A naughty, slash, easy girl, a dweebie tagalong sister and a super-star housewares clerk all come together with an outrageously outspoken best friend and the 'perfect' girlfriend to enjoy some time in an isolated cabin in the woods during Evil Dead: The Musical at the Prince George Playhouse until Nov. 2.
Sick or twisted, make sure to drag your gimped leg behind you in support of undead ghouls as you enter the first-ever "splatter zone" musical presented by Judy Russell.
This show is so shockingly hilarious, your reaction will surprise even you. The audience guffawed, belly laughed and expounded embarrassed titters behind their hands at the saucy witticism, the four-letter diatribes, the punitive puns and the campy attitude was shown throughout this play.
When you hear that one of the many songs is called What the F*** Was That?, you know this is not for little kids. Don't bring them. This is for adult-minded people who can take the swearing, the blatant sexuality and the fake-blood splatter on the first three rows that makes this such a great show.
The cast is an incredible mesh of clashing cliched horror show characters that when I saw them I couldn't believe my eyes because they were so brilliantly cast.
The set is great, multi purpose, pretty simple and the perfect backdrop for all the goings on. the spiffy band sits high atop the stage - offering a unique perspective to the audience.
Matt Russell is Ash the manly housewares box store employee turned chainsaw wielding demon killer. Russell rocks this role like he was born to it.
Nigel McInnis is Scott, Ash's best friend with the potty mouth, who offers the most shock value. His physical comedy can't be beat and his whole attitude is so perfectly sleazy that even a subtle hand gesture sent a tsumani of laughter through the audience.
Anais Barnes plays Cheryl, Ash's mousy sister. She has a catch-your-breath-in-your throat singing voice of unbelievable proportions and her acting chops are awesome, too.
Anna Russell, who is the director of the play and Linda, Ash's girlfriend, exemplifies girl-next-door
innocence and offers a strong performance all round.
Jennie Tracey is Shelly, Scott's slutty girlfriend, whose main raison d'etre is to provide the eye candy in the show. It's so awesome to see an actress happy to camp it up as the vamp.
Shelby Meaney plays Annie, the brainiac daughter of the professor who owns the cabin in the woods where evil lurks. As the story moves along, she has less and less clothes on peaking the interest of many audience members while providing hammy overacting that's right in tone with the rest of the play. Meaney's voice is the treat, especially during her solo All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons and the trick was not to expose her who-ha to the audience, with what little clothing she had left on her body.
Andrew Russell as Jake played the stereotypical hillbilly so strongly. Even when the fake blood bag malfunctioned and never did let fly, his antics as he kept in character and went on with his rant told the story of the true professional. Well done, sir!
Adam Harasimiuk plays Ed the unheard undead - even when he was alive -- and had great comedic timing as he was a real juggling acrobat when it came to handling all the baggage that kept piling on him - physically and emotionally.
Anthony Gagne was certainly an integral part of the play but you wouldn't recognize him on the street after seeing him in the show. He was the moose and I'm guessing -- the ghostly professor, both key characters and both done with charm and off beat flair.
I can't say enough about how great this saucy show was, the cast of characters on stage and the cast of keep-it-in-the-family Russell's as stars, producers, director, stage manager, lighting, sound, costumes, marketing, choreography. This family sure can put on a show.
