Witchery and bitchery

Heartbeat Opera’s annual drag opera extravaganza returns for its ninth year, taking the audience back to the notoriously repressed era of the Puritans, for a night of witchery and bitchery at Judson Memorial Church.

After taking on Rimsky-Korsakov last year, the always-inventive team behind Heartbeat opera has shifted their focus closer to home this year for a charming drag spoof of the Salem Witch Trials. Co-written by director Nico Krell, Jacob Ashworth, and Garrett Bell, SLAYLEM’s script is seeks jokes far and wide—there are jokes about Dunkin’ coffee, extended riffs on goofy puritan names, Scarlet Letter and The Crucible gags, and lots of God/Daddy references (my favorite: John Taylor Ward’s Judge praying “Zaddy, zoo zart zin Zeaven”).

We open on a journey to America, set to the “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem, as the pilgrims attempt to escape religious persecution and “too much glorious Catholic music” in the future land of Dunkin’ Donuts and, oh, oops, even more Christian nationalism (their joke). But idyllic life in Slaylem comes to a halt when Abigail (a wonderful Jamilyn Manning-White) accuses Goody Chastity Caige of “bitchcraft.” Gasp! The Judge, wearing a hat as big as Plymouth Rock, immediately has her arrested and brought to trial, as all of Slaylem’s residence attempt to hide their own sins by mudslinging. Angela Yam, Rodolfo Girón, Bernard Holcomb, and Hans Tashjian are Chastity’s fellow accusers Rebecca, Mercy, Clemency, and Misery.

Everyone in Slaylem has something to hide, most of all Abigail, whom we learn via flashback is actually Chastity’s secret lesbian lover! Gasp again! The Judge too is keeping things secrete. During a rendition of “Son vergin vezzosa” from I Puritani, we learn that underneath his robes, he conceals a latex cat suit and a penchant for puppy play. Bass-baritone John Taylor Ward was hilarious here and elsewhere, his booming bass-baritone humorously recast into a simpering soubrette.

All seems lost, as Chastity is condemned for her crimes (which basically boil down to being too much fun and wearing too much yellow). But eventually she’s saved by a devil-ex-machina when the Beast herself—also played by Manning-White—appears to claim to Chastity, who then becomes possessed by the ghost of drag queen future. But, plot twist, the devil and God are the same (!!!) and both of them want humanity to live authentically. Its theology is a bit high-concept, but its message is clear: accept Madonna into your heart, and live your truth. The ending of SLAYLEM is all warm fuzzies, unlike the real Salem Witch Trials. If only those had ended with a sing-along.

Real puritan clothes were drab to the extreme, but David Quinn’s costumes are delightful Halloween confections: think sexy clown playing Tituba in The Crucible. Like the rest of SLAYLEM, they are more interested in fabulousness than accuracy, as they should be. Maiko Ando’s makeup is equally fun, especially for Angela Yam, who sports an almost Elizabethan white face and arched brows, and for the orchestra who all got some face paint of their own. A tongue-in-cheek program full of faux olde Englishe was the witch’s hat on top of the proceedings, which left no joke unturned.

Musically, SLAYLEM is a delicious witch’s brew. Heartbeat Opera Music Director Dan Schlosberg blends a few familiar tunes with some wonderfully out-there choices, and as usual, concocts very good arrangements. Wicked, Oklahoma, Into the Woods, The Exorcist theme, and even Scott Joplin’s “Maple Time Rag” all received musical shoutouts in the overture, while the show proper put Penderecki in proximity with arias Don Pasquale and I Puritani.

A deep cut from Ponchielli’s La Giocanda had the new English words of “See, she’s a nasty bitch,” while the climatic appearance of a deity at the end is set to “I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung” from Nixon in China. But of all the opera references, the most present are Peter Grimes and, in a delightful turn of events for me, Carlisle Floyd’s McCarthy-era opera Susannah. (I was actually in production of Susannah in college, where I had to square-dance in a hideous plaid frock and tiny straw hat—good times.) Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” is threaded throughout and reappears in gleeful chorus at the end.

On the whole, SLAYLEM displayed the breath of Goody Schlosberg’s musical grimoire to excellent effect. The only misstep was not including the most iconic line from Susannah, where one of the town’s matriarchs sings, “I wouldn’t tooouuuuch them peas of herr’n,” which is essentially that opera’s version of “I saw Goody Proctor with the devil:” a devastating read from which no queen could recover. (Also missing: Verdi’s Macbeth. But then again, there were plenty of us weird sisters in the audience.)

As our unjustly persecuted heroine Chastity Caige, Curtis Bannister was a delight, bringing warmth and humor along with an immediately noticeable stage presence. His rendition of “The Trees on the Mountain” was surprisingly sensitive in a rare moment of true pathos for the otherwise quippy Chastity. As Abigail, Jamilyn Manning-White was wonderfully unhinged, with good comedic timing and a beautifully mobile face that shifted between grotesque masks of rage, lust, and prissy self-importance, and a bright, cutting soprano sound. The whole ensemble was solid, and each got a chance to mine some laughs from us.

Not everything works; some of the timing could have been tighter, the jokes a bit sharper, and the climactic drag supercut—cleverly framed as an exorcism—lacked the choreographic fireworks needed to make it stand out. But when SLAYLEM is firing on all cylinders, it does indeed slay. The duet from Don Pasquale, which shows Chastity and Abigail giving into their sapphic tendencies while milking a goat by the light of the moon was sidesplittingly stupid, taken to comedic extremes as the illicit lovers squirted milk all over each other with the goat (Girón in a wonky rubber goat mask—great) as their third.

Everyone, including the audience and the demon-wigged orchestra, was having a rollicking good time throughout. Heartbeat knows its opera and its audience well. The only question that remains: whatever will they think up for next year? We’ll all be waiting with “Like a Prayer” on our lips.

Photos: Heartbeat Opera