CAMERON KELSALL: Heathers the Musical made a small noise when it debuted at New World Stages in 2014. Based on a 1980s teenage comedy, it collected a modest fanbase but closed after three months. But like its source material, the show has attained cult status in the interim, thanks in part to a cast recording and numerous college-conservatory productions. The audience at the performance we saw of the current New York revival — also at New World Stages, based on a production that originated in London — was chock-a-block with young women dressed as the eponymous mean girls and enthusiastic fans who knew every moment of the score inside and out. What a difference a decade makes! Yet the musical itself feels far less edgy and outré than its forty-year-old source material.

DAVID FOX: Well, I had never even heard of the musical. I knew the movie at least as a title — though I conflated it with other movies (Mean Girls in particular) that traffic in the theme of female cruelty among high school girls. But as you point out, it now has a large group of fans whose familiarity and adoration of virtually every moment in the show was very much evident here. I think for both of us our eyes were opened to the show when it became a much-requested topic in our 21st Century Musical Theatre class, where students often wanted to compare it to Mean Girls — so I wasn’t completely off in thinking of the two together. Based on the production here, I can appreciate the energy… but I’m utterly bewildered about the point of it, and even not sure fundamentally what it’s about. 

CK: As high school narratives go, this one is pretty standard-issue up to a point — the plot follows the popular cliques and social misfits of Westerberg High in Sherwood, Ohio. Outcast Veronica Sawyer falls in with a trio of queen bees, all named Heather, and briefly tastes the popularity that so many American teenagers crave. But when a falling-out with ringleader Heather Chandler turns deadly, she and her mysterious boyfriend Jason “J.D.” Dean must start balancing midterms and murder. The story demands a tongue planted firmly in cheek — we witness Veronica and J.D. professing their love through song one moment and framing the suicides of their classmates the next — but writers Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe largely avoid the sort of mordant, uncomfortable humor that distinguishes the source material.

DF: Cameron, your last observation is for me a key issue here. Though I’m no expert on the canon of teenage bullying movies, I certainly know some, and best of those — I’d put Carrie at the top, and Cruel Intentions close behind — are dark comedies indeed, if comedy even applies. There is also a sense of morality at the core. Heathers in some ways goes into even heavier themes, suicide and murder included. But it hasn’t the guts to go full bore into satire, nor any real interest in pursuing this seriously. 

CK: I haven’t seen the source film in years, but my memory is that it skewers to a degree the angsty but relatable teenage narratives of John Hughes. The musical itself fits right into those stories though, which all seem to finish on an uplifting note.

DF: A mawkish final section — you and I independently used the term “redemptive arc” — brings a false sense of hope, though that at least has the show’s best song: “Kindergarten Boyfriend,” superbly delivered with heart and beautiful singing by Erin Morton, a marvelous performance of a clichéd role (the high school fat girl — every show like this has one). As for the rest of the score, it often sounded generic to me.

CK: Heathers retains the 1980s setting of the movie, but the much of the music comes across as blandly contemporary — you could imagine Sabrina Carpenter or Ariana Grande singing the bubblegum pop–inflected “Candy Store,” or Chappell Roan belting out Veronica’s rousing anthem to sexual liberation “Dead Girl Walking.” I spent much of the show longing for the pre-show playlist of Duran Duran and A-ha. 

DF: Regarding your paragraph above, I must evoke Will & Grace’s Karen Walker: “I don’t know what half these words mean.” Seriously, I should ‘fess up to being the old guy in the room, and I’m not sure I could distinguish ‘80s pop from ‘90s. But I do know voices — and on that level, this Heathers has a lot to offer, starting with the thrilling, clarion voice of Lorna Courtney whose unflagging power and general together-ness is astonishing. Courtney was a knock out also in & Juliet, but she registers even more here as Veronica. I also enjoyed the singing of Casey Likes (as J.D., the nominal male lead), who has a lovely, singer-songwriter kind of style and tone, a welcome relief from a show that mostly thinks louder-is-better. 

CK: Agreed about both, although Likes often seems too — forgive me — likeable to project J.D.’s menace. But he’s not alone there: under Andy Fickman’s direction, characterizations remain fairly generalized, and the choreography (by Gary Lloyd, with Stephanie Klemons) evokes a concert more than a dramaturgical musical. There are a few exceptions to this — McKenzie Kurtz is a deliciously brutal bully as Heather Chandler, and veteran Kerry Butler is hilariously ditzy as a do-gooder teacher with selfish motivations. It’s also worth mentioning that despite the crimped hair and letterman jackets worn by some of the cast, the costumes (by David Shields with Siena Zoë Allen) don’t evoke much in the way of period specificity, and the scenic design (also by Shields) lacks the necessarily heightened high-school aesthetic.

DF: I agree with all that, yet I also feel conflicted. I can’t say that I found Heathers satisfying musical theatre in any real sense, but I greatly enjoyed the crowd’s enthusiasm which among other things cheered on a social agenda — gay pride near the top — that we need so much more of in the current moment. So, in that sense, hurray for Heathers. Long may it find a loving, enthusiastic audience.