I'm so pumped for Lindenwood's Spring Musical. It's definitely one of my favorites. I've been singing the songs in my head for days now in anticipation. It's peppy and fun but also chockfull of dark humor. It's a show you will not want to miss, for a myriad of reasons.
The 1988 movie version of 'Heathers' is a cult classic. It's just so quintessentially 80s. It's got scrunchied ponytails, Winona Ryder, and expressions like "what's your damage?". Heathers the musical is a lot like the movie, with a few plot changes here and there, and of course a whole slew of fun new musical numbers. It's even got all the classic lines from the movie, including one of my favorites "did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?". If you've never seen the movie (it's on Netflix, go check it out!), think 'Mean Girls' but set in the 80s, and mixed with murder. Sound like a good time? Oh, it is.
But, like all good art, Heathers isn't just there to entertain. It's here to convey a message, and the message of Heathers is that you really don't know what struggles the people around you are facing. It's a message we see in the opening number, as the students of Westerberg High sing their innermost thoughts, "Why do they hate me? Why don't I fight back? Why do I act like such a creep?". Each student longs for life to be different, a little more beautiful, but they keep those feelings locked up inside. As the show goes on, Veronica, the main character, insinuates that Heather Chandler, Westerberg's queen bee, is actually lonely and depressed. However, she does so in an incredibly sarcastic manner, as if it could not possibly be true. Ms. Fleming, a trying-to-be-hip teacher at Westerberg, tries to teach her students about the show's message in a whole musical number, singing "If we show the ugly parts that we hide away, they turn out to be beautiful by the light of day", but the students only mock Ms. Fleming, and her message. However, the audience is beginning to see that Ms. Fleming has a point. Mean girls can have serious mental problems. Violent jocks can have abusive fathers. People that seem to merely be a bit eccentric could have deep psychotic tendencies. By the end of the show, the students at Westerberg finally come to this conclusion, and sing "we're all damaged, we're all frightened, we're all freaks, but that's alright", and life is a little more beautiful.
So grab yourself a 7-11 slushie, play some croquet, and go see Heathers. It'll be so very.
