My mind is transported back to Wednesday at the WestCo café. The all-holy national anthem of the Nintendo generation lurched to life as director Anthony Martello tried to squeeze a story out of the stock plot, much like squeezing blood from a rock. Mario (Damian Privitera, ’11) is tired of the “same ol’, same ol’” of rescuing girlfriend Peach (Emily Weiss, ’11) from the clutches of Bowser (Timur Khanachet, ’11) and his stereotypical turtle flunkies (Chelsea Goldsmith and Madi Holland, both ’13). The cast was rounded out by brother Luigi (Reuben Johnson, ’11, who bravely hammed it up with a faux-talian accent) and court attendant/mushroom Toad (Phil Singleton, ’10). Not knowing how many spoilers I can/should give away, Mario magically ends up in the real world. Hilarity ensues. Then, somehow, he ends up back in his world. Curtains.
“Adventures Outside the Mushroom Kingdom” is a comedy in which the humor didn’t click with me, which is somewhat problematic. Most of the humor was grounded in the “video games operate with different laws from reality” idea and the dissonance of treating such peculiarities as everyday occurrences. There’s also a lot of fourth wall breaking, but just referencing the audience or something in the games is not in itself inherently funny. Or maybe it is—most of the audience was laughing. I’m probably just a big sourpuss.
I did like the mutation of Bowser’s character into the stereotypical antagonist from ’80s films, the one that tells the protagonist how he’s gonna win the big race before decrying the hero a chump or dorkwad. Khanachet’s appearance in the “real world” as just a normal person with horns, however, had the unfortunate side effect of reminding me of Dennis Hopper’s performance as King Koopa in the completely unredeemable “Super Mario Bros. Movie” (shudder). Timur, good; movie, not so much.
“It’s a musical, stop nitpicking the writing based on your narrow, sad, bleak sense of black humor,” I hear from the crowd. And now, the music. Admittedly, I’m typing this two hours after I saw it, but I can say I can’t remember a single line of original music. The musicians were all quite up to (and in most cases, sufficiently above) snuff, but damn it if even my notes can’t jog my memory. There were all the staples of musical theater: “the exposition song,” “the villain song,” “the ballad,” “the humorous ‘dark lyrics, upbeat music’ song,” and “the romantic song,” except now they were all bookended by über-familiar pieces from the first Super Mario Bros. The performers hit the right notes and put as much resonance as you can put into a fourth wall-less musical about a Nintendo game, but the fact remains, that as a fan of video game music, musical theater and music in general, I really can’t remember a lick of melody. I do remember Ms. Weiss had a great set of pipes though, so kudos to her.
The audience seemed to like it and, some flourishes notwithstanding, I can’t say that I did. If you know people in it, you were probably going to see it to begin with. And to those on the fence: if you want an easy-going evening of musical, it’s this weekend’s Second Stage production. That’s all I really have to say.
“Adventures Outside the Mushroom Kingdom” is Anthony Martello ’10’s senior music thesis. The last performance is tonight in Crowell Concert Hall at 9:00 p.m.
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