Heated Rivalry Unauthorised Parody Musical

 

Another week, another Heated Rivalry themed outing, this time to see the other parody musical about the show.  This one is of US heritage and it does make something of a difference.   This time the framing device is a trio of 'Susans',  basically wine moms, who sing about having some time to themselves once they have got their kids and husbands settled with other stuff.  

This production is firmly rooted in musical theatre, with original songs which make the sort of sly references that musical theatre buffs will get.  Full disclosure, I am not a musical theatre buff, so I could spot that a reference was being made but rarely understood.  They are good solid songs, and the lyrics are a perfect mix of honoring and taking the piss out of the source.  Some of the songs have been recorded by the US cast, and they are all great.

In this version, we get a few more characters which was great, and the important plot beats were all hit very effectively.  I loved that we got a song from Rose Landry for example which was both funny and sweet.  Sometimes though the story was changed and I wasn't sure why. For example in this version Ilya doesn't accept his sexuality and stays in the closet because of a note from his dead mother; it felt slightly icky, and I wasn't really sure why they felt the need to add that when there was more than enough stuff to fill the 70 minutes.   

I struggled a bit with the framing around the 'moms' fanbase too. I get that it was gentle teasing, and pretty accurate at that, but whilst it is true that the loudest group are women, I felt a bit uncomfortable that fans were reduced to one homogenous group.  I wondered how the men in the audience felt, particularly anyone of a queer persuasion.  It felt a bit like those articles early on, commenting on why women like the show, usually with a hint of derision for the romance genre in general, which often felt to me like the patriarchy was showing in its erasure of the queer community from the fandom. 

Leaving those niggles aside, we all laughed a lot, and the songs and performances were all great.  Cast and choreography are brilliant, and the production worked well in the tiny space.  The audience participation was present in this version too, although there was only one 'victim', who seemed to take things all in his stride, and made a great Scott Hunter.  I was far enough back I didn't have to worry about getting dragged on stage, so that made me happy too!

The show was great, but probably one of the best things about it was being surrounded by people with the same reference points, laughing at the same things. I'm not sure what someone who hadn't seen the show would make of it. There was a large group of us who already know each other, but it was great to also meet up with yet more people I knew online but had never met face to face.  

So, I enjoyed it, and had a lot of fun, but I have to say that I preferred the Aussie/UK version, Deep-Heat Rivalry which I wrote about here, which was even sillier if that is possible but somehow more authentic.  I'll leave you though with another couple of songs from this show that I really thought hit the right note, although with the American cast (content warnings apply!)