarchy?
Protagonist Veronica Sawyer fights harder than most, getting caught up in murder and fake suicide notes while transitioning from nerd to popular. But if Heathers teaches us anything, it’s that no amount of social status will erase emotional damage.
Written by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, Heathers: The Musical explores teenage angst with dark humour and high energy. Directed by Micah Jondel DeShazer, the University of Ottawa Theatre Club’s recent rendition humanized high school archetypes with colourful style.
Westerburg High School is ruled by the “solid Teflon” Heathers: Heather Chandler, Heather Duke and Heather McNamara. The social hierarchy shifts when they invite Veronica into their clique, and she befriends the enigmatic J.D.
When Heather Chandler drops dead from a poisoned hangover cure, the students are trapped in a cycle of bullying, forgery and murder.
Though occasionally stumbling over her spoken lines, Kearney sang with ferocious power. She sounded best when easily slipping into delicious high notes during “Dead Girl Walking” and especially in “I Say No,” where her unwavering belt filled the empty stage for Veronica’s pinnacle emotional number.
Emmett Duby’s J.D. remained consistently cruel-intentioned, contrasting Veronica’s escalating guilt. Duby’s eyes lingered with darkness from his introductory song, “Freeze Your Brain.” But as J.D. revealed more about his troubled past, we learned the darkness in his frosted stare came from a place of sorrow. J.D.’s misery accumulated in “I Am Damaged,” one of the show’s most tender moments, poignantly sung with Duby’s mournful quiver and delicate tone.
The cruellest characters in Heathers were the most amusing to watch, thanks to the consuming allure of the titular trio. They confidently performed “Candy Store” with sweet-sounding vocals and sour stings. Even as a ghost, Katie Dale’s bratty stance solidified Heather Chandler’s influence at Westerburg. Claire Donnan zestfully asserted Heather Duke as the new socialite leader in “Never Shut Up Again.” Maria Falconi then painted a nuanced Heather McNamara in “Lifeboat,” as her shaking voice lamented the hierarchical community.
Westerburg’s brainless jocks, Ram and Kurt, played by Isaac Mitchell and Jacob Chhom, respectively, were a playfully wicked duo. Their uncoordinated walks and gangly limbs heightened their mockability, making the slow-motion fight in “Fight For Me” a purposefully embarrassing sequence.
What better playground for murder and social politics than the chaos of high school in the 1980s? UOttawa’s Heathers embellished the show’s twisted themes with colour-plenty panache in true dark comedy style.
While the spotlight sometimes missed its mark when illuminating soloists, Sabine Duknic and Patrick Luu’s lighting design carefully mirrored the antics on stage: a blood-like red for the rageful “Meant to be Yours,” vibrant violet for the house party scene in “Big Fun” and blazing pride colours for the Act Two opener, “My Dead Gay Son.”
Haileigh Simpson’s costumes implemented similar colour symbolism, emulating each character’s moral ambiguity. Veronica, the most sensible out of the bunch, donned a chic and calming navy blue. Heather Chandler wore bright red to draw dangerous levels of attention and Heather Duke tore off her green shirt to expose a scarlet tank top, reflecting her rise to power.
uOttawa Theatre Club’s Heathers was colourful and upbeat. However, they were careful to avoid oversaturating the story’s challenging themes. They instead used these topics to humanize stereotypical high school cliques while having some fun along the way.
uOttawa Theatre Club’s next production, ‘Little Women,’ will be performed from Jan. 25 to 28.
Featured image by Alexis Kuper/uOttawa Theatre Club.
