“Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody” is of course exploiting the popularity of the TV series about two rival hockey players who over six episodes late last year had hot, sweaty sex then fell in love. And yes, it’s a campy show of raunchy puns and ill-fitting wigs, served with a side of beefcake. But the Ilya and Shane on stage are Broadway veterans Jay Armstrong Johnson and Jimin Moon, and they not only offer spot-on impersonations of the cocky Russian and the amiable Canadian; there are moments when their talent helps turn this lark into satisfying — even serious — musical theater.
But only moments. I doubt that much of “Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody” would greatly appeal to anybody who isn’t already at least acquainted with the series.
The musical exists as a kind of public service for the obsessed, “because unfortunately, the rumors are true. We won’t get another season or book until 2027.”
So says one of the three middle-aged housewives, all rabid fans, all named Susan, who open the musical, setting the tone, with the first of the 14 songs, “What We Want”:
“Gay hockey players with big butts
having sex in their beds,
on the couch, in their homes
also in hotels
Hockey players, with big butts
Sucking dick, but they’re sad.”
(The Susans are portrayed by Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, and Ryan Duncan, the three comic chameleons who quick-change into the entire cast of characters other than Ilya and Shane. )
The hiatus “is why we’re here,” one of the Susans says. “To keep the spirit of Shane and Ilya alive through this endless winter by recounting their tale, night after night”
The tale is indeed thoroughly recounted. The main incidents unfold largely intact,
like the initial greeting scene
and the exercise bike scene
and the water bottle scene
and even a bed scene (albeit far less explicit)
A handful of the subplots are altered substantially, but the main scenes have only slight variations, mostly for comic effect.
Often songwriter and librettist Dylan MarcAurele just turns it up several notches. In a restaurant scene in the series, the movie star Rose, whom Shane has been dating, gently encourages him to admit to his sexuality; in the musical, she belts it out in a song (“you’re not straight/you’re not bi/you’re a remarkably radiant gay guy”), and also observes: “you didn’t want anything to do with my vagina.”
“Rose, c’mon,” Shane says, “not while we’re eating.”
The three Susans narrate, injecting some running inside jokes, such as commentary on the story’s absurdly extended nine-year time frame (“Two hundred seventy-three and a half days later!” one of the Susans says at one point.)
In contrast to the long-gestating romance, MarcAurele and director Alan Kliffer produced the stage version of it with impressive speed; the first iteration was just two and a half months after the streaming of the last episode. Perhaps with more time, they would have been more rigorous in their choices. Did we really need Scott Hunter (the other gay hockey player) to be portrayed by a volunteered member of the audience, reading from a script? On the other hand, they were smart to omit Shane’s father, which they did with a meta-theatrical flourish: “Your dad is so boring,” Ilya tells Shane, “that writer of this musical could not even justify him as character.”
They have also chosen to produce the musical in an odd new venue, the sixth floor of what used to be the McKittrick Hotel, which was the setting of “Sleep No More.” It still retains the red velour decadence on the ground floor, but looks like a non-descript union hall on the sixth, with a stage almost comically cramped. (Perhaps that’s the effect they want?)
The creative team surely deserves some credit for the songs they give to Moon and Johnson. But it’s these performers who give this show a surprising heft. It takes a special talent for someone to pull off a song with the lyrics…
This fuck felt different from the last fuck
This fuck, he asked if i would stay
He’s not putting up such fronts
He didn’t spit on my face once
And he didn’t call me boring, slow, or gay!
…and make it be both hilarious and somehow genuinely moving.
Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody
The 6th Floor Theater at The Culture Club through September 7
Running time: 80 minutes
Tickets: $69 – $149
Book, music, lyrics and orchestrations by Dylan MarcAurele
Directed and produced by Alan Kliffer
Choreographed by Brooke Engen and Tiffany Engen, scenic design by Sully Ross, costume design by Brendan McCann, lighting design by Devin Cameron, sound design by Germán Martinez, intimacy coordinator Ann James
Cast: Jay Armstrong Johnson as llya Rozanov, Jimin Moon as Shane Hollander, Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, and Ryan Duncan
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