In the theater, satire is always tricky. It relies on the common experience of an audience as well as a larger, current cultural context, and a calculated risk that the satire will be understood as such. When it works, it can be delicious. When it doesn’t, as playwright George S. Kaufman observed after the 1927 bomb of the original “Strike Up the Band,” it “closes on Saturday night.”
Somewhere in the middle ground is an uneven show where the satire is marginally present, but there are cringe-inducing moments, where the knife cuts too close to reality and the comedy becomes not merely dark but cynical.
Such a show is “Heathers the Musical” now getting a revival Off-Broadway at New World Stages. The 1985 movie, which is the source of the story, satirized the teen angst movies such as “Sixteen Candles,” and exaggerated garden-variety teen angst into grand guignol, with murder, mayhem, and more. The movie was a bomb, but it became a cult classic, and in 2014 it was reimagined as “Heathers the Musical.” With book, music, and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurnce O’Keefe and directed by Andy Fickman, it was a modest hit. The music is decent pop-rock, and the lyrics are often quite clever. That production was broadly comic, bordering on camp, and if the stage is littered with bodies as teens get even for social slights, it still seemed so abstract that one could laugh at it — and skirt the underlying moral issues. Think of the way “Sweeney Todd” is about vengeance, murder, and cannibalism and is still an iconic and beloved musical.
The new production, also directed by Finkman, has arrived 11 years later, and the world has changed. The characters who seemed over-the-top and ridiculous aren’t quite as abstract as they once were; they’re often played as real, rather than cartoon characters in this production. The excessive, vitriolic, and downright mean language of some of the characters can’t hold a candle to what we hear from people in Washington, for example. Moreover, it’s not really funny in 2025 that two girls set up a purported friend to be raped or that the story of two murdered football players is that they committed suicide because they were gay and couldn’t deal with the shame. This in turn leads to a barrage of homophobia-for-yuks jokes, a hackneyed trope. Ultimately, Finkman’s directorial tone is uneven and confusing. We don’t know if we’re supposed to be legitimately heartbroken or laugh at the supposed and excessive implausibility of it all. It’s certainly not a distinction that the claque of teen girls at the performance I saw was making. They screamed deliriously at the end of each number, obviously untroubled by any moral misgivings.
The story concerns Veronica, who becomes one of the popular girls — “The Heathers” because they’re all named Heather — because she can forge handwriting. Her motive is that if she can join them in cruelty, she’ll be left alone, a kind of Vichy coed in the halls of Westerberg High. Veronica meets outsider JD and becomes smitten with the dark, poetry reading stranger. JD, however, turns out to be an avenging angel (aka serial killer). When Veronica is cast out by the queen Heather, Veronica poisons her with drain opener, encouraged by JD. Later JD murders the two jocks Ram and Kurt who tried to rape Veronica. Veronica forges the suicide notes. The dead kids come back as a kind of Greek chorus for the rest of the show.
Meanwhile, overweight Martha (lots of body shaming in the script), realizes that her BFF Veronica forged a note from Ram, which led to her humiliation and suicide attempt. The school guidance counselor tries to get everyone together in a televised “healing session,” but that goes off the rails. Veronica finally realizes that JD is no good and fakes her own suicide to get away from him, even as he plans to blow up the gym with all the students in it. Veronica tries to save the school, but JD takes the bomb from her and runs off to his own demise, acknowledging, in song of course, “I am damaged.” Everyone reconciles, and they all decide to go back to just being “Seventeen.”
Laid out like this, the plot seems grim indeed. The saving grace of this production is the hugely talented cast. Casey Likes, who was amazing in “Back to the Future” as Marty, is terrific as JD, as is Lorna Courtney as Veronica. They are the future of musical theater stars with powerful, contemporary voices, great presence, and lots of charisma. They are supported by excellent work from McKenzie Kurtz as Heather Chandler, Olivia Hardy as Heather Duke, and Elizabeth Tester as Heather McNamara. Broadway veteran Kerry Butler, as Ms. Fleming the guidance counselor, brings her incredible pipes to the role and, along with Kurtz, plays to excess, but they are the only two who seem to grasp the satiric nature of the material consistently.
According to press materials, there have been more than 1,400 productions of this show, including a recent production in London that prompted the New York move. So, “Heathers the Musical” is clearly working for many people. However, the unfocused direction that led to the piece’s muddy morality — coupled with really poor sound design — left me more confused and uncomfortable than going for a dark, satirical ride.
