"Bat Boy, the Musical" doesn't have to soar to be enjoyed.
Case in point: Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse's current staging of the 1997 musical, which was inspired by a series of bizarre stories in the tabloid newspaper The Weekly World News about a boy who had fangs and pointed ears and could see in the dark.
While campy and spoofy, "Bat Boy" carries serious messages about tolerance and forgiveness, yet isn't weighed down by these elements. CMCP's production, staged by Michael Dale Brown, communicates the musical's general contours but misses the chance to showcase it as tragicomic opera.
At first, the folks of the small town of Hope Falls (get it?), West Virginia, exhibit a cheerful sadism toward the part-human, part-animal creature who is found in a cave.
Bat Boy (Ryan Holihan) winds up in a cage in the office of Dr. Thomas Parker (Stephen Hulsey), the town vet, who can't bring himself to kill the creature. Named "Edgar" by Parker's wife, Meredith (Elizabeth A. Bouton), the bat-boy becomes part of the family, eventually learning to speak.
The story itself, by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, aims for more than just spoofery or cheap horror gimmicks.
Because of his bat-like urges, which include the need to drink the blood of mammals, Edgar flirts with becoming human – something he can never fully do. Because of the way the story's various elements converge and resolve, the overtone is one of tragedy (unlike, say, the happy ending of "Pinocchio," where the puppet becomes a real boy).
Edgar's presence also tells us a lot about the townspeople, and especially about the Parker family.
The differences between a competent production of "Bat Boy" and one that achieves operalike heights are enormous, and in Costa Mesa, we get the former. Missing from this staging are the passions and powerful emotions the operalike "Bat Boy" engenders – Edgar's strangeness, the town's burning hatred of the outsider, and the pressures Edgar's presence places upon the Parkers' marriage. Brown's concept of the show diffuses its full potential, yielding something that's properly eerie yet more family-friendly.
Holihan, always a kinetic actor, uses his long, gangly, limber frame to define the role. His best moments come when depicting the more primitive Bat Boy. His edge is lost once he morphs into Edgar, whom he portrays as meek rather than the expected parody of a spoiled, well-educated young man from a family of means.
Where Holihan excels is in showing Edgar's tender side, his desperate need for acceptance and his concurrent misery over realizing what he really is. With his portrayal, he gets the character about halfway to where it needs to be.
As Shelley, the Parkers' only child, Montica Reeves presents more of a caricature of a teen girl rather than a portrait of a young lady on the verge of becoming a woman, longing (just like Bat Boy) to be accepted – and, in subtle ways, competing with her mom.
Hulsey is a forceful Dr. Parker. As Meredith, Bouton is his equal, and it's clear why Brown cast them: They not only have gorgeous singing voices, but are also exceptionally good actors.
Laurence O'Keefe's score is an enjoyable olio of styles, from rock to gospel, yet its songs create very little need for any dynamo vocalists. Hulsey's musical direction makes good use of the score, in prerecorded tracks, as well as the voices at his disposal.
This staging's singers are all good enough to carry the songs, many of which are ensemble numbers. The show's 11 ensemble members acquit themselves well, showing skill and versatility in sketching out a wide variety of secondary characters.
In the end, the tale of "Bat Boy" is a now-familiar one told through a mixture of laughs, melodrama and horror, which makes it the ideal property for the Halloween season.
Freelance writer Eric Marchese has covered entertainment for the Register since 1984.