Stalled: A New Musical, King’s Head Theatre, stage review: ‘Circling the drain’
The cast of Stalled. Photograph: Johan Perrson
Americans have given us many good things: processed cheese, the songs of Elvis Presley, and cowboy hats. A strainingly serious musical set entirely in the ladies’ toilets certainly isn’t one of them.
For Stalled: A New Musical, set designer Emily Bestow has birthed possibly the bougiest John in Seattle: pale wood stalls, plants and neon lights stud most of the corners; it even comes equipped with a lounge bed in which our lead, Maggie (Lauren Ward), shelters from the world after a terrible personal tragedy.
In this microcosm, and through her new job as the toilet attendant, Maggie befriends a range of women, from overworked and unhappy mothers to queer nerds and pregnant teens, all while literally singing to the ghost of her past.
The cast, across the board, pours such intensity and vocal fire down the can, with a flicker of panicked sparks in their eyes.
Ward has a vicelike grip on our lead: haunted, hounded and hidden within the stalls.
Evita Khrime as Serena, a rebellious teen dealing with the consequences of a wild life, impresses with her superb voice and earnest spoken word poetry.
Josie Benson is quite ferocious as a pill-popping, hip flask-swigging mother, and Regina Co vaults through some nice personal discovery songs as she struggles with her sexuality.
The chorus pulls off some complex harmonies and the funnier songs are admittedly enjoyable considering the underlying issues.
The blame (and blame there surely is) cannot be placed at the feet of those on stage, interestingly.
The live musicians, hidden way up high stage left, and even the crowded but imaginative choreography by Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe are not where the issues lie either.
Liesl Wilke’s book and lyrics and, to a lesser degree, Andy Marsh’s lyrics and composition are the problems that no glitter and glitz can cover.
The concept is frankly ludicrous and would ironically work very well as a dark comedy. But there isn’t a scrap of irony to be seen.
Why do all these characters spend such a worrying amount of time in the toilet yet none go for a number one? Plenty of coy tinkles but not a mention of the unmentionable.
The songs are filled with brain-blitzing metaphors (see title) and the dialogue is unrealistic at best and groan worthily stilted at worst.
Vikki Stone’s direction has the characters gaze off into the middle distance straight through the strip-lighted ceiling.
The songs are simply inner monologues externalised, with little musical theme or refrain, and are summarily dealt with exclusively within the confines of the toilet.
There is even a point where a mother and daughter choose to reunite there after a long time apart. What?
Even more inexplicably, the characters seem to have a telepathic connection that they utilise to meet at their favourite water closet to see off a dear friend when the time comes, linking arms and singing.
Not every place of human interaction needs to be musicalised – dentist’s waiting room, post office, sewage plant?
I’m afraid we are circling the drain with Stalled.
Despite enjoying all the plumbing-based humour I have worked into this review, I think I must pull the flush (couldn’t resist that one, and I wish I was sorry).
Stalled: A New Musical runs until 23 March at King’s Head Theatre.