P.C. Verrone
How can we revive the American musical? This question had been posed to our industry long before theatres were forced to shut their doors due to COVID-19, and it has only become more urgent in the wake of unprecedented closures, dire financial straits, and the shuttering of numerous workshops, salons, writers’ groups, and legacy organisations. How is the American Theatre to proceed? Many have parroted tired clichés of the ‘power of the theatre to bring people together.’ Yet, again and again, we have seen the empty seats, the runs cut short due to low ticket sales. The fact is, now that theatres have reopened, audiences are still not flocking back.
And why should they? What unique communal experience will greet these eager theatregoers upon their return? Some Frankenstein’s Monster of existing IPs, hip hop-inflected composition, a reorchestrated 80s popstar’s catalogue, a stunt-cast lead, and a book more preoccupied with convincingly using ‘mid’ and ‘rizz’ than telling a decent story? Frequent readers of this column will be well aware of this reviewer’s feelings of alienation from the contemporary musical. Rest assured; this is not out of malice. I spent lockdown replaying The Sound of Music and Hair to death to escape the paranoia and isolation. If the Nazis and Vietnam War could inspire masterpieces like these, I was eager to learn what great works would emerge from our own hellish episode of history.
Theoretically, I agree with the theatre-makers who assert this institution’s ability to unite us in a time when we feel so estranged from one another. I am hungry for such an experience. But each time the final curtain drops on a new play, I am left with a bland taste in my mouth.
Slime Tutorial: The Musical has been on my radar for some time. Those of us who braved the digital theatre and Zoom performances that themselves became endemic when venues closed will likely recognise the name Ricky Herron-Mayers, Slime Tutorial’s writer, composer, lyricist, and director. Herron-Mayers rose to prominence in experimental circles during the height of the pandemic. Their (Herron-Mayers uses they/them pronouns) interdisciplinary combination of performance, organic chemistry, and quasi-synthetic bioengineering could perhaps only catch the theatre community’s eye in a moment when the line between ‘Drama’ and ‘Technology’ became blurred beyond distinction.
Herron-Mayers’ digital performances took place in their studio, though it is perhaps reductive to refer to this space as merely that. It was more of a warehouse combining aspects of a laboratory, terrarium, aquarium, and film set. From the limited vantage point offered via Herron-Mayers’ webcam, you might glimpse a fume hood, lab stands with flasks and beakers, heating mantles and stir plates, thorny green vines creeping in from the corners, exotic potted orchids, fresh and saltwater fish tanks, black-lit tanks containing various reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates, tables littered with script pages, or hangers with enough masks, hats, wigs and costume pieces to outfit a drag queen for a lifetime. According to one of the rare interviews that the infamously reclusive Herron-Mayers has given, the warehouse also contains a bed and a kitchenette where they eat and sleep. I’ll let you decide whether that is simply hyperbole.
It is difficult to imagine Herron-Mayers’ work existing outside of this highly specific space. Their piece The Quiet Sublime of Things Lost involved a blend of behavioural training and harmless environmental manipulation to direct a sextet of cephalopods to change colour while Herron-Mayers recited six monologues. Lucas Cohen of American Theatre Magazine was the first to put the artist’s name on the map when he wrote an article likening this performance to Ntozake Shange’s seven multi-coloured Ladies in for colored girls… Another piece devised by Herron-Mayers entitled Unimpeded Undulation featured the climax of an operatic aria coinciding with an explosion of thick, pink foam that doused Herron-Mayers’ entire body.
Perhaps Herron-Mayers’ most famous work is their adaptation of Antigone, Sophocles’ tragedy in which the titular character seeks to unlawfully bury her brother’s body. The first Herron-Mayers-led production to incorporate other actors, this gripping staging depicted the artist’s studio being slowly filled with soil. Watching the livestream from my laptop on my kitchen counter, I feared this might veer into maudlin. (Let’s bury the stage in a play about a burial! Groundbreaking!) But then, in the second of the five acts, I noticed the waist-height soil begin to ripple. Before my eyes, seedlings wiggled their way out of the dirt at the speed of a multi-week timelapse.
The live chat lit up. Were they real? Was it some practical effect or accelerated growth hormone? Was it safe for the actors to be immersed in this dirt wearing only togas? I kept my thoughts to myself and observed. By the third act, the stems were at the actors’ elbows. By the fourth, they had bloomed into a rainbow of flowers. By the time Eurydice’s body was discovered in the final scene, the blooms had withered and shrunk back into the soil. In a play that pits the Laws of Nature against the Laws of Man, Herron-Mayers had fashioned a spectacle that seemed to have joined – or maybe disobeyed – both. I was intrigued.
Once traditional venues began to tentatively reopen, Herron-Mayers seemed to follow their flowers underground. But it wasn’t long before the theatre world was rocked by an announcement in Playbill: Herron-Mayers’ next project would be – of all things – a musical premiering Off-Broadway. The fact that Herron-Mayers would be taking on all major creative roles, entirely writing and directing the piece themself, seemed laughably absurd. But the producers of the show expressed no qualms, saying, “If we can pull this off, the theatre you know will be a thing of the past.”
The only aspect of Playbill’s report that was not utterly baffling was the title: Slime Tutorial. Given Herron-Mayers’ online beginnings, it seemed fitting that this musical would reference the bootleg recordings of stage shows hidden in plain sight across YouTube and Vimeo. ‘Slime tutorials’ (so called to evade censors that would otherwise take down the unauthorised films) proliferated during the pandemic as fans searched for some way to sate their cravings for Legally Blonde or Heathers: The Musical.
But the title alone gave little hint as to what the content of this musical might entail. Would it centre on the controversy of these bootlegs? Would it argue for their potential to democratise a prohibitive industry, giving those who cannot travel to New York or pay Broadway prices the chance to see their favourite shows? Would it lampoon the industry itself, the way that The Producers had twenty years ago? I must admit, I assumed the worst. I had nightmares of a reference-heavy parody of every hit musical from the past ten years. What could be worse than one soulless, unoriginal Broadway show? How about a mash-up of them all!
By the time the first advertisements for Slime Tutorial: The Musical appeared, little about the show’s content had leaked from casting calls, rehearsals, or production meetings. Whatever Herron-Mayers was planning, they were making sure that no one would see it before the first night of previews.
Herron-Mayers appeared in a single promotional interview for Broadway.com. This was the first time I saw them outside of their studio, or even out of character. Dressed in layers of blue-grey fabric with a shaved head, they looked more like a monk than a playwright. Speaking in their breathy tenor, Herron-Mayers hardly touched on their personal background except for a brief mention of abandoning a PhD from ‘a school in Boston’ to live with a group of Radical Faeries.
When asked about their inspiration for Slime Tutorial, they said, “At its core, the show is about desire. We understand our own desire through these walls, these blinders – gender, race, the body. Sexual organs and erogenous zones. What does it mean to take those away, to give yourself to something without arbitration? When two anglerfish mate in the darkest depths of the ocean, they fuse their tissue together. That’s what I’m interested in. What does the anglerfish desire?”
It was with this perplexing description in mind that I took my seat at the Slow Pony Theatre last night as part of the first audience to lay eyes on Herron-Mayers’ Off-Broadway debut. The curtain rose on a quaint suburban cul-de-sac, beautifully designed by Martine Robinson. The façades of the houses were highly realistic, just short of uncanny with an unnervingly pastel palette. Part of me had expected the set to recreate Herron-Mayers’ studio, and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that it didn’t. Zola Monks and Blossom François took the stage as your run-of-the-mill gossipy neighbours, whispering about a new family moving into the house next door. Then, the slime appeared.
It was difficult to tell exactly what I was looking at as it oozed out from the crevices of the set. It pooled stage right for a moment before rising just a little taller than Monks. I must commend lighting designer Kat Xho for finding a way to suitably light both the human actors as well as this translucent, blue-green mass that stood before us. After a moment of silence (emphasised by a pause in the orchestration), its unctuous body shuddered. The vibration was not the same as speaking, not quite like the hum of vocal cords, and yet I could perfectly understand that the slime was saying, “Good morning, neighbours.”
A low murmur throughout the audience told me that everyone else was just as bewildered by this thing – this being – that had just spoken. However, the play gave us no time to marvel or question. Monks and François broke into the first song, ‘Not Like Us,’ an upbeat pop/rock duet about change coming too fast. The song could have been plucked from any other recent musical from Be More Chill to Six, but it was difficult to concentrate on the music when a human-sized slime was swaying along to the beat. Then, during the final chorus, the slime began to sing along. Its body once more quivered, though the resulting sound was more melodic than its speaking voice.
And it did have a voice! It wasn’t too bad, either, though I am hard-pressed to describe it. It was something between a mezzosoprano and smearing jelly on your ears.
I tried my best to follow the rest of the story, which largely centred around this slime having moved into a closed-minded neighbourhood. Quique Gonzalez, fresh off his Tony-winning performance in last season’s revival of Zoot Suit, played the town’s fire-and-brimstone patriarch, warning against the evils of soiling the purity of the community. It was unclear to me whether the show was aware of the irony of having a Mexican American actor sing a song entitled ‘Why Don’t We Build a Wall?’ Seasoned Broadway baby Lauren Swanson played a spiritually lost recent widow and performed an emotional ballad that may perhaps be some of her best vocal work ever. But this was all overshadowed when midway through the first act, the slime split into two. These two slimes, equally sentient and independent, performed a comedic duet that left the theatre audience in stitches. At the end of the number, the two slimes merged back into one and exited to a standing ovation.
A common word of wisdom for actors is, “Don’t work with children or animals.” I am tempted to add slime to this list.
The slime (which I can only refer to as such, as it was criminally absent from the cast list) truly was the centre of attention. I know prima donnas with less individuality. It had singing chops, comedic timing, and dare I say it, star quality. All of these were evident during the final scene of the first act.
Monks’ character, who despite her earlier distrust had clearly taken a shine to the slime, found herself alone with it in the intimate dark of the town’s gazebo. Streetlights haloed the scene, and the two actors’ chemistry became so palpable, I could almost run my fingers through it. Monks’ character said, “I’m tired of being this person who feels so separate from everyone around me.” The slime vibrated in agreement before leaning in and consuming Monks entirely. The music swelled as the curtain fell on the image of Monks’ body dissolving inside the slime like a tablet of Alka-Seltzer. The applause was deafening.
I have never been part of an audience so impatient to get through intermission. My fellow members of the press leapt from their seats, immediately dialling their phones or hurriedly typing out emails to announce that this was the most extraordinary must-see experience in decades. Forget about that 2,000-pound King Kong puppet, this was singing slime! Most of the audience was trying to figure out the secret to it. What was the slime made of? Where was its voice coming out of? And what about that trick, where Monks’ body seemed to disappear inside it?
I, however, tempered my reaction. I wasn’t here on behalf of Life or Science, debating whether this slime was a miracle of modern biochemistry. I was here to report on the merits of the musical, its direction and staging and composition. If I am to be honest, all were lacking. The script was thin – in the past eight years alone, how many of us have sat through some version of the ‘stranger comes to a bigoted town and we have to learn to get along’ story? The music was nothing to write home about, except for the fact that it was coming out of a bluish-green blob. From a financial perspective, a star or a gimmick might be enough to carry a production. But is it enough to carry the American Theatre?
After thirty minutes passed without us being called back to our seats, the impatience bloomed into hostility. Audience members began shouting for the performance to resume. Ushers ran around frantically, promising to get to the bottom of the delay before disappearing backstage. Some patrons seated in the orchestra began to throw their programmes or drinks onstage. A physical altercation broke out in the mezzanine, and the culprits were promptly escorted out. Many have written about the sharp decline in theatre etiquette in recent years, though I tend to argue that this trend has more to do with the quality of the shows than the content of the audience. A truly great performance will stay a sneeze.
After another ten minutes, the intercom announced that Ms. Monks would be unable to continue the performance, so her understudy would be going on in her place. Murmurs spread throughout the house. Many wondered if that last effect had injured her in some way. But there was little time to speculate as the curtain rose again.
The second act began with the song ‘How to Make a Slime,’ which addressed one of my lingering questions: we’d seen the slime, so where was the ‘tutorial’? However, if anyone hoped that this number would offer a window into the creation of Herron-Mayers’ being, we were sorely disappointed. Rather, we were treated to an introspective ‘I Want’ song from the slime – which now seemed to have doubled in size. It expressed homesickness for a country from which it had fled, or perhaps been exiled? The lyrics of the song were vague and contradictory, and the slime’s diction had become muddied, like someone trying to sing while chewing.
At the end of this song, Monks’ understudy Cori James entered. It was immediately clear that James lacked the charisma and chemistry of Monks, timidly reciting her lines and often refusing to get within two feet of the slime. This undercut what might have been a dramatic scene in which her character confronted the slime for not having called her after their one-night stand. The slime’s voice remained garbled, which made the entire scene almost undecipherable. It ended with the two in a tight embrace, so they must have worked it out. As the lights faded to black, James let loose an unnervingly graphic moan.
When the lights came up again, Herron-Mayers themself stood centre stage. Their name did not appear amongst the cast in the programme, so I hadn’t expected to see them until curtain call. Portraying what I can only describe as a disgraced scientist, the slime’s father, and a vengeful god from its homeland, Herron-Mayers addressed the audience: “In the primordial days of theatre, the roiling masses yanked acts off the stage, incited riots if they were dissatisfied. You are no different. At the slightest inconvenience, you revolt. You only desire what your tongues have already tasted. Everything you consume is palatable. You claim to challenge yourselves, but see how ugly you become when you are really challenged? You’ve always been this way, entitled and unwilling to love the abject. But you are the abject. You are the hungry mass demanding meat––”
Herron-Mayers’ monologue was interrupted by Gonzalez bursting onstage and screaming, “It’s coming! God, that thing is coming!” The musicians screeched to a halt as the slime burst through the set, encasing Gonzalez as it formed into a single mass once more. Through the slime, I watched Gonzalez’s shocked expression morph into one of orgasmic ecstasy just before he dissolved.
The slime now towered over Robinson’s pastel set. There was only a moment to appreciate its sheer magnitude before François came tearing through, knocking one of the flats askew.
“Run for your lives!” she shouted, showcasing her famous vibrato. “It ate Lauren and Cori!” François leapt into the pit before scrambling up into the aisle. Other members of the ensemble streamed out from backstage and into the audience.
“Someone call the police!” one of them shouted.
“Someone call Equity!” screamed another.
While I might appreciate this breakage of the fourth wall as a nod to Wilder, the ‘immersive experience’ has become entirely played out. Once you’ve gotten a lap dance from a spandex-clad cat, the ‘actors in the aisle’ gimmick becomes old-hat – though, I did admire this reversal of it. Rather than welcoming the audience in, this cast was begging us to get the hell out.
The immersion was so wholly felt, some patrons in the front orchestra also began to scream and race towards the exits. Those of us more seasoned theatregoers remained seated, watching the slime vibrate at a low frequency. It seemed disturbed by the noise in the aisles. Many of us have seen the viral videos of actors who have had to stop a performance to personally address a disorderly audience member. The slime’s reaction to the interruption was to split into multiple globules, hopping into the pit and carrying musicians back onstage before rejoining together. Herron-Mayers watched stone-faced as this all played out before going into their torch song.
‘Primordial’ was the first number in Slime Tutorial that I can attest is totally unique. With the entire pit emptied – either absconded or dissolved within the slime – Herron-Mayers technically sang it acapella. However, they were accompanied by the slime, whose mumbled voice now seemed to have incorporated the tones of an oboe, the thrum of a cello, the whistles of flutes, and the bass of a kettle drum. Whether electronic or live, I have never heard a sound like this. As the song progressed, the slime ballooned so large, it threatened to overflow off the stage. Herron-Mayers belted their final note, took a breath, and then dove head-first into the slime.
You could have heard a pin drop. The towering slime emitted a low hum, something between a tuba and a belch. It shuddered for a moment before releasing a torrent of globules down the aisles into the house.
This seemed to give everyone left in the audience permission to panic. Patrons tore out of their seats, rushing the exits. The doors quickly became blocked with bodies clawing at one another like crabs in a bucket. Those who were slow or trampled by the stampede were snatched up by the bouncy globs, which whisked their dissolving bodies back to the main slime onstage.
I watched as the central slime began to absorb the architecture of the theatre itself. The wooden beams and proscenium and faux-baroque murals of the Slow Pony Theatre disintegrated before my eyes within the growing mass of this bluish-green gel. But I just wasn’t convinced.
The invitation of chaos, the uniting of the audience against a common enemy, the destruction of the traditional monument – these were powerful ideas, but was this really Herron-Mayers’ answer to the future of the American musical? I had felt a glimmer of hope in that final number before they dissolved themself in their own creation, but was it enough? Would a slime solve the rampant issues of diversity and representation, oppressive 10-out-of-12 tech schedules, or the threat of New York City being underwater in forty years or less? Would any of that matter if the slime couldn’t tour or be replicated in high schools with no arts funding?
Flashes of red and blue approached through the slime’s body. Evidently someone had called the cops, and the slime had eaten so much of the building that we were basically outside. I heard gunshots and looked on as the NYPD lobbed smoke bombs into the gooey body. These were all promptly swallowed and dissolved. The slime continued to expand, absorbing its satellite globs back into its main mass. Nothing could stop this thing, not bullets or attack dogs or blockades. Herron-Mayers had created something immense and impractical, yet indestructible and – above all – demanding.
The slime was a work of pure art.
I realised that I hadn’t left my seat. I was alone, watching the slime perform just for me. So, I stood and applauded. The slime trembled, which might have been a bow. Then a jelly-like tendril shot out from its body, grabbed me in its tacky grip, and pulled me inside of it.
I hesitate to refer to this as an ‘exclusive,’ as nothing feels especially exclusionary about the slime. The slime wants everything, takes everything. It is inclusion in its final form.
Unfortunately, I cannot divulge how Herron-Mayers developed the slime, or the reasoning behind its relentless consumption. But I do have some insight that my colleagues who left the performance early lack. To be in the slime is to be of the slime, to be everything that the slime has eaten. There are no barriers between me and the actors, the musicians, or the other patrons. There is no separation between the performers’ emotions and my own, between Herron-Mayers’ vision and my interpretation, between the designers’ imagination and my mind. When my skin and bones and muscle dissolved into slime, I experienced an intimacy with my fellow man that was euphoric. This understanding would be impossible if I were fleshed, if I could conceptualise myself as a separate ego, but the slime has removed all walls.
In fact, this review is as much a part of the slime as everything else. The review, the critic, the art, and the artist are all one! The specifics of how to publish a review made of slime or compensate a writer whose corporeal form has been dissolved is a task my editor will have to work out. Hopefully the slime will spread fast enough that by the time I finish, we won’t need publications to mediate interpersonal communication. That’s the beauty of the slime! If you won’t come to it, it will come to you.
For those who might criticise the slime as a work of biochemical terrorism or a re-skinned Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, I want to offer this final thought: When you become the slime, you do not die. Rather, you meld with everyone else sharing this unique, living experience. And in the end, isn’t that what theatre is all about?