Review: Zombie the Musical

I had to travel deep into Eastern parts of Sydney, an adventure that required changing trains more than once and finding myself in a land where real estate ceases to be merely horribly expensive and becomes priced beyond human comprehension. The tiny Hayes Theatre describes itself as “home for music theatre and cabaret in Sydney” and given its location and my normal lack of interest in musical theatre, I’ve never been there before nor even knew of its existence. Still, a new comedy-horror musical was tempting enough to make me venture into parts unknown. https://hayestheatre.com.au/event/zombie-the-musical/

Aside from the obvious element of the living dead, the zombie genre typically involves a disparate group of people whose true characters are revealed when faced with the shambling dead and the collapse of social norms. Frequently, this may include being trapped inside a building while hungry corpses roam outside. In the case of Zombie the Musical, the building is a community theatre and the group of people are an amateur dramatic group. Can they defeat the zombie hordes with only the power of musical theatre? No…but they can try.

The show starts off with the hapless cast rehearsing their production of “It’s a Musical! (The Musical!)” with requisite sailors singing about the wonders of New York. In reality, the cast is a mix of a not-so-bright leading man whose acting career is magically failing upwards, a leading woman sick of playing two-dimensional characters, an ageing actress whose career is effectively over and a perpetual understudy with genuine talent but no chance of ever becoming a professional. Outside it is Sydney 1999 and people are worried about Y2K and excited about the Olympics coming in 2000. The tone is set with broad parodies about musicals and the sexism of the theatre industry (especially circa the 1990s).

The world of musicals begins breaking down when the leading man quits and the news on the radio warns of a rapidly spreading infection. Will there even be an audience for their opening night? Rapidly, things take a turn for the worst as the infection is revealed to be a virus that turns people into violent cannibalistic monsters. Ghouls, not zombies, explains the theatre’s stage manager, who luckily is the one person who knows what genre the characters now find themselves in.

This whole thing was genuinely funny throughout. Successful parodies require a genuine love of and understanding of the genres parodied and the show commits to both musicals and zombie movies while playing up the inherent silliness of both. The ghouls (not zombies) get to dance and sing to and each character has to face their inner selves as the world outside descends into (musical) chaos.

I had a really great time.

On You Tube there’s a video of the two central characters singing the key song from just before things shift from musical to horror. Felicity, the aspiring leading lady sings about her frustration with the roles she has to play and wishes for (in a foreshadowing pun) a more “meaty part”: