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Sally Spectre: The Musical
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Sally Spectre: The Musical
By Ward Porrill

“It's creepy and its kooky, it's mysterious and spooky....” While those lyrics were once used to describe the TV show "The Addams Family," it is also an apt summation of "Sally Spectre: The Musical," a new play presented at the Theater West complex near Universal City.

Billed as a "children's horror story for adults," the ghoulish tale concerns the titular character Sally (Rebecca Lane,) a young girl who is just like every other pre-teen - she is an outsider among adults, she spends nearly all her time playing with her toys, and she is often visited by imaginary characters.

The only thing that separates Sally from all the normal prepubescent girls her age is the fact that she is, well, dead. Oh, and she has an axe embedded in her skull.

Details of Sally's untimely demise are given to us about mid-way through the one-act play, but what we realize much sooner is that Sally's bedroom is actually a purgatorial sort of location between the material world and the hereafter. The only thing standing in Sally's road to the great beyond is her bedroom door, but like many girls her age, Sally has assigned a foreboding onus to what lies beyond this gateway.

Keeping her company during this period of uncertainty (puberty, anyone?) are her loyal toy companions, the sturdy Nutcracker-esque toy soldier Bartholomew (Matthew Hoffman) and the easily-spooked clown doll Nero, who occupies one quarter of a human form split by the other toy characters Winky, Morris, and Monaco (all played to the hilt by Adam Conger.)

So whats a dead girl and her misfit toys to do while they ponder the outcomes of their spirited, but claustrophobic, existences? Well, sing and dance, of course.

Reminiscent of a Tim Burton movie, the songs written by director David P. Johnson alternate between yearning ballads and upbeat, but macabre, numbers ("Quarters" and "Barty's March" are among the standouts.) If there is a complaint to be made about the songs, there is, to put things in "Pippin" terms, too much "Corner of the Sky" and not enough "Magic to Do" for this jaunty little romp.

However, it is when the boogeyman in Sally's room, The Wraith (Rob Monroe) sings "Nobody's Brilliant in a Room Full of Genius" along with the foppish Gustave (Roger Cruz) and the wench-y Mabel (Kerry Melachouris,) all three characters very striking and, yes, very dead, does "Sally Spectre" really comes alive.

Later on, however, the singing and dancing give way to a needlessly overlong monologue by the otherwise enjoyably goofy Wraith, who is something of a cross between Theoden from "The Lord of the Rings" and King Arthur from "Spamalot." The story the Wraith tells is essentially about the crippling powers of fear, but the amount of time dedicated to telling the story kind of cripples the momentum the play has created up to this point.

To be quite honest, Sally Spectre herself is kind of a familiar creation. Despite Rebecca Lane's terrifically game efforts - she really seems like she's having a ball on stage - her performance is eerily reminiscent of past child characters played by adult actors, from Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann to Amy Poehler's bi-polar Kaitlin from "SNL." She seems more caricature than character, which makes her hard to invest in emotionally.

Still, "Sally Spectre" has a lot going for it. The actors do give it their all, particularly Conger and Monroe, whose characters' personalities lean toward the "multiple" variety.

The costumes, particularly Sally's Alice in Wonderland-by-way-of-Hot Topic get-up and the Technicolor nightmare worn by Nero and his "roommates," are a hoot. The production design is wonderfully creepy and a sequence in which Sally's room literally quakes with foreboding is pulled off nicely.

Overall, "Sally Spectre: The Musical" is a visual delight that is not without its dead spots, but still good entertainment for theatergoers who don't mind mixing "ewwwws" with their "ahhhhs."

Playing now through Nov. 29th.
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm.
Sundays at 2pm.
Box office: (323) 851-7977
www.sallyspectre.com
www.theatrewest.org

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