“Carrie,” the first splatter musical, which opened last week at the Virginia Theater, is based on the Stephen King novel about an awkward and unattractive teen-ager with the gift of telekinesis (the ability to move objects around with the mind) whose rage and frustration at being publicly humiliated on prom night causes widespread destruction, killing off most of the senior class and burning down what otherwise would have been her alma mater. “Carrie” was developed and directed by Terry Hands, the chief executive and artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It has a minimal book (by Lawrence D. Cohen, who wrote the 1976 movie directed by Brian de Palma), undistinguished music (by Michael Gore) and lyrics (by Dean Pitchford) like “Father Almighty, she’s only a child, But the woman is waking inside her,” a line that falls to the indomitable Betty Buckley, who was brought in to play Carrie’s religious-fanatic mother when Barbara Cook’s good judgment led her to abandon the role.
Among the works one might consider adapting for the musical stage, I would have thought that a story whose plot is set in motion by the onset of the heroine’s first menstrual period belonged pretty far down the list—only a notch or two above John Chadwick’s “The Decipherment of Linear B.” I gather from the many people who admire Brian De Palma’s movie “Carrie” that it is appealing primarily as the ultimate revenge fantasy: devotees will tell you that it’s fun to watch plain Sissy Spacek become pretty Sissy Spacek; that it’s possible to care deeply about her and about Amy Irving, who plays the generic nice girl in King’s plot; that you feel terrible when the sympathetic gym teacher (also played by Miss Buckley, incidentally) is cut in half by a falling basketball hoop; and that you hoot and holler when Piper Laurie, as the mother, gets crucified by a barrage of flying kitchen utensils. Anyone who goes to the Virginia hoping to see such effects translated into musical theater will be disappointed. There Carrie’s revenge is depicted as a series of laser-beam death rays; in the apocalyptic prom scene, characters tumble about confusedly behind a smokescreen scrim lighted in red to symbolize fire. As for Miss Buckley—who dies, inexplicably, on a vast staircase that ludicrously descends and is never used or, for that matter, identified—she just sort of keels over, after stabbing Carrie (Linzi Hateley) with a gesture that draws embarrassed laughter from the audience. The stage version never even establishes that Carrie is telekinetic, though in a Disneyesque sequence her shoes, dress, and hairbrush come to life and help her get ready for the prom. As for taking pleasure in the transformation of an ugly duckling, Miss Hateley is untransformable.
What “Carrie” most resembles is such movie musicals as “Saturday Night Fever,” “Flashdance,” “Footloose,” and “Dirty Dancing,” which present dancing—specifically the ability to dance well—as a means of escaping from one’s religious or class background. Pitchford wrote the screenplay and the lyrics for “Footloose.” He also collaborated with Gore on several of the songs in “Fame,” a movie that, like its television spinoff, grew out of the same impulse that produced a famous 1980 Dr Pepper commercial. (Debbie Allen, the choreographer for “Carrie,” and Gene Anthony Ray, who appear as one of the show’s principal dancers, were both stars of the television show “Fame,” and Ray was featured in the commercial itself; so, in a sense, “Carrie” might be said to have its roots in marketing.) But “Footloose” and “Dirty Dancing” actually have some good numbers; “Carrie” doesn’t. Miss Allen’s choreography isn’t about joy or striving or aspiration, it’s about T. & A.—a sort of sexualized aerobics: balletoporn. In view of how derivative the choreography is, it’s surprising that it is not better: there is a “Grease” number, a “Dirty Dancing” number, and a drive-in number (complete with blinding headlights) that comes straight out of “Bye Bye Birdie” and degenerates into an orgy of what Meatloaf used to call “paradise by the dashboard light.” It’s hard to say which is more vulgar, Miss Allen’s choreography or Mr. Ray’s performance, but the three cast members who, with Ray, form the quartet of principal high-schoolers are almost as unpleasant to watch as he is. Of the entire company, only Miss Buckley and Darlene Love, who plays the gym teacher, command respect. In a city teeming with actors who are starving for want of work, it’s sad to see a Broadway stage filled with so many manifestly untalented performers.
Mimi Kramer
The New Yorker, May 23, 1988