Toxic Fun
The Toxic Avenger, this year’s season opener at New Brunswick’s George Street Playhouse (www.georgestplayhouse.org) has been generating plenty of buzz during its previews.
Maybe, because the guy who wrote the show’s music is David Bryan — keyboardist and founder of Bon Jovi. Or because it bills itself as a story about “New Jersey’s first Superhero”.
The show is a dark comedy about a nerdy guy from “Tromaville” (Exit 13B on the New Jersey Turnpike) who is dunked into a vat of radioactive goop, and becomes a slime oozing muscle man…determined to fight corruption and pollution in the town.
It’s based on the cult classic comedy/horror film that spawned several sequels.
It’s Little Shop of Horrors meets Beauty and The Beast, with more Jersey jokes than you can count. There’s a live rock band and a spoof on every style of Broadway number — from the Love Ballad, to Show Stomper, to the Big Closing Number.
The five energetic cast members perform the play without an intermission, with endless costume changes.
The George Street Playhouse prides itself on nurturing and staging stimulating shows that may ultimately find their way to Off-Broadway and Broadway stages. The Toxic Avenger is the first of five shows planned for the 2008/2009 season… and this superhero saga may help raise the profile of a regional theatre that serves up toxic fun.
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