There are elements of a smart and campy popular entertainment, comparable to “Little Shop of Horrors,” in this latest musical from Michael R. Jackson ( “A Strange Loop,” “White Girl in Danger”) and his collaborators, with its tuneful score by Anna K. Jacobs, its lively choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, its appealing performances under the direction of Sarah Benson, and some pointed parody in some of Jackson’s lyrics and in Jacobs’ and Jackson’s book.
But “Teeth,” opening tonight at Playwrights Horizons, seems likely to turn off at least as many theatergoers as it would draw in: It’s deemed “appropriate for audiences ages 17+,” and it’s impossible to see how It could be otherwise, given that it’s an adaptation of a 2007 horror movie of the same name about a woman who has lethal teeth in her vagina. What’s most disappointing about “Teeth” is not its excesses, although these are deliberately in-your-face — the aggressively vulgar lyrics, the gory severed penises – but how the various elements of the show don’t completely hold together.
Alyse Alan Louis is a standout as Dawn, whose stepfather (the always reliable Steven Pasquale) is the Pastor at New Testament Village in an insular fundamentalist Christian town named Eden. Dawn herself presides over the church’s abstinence group, called the Promise Keeper Girls, or PKG. Even just some of the titles of the early musical numbers make clear the way the show parodies this theology of purity – “Modest is Hottest” – as lasciviously (and thus hypocritically) obsessive.
Because of her dedication to her purity, Dawn is the preacher’s favorite. By contrast, he regularly beats his own son, Dawn’s stepbrother Brad (Will Connolly), for real or anticipated sins. Not surprisingly, Brad (who is treated far more sympathetically in the musical than in the original movie) is resentful at his father. He dons a VR headset to be part of a group called TruthSeeker Premium, a men’s support group presided over by an apparently Australian guru who likes to be called Godfather and who rails against the “feminocracy.”
Part of Brad’s motivation is his fear of women, or more particularly his outrage at his stepsister, because he knows a secret about her that she doesn’t even know about herself. When they were fiddling with one another as children, her vagina bit off the tip of his finger.
It’s more than an hour into this two-hour musical that Dawn herself discovers her “vagina dentata” (the term for a folk tale common across many cultures, which we learn in a song called “According to Wiki”): Her body has a weapon that she can’t control that protects her against men who take advantage of her. Her first victim is her would-be boyfriend Tobey (the hilariously innocent hunky Jason Gotay)
followed by a gynecologist she consults who behaves inappropriately (Pasquale again, who gets a standout ditty “Girls Like You”: “To Keep it from getting routine and banal, with girls like you/I just go spelunking in the birth canal with girls like you.”) then even her gay friend Ryan (Jared Loftin) who promises to break the spell by having sex with her (after singing “I’m Your Guy”) but betrays her by recorded their encounter….and so on.
Every man, apparently, takes advantage of every woman. As the now transformed PKG chorus sings in “Dentata”:
Trust no man
Fear no man
Snakes in her garden
Dentata, Dentata, Dentata
Their dancing is accompanied by bursts of flames and what resembles a Satanic ritual – and the suggestion that the patriarchy has been replaced with something just as violent and authoritarian.
It’s a somewhat confused ending, which complicates the bop-on-the-head messaging before it – that Christianity is toxic, that men are toxic, that the patriarchy represses the natural desires and body autonomy. There is a suggestion here and there that men too are damaged by the patriarchy. But it’s frankly difficult to sort through “Teeth” (which suffers from Hyperdontia) in search of any serious philosophical underpinnings, as Jackson seems to want us to do, judging by his essay in the program (“In Teeth, confronting the patriarchy means confronting God the Father and the mythology from which he sprang….”) This is especially true when we’ve just heard lyrics as for example by the gay guy Ryan in “Born Again”
I’ve done a lotta dirt and I’m far from squeaky clean…
To some I’m still known as the Creampie Anal Queen”
Verdict: Horror movie musical adaptation that’s part tuneful and lively, part vulgar and confused
Teeth
Playwrights Horizons through April 14
Running time: Two hours with no intermission
Tickets: $71
Music and book by Anna K. Jacobs, book and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson
Directed by Sarah Benson
Choreography by Raja Feather Kelly
Scenic design by Adam Rigg, costume design by Enver Chakartash, lighting design by Jane Cox and Stacey Derosier, sound design by Palmer Hefferan, special effects by Jeremy Chernick, orchestrations by Kris Kukul, music supervisor Julie McBride, music contractor Kristy Norter, music director Patrick Sulken, wig and makeup design by Robert Pickens and Katie Gell, wardrobe crew Dom Letterii, intimacy director Crista Marie Jackson, fight director Robert Westley
Cast: Alyse Alan Louis as Dawn O’Keefe, Courtney Bassett as Promise Keeper Girl Becky, Phoenix Best as Promise Keeper Girl Fiona,Will Connolly as Brad O’Keefe, Jason Gotay as Tobey/Truthseeker,Jenna Rose Husli as Promise Keeper Girl Trisha, Jared Loftin as Ryan/Truthseeker,Steven Pasquale as Pastor Bill O’Keefe, Lexi Rhoades as Promise Keeper Girl Rachael,Wren Rivera as Promise Keeper Girl Stephanie,Helen J Shenas Promise Keeper Girl Keke
