Houston Broadway Theatre’s inaugural production last July, 2024, Next to Normal, might have been a one-off. But what a one-off! Superlative in every aspect – design, performance, emotional wallop – it surprised us with its Broadway caliber excellence. Who is this new company in town, where have they been, and when are we to have the privilege of seeing them again?
Well, the wait is over, and Houston Broadway Theatre has knocked us silly with another theatrical slap in the face. In a startling presentation, this young company has given us a most superior show in the revised cult musical, American Psycho.
Be warned, this 2013 musical, with music and lyrics by Spring Awakening’s Tony Award-winner Duncan Sheik and book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, is adapted, as if you didn’t know, from Bret Easton Ellis’ scandalous 1991 novel about Wall Street investment banker Patrick Bateman (Robert Lenzi) who just happens to be a serial killer during his off hours from the office. Don’t take the kiddies nor your Aunt Fanny who might swoon at the simulated sex and copious gore. I must admit, the sex scenes, albeit misogynistic, are rendered a bit harmless since all participants keep their underwear on. But it is nevertheless suggestive in the extreme. Unless she’s a cougar, keep grandma at home.
After a successful premiere run in London, the show opened on Broadway in 2016 and immediately flopped. In limbo for years, the creators, forever faithful to their vision, revisited Psycho and through skillful botox and much creative surgery have resuscitated the musical into the form now on stage at Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center. The body is beautiful.
Manhattan. The late 1980s. It was a time of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous corruption, bedecked in Armani, English loafers made from ostrich hide, and fine silk bespoke neckties. These young masters of the universe dined at Nobu or Lutece, their hard gym-toned bodies splooted over by young nubile women, already bought, or later paid, for their attentiveness. The men were glorified at work, at leisure, and in bed.
Inside the gilt bubble that encased them, morality was an alien concept, anathema, it didn’t apply. The view, all surface and no depth, sparkled wherever they looked, mesmerizing, seductive. Whatever it took, make that deal, get that deal, succeed whether you ruin your associates or betray your friends. Just do it.
Patrick Bateman’s compass has been broken for years. Like his co-workers, he lives for immediate pleasure, for another snort of cocaine or an easy lay. Everyone, everything, is a commodity up for sale or for the taking. They talk of exfoliants, the sharp cut of a suit, whether tassels on shoes are proper business attire, the shapely legs on a secretary, the cologne on a business card. They obsess over their gym workouts in “Hardbody,” yet they can’t differentiate between any of them.
With its relentless product placement, its too easy joke on Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” American Psycho is an almost comic allegory on money and greed, the pursuit of mindless excess, rampant consumerism, first-world privilege, and the numbing down of personal interactions. The killing spree begins, but is it for real? Or have American values been so debased that they send Patrick on a psychic spiral into hell? Is this all delusional?
The leads are fantastic. I assume every audition required a valid gym membership, for the cast is wondrously chiseled. Lenzi has power to spare, whether chopping off legs or hacking his rival to death with an ax. Thankfully, the nail gun crucifixion gets a cursory mention. While insufferable Patrick rattles off his ‘80s luxury possessions like his Rolex, Ralph Lauren underwear, his 30-inch Toshiba TV, his Walkman, we actually begin to warm to him. He crumbles from the inside, and we understand a bit why he’s so possessed, so fragile. Could we be driven mad, too, by the constant “Selling Out” that is presented so seductively in Jason H. Thompson’s video projections? We’re lured into this fantasy world just like Patrick. Don’t we want this stuff, too?
The 18-member cast is first-rate with kudos going to Chiara Trentalange as unrequited love interest Jean; Paul Schwensen as obnoxious Paul Owen; Owen Claire Smith as Evelyn, Patrick’s fiancee and Hampton’s Housewife deluxe; Jacquelyne Paige as Courtney, oblivious girlfriend to gay Luis (Ivan Moreno) who’s in love with Patrick; Tyce Green (who produced The Who’s Tommy on Broadway) as Timothy Price, entitled scion of Patrick’s investment firm Price & Price. Then there’s Kaye Tuckerman as zonked-out Mrs. Bateman, a delicious cameo role that Tuckerman eats alive, with dangling cigarette or martini glass firmly in hand. She appears and disappears regularly, but each time bequeaths a little gem of a performance.
The quartet of a band (Michael Ferrara, Beto González, Steve Martin and Joe Beam, all responsible for the powerhouse arrangements) sounds like a DJ’s gig on steroids. Hope Easterbrook’s choreography recalls the ‘80s dance moves with perfection – remember voguing?. Tim Mackabee’s cubist set design, all gray, black, and white, is Broadway caliber; as are Colleen Grady’s psychedelic costumes of luxury suits and underground club wear; while Robert J. Aguilar’s lighting conjures Patrick’s interior hellscapes with pin-spot accuracy. The entire production soars with professionalism under Joe Calarco’s knife-sharp direction.
The show has been softened, certainly from the book and its iterations in London and Broadway. It’s more accessible, more fun, yet still chilling in its condemnation of wretched excess and overweening pride. Listen to the women harmonizing in “You Are What You Wear,” a litany describing designer clothes that make the woman. “I want blackened, charred mahi mahi. Works so well with Isaac Mizrahi... But let’s be clear, there’s nothing ironic about our love of Manolo Blahnik.” This catalog song would have Stephen Sondheim salivating.
American Psycho is still a cult show, but one not to be missed. Not when Houston Broadway Theatre sinks its highly polished teeth into it. If this is the producer’s Houston launch to get the production back to London and Broadway again, I think they’ve found the perfect road to success.
Note: HBT must have deep moneybags. Look at the incredible physical production which would be lauded on any Broadway stage, but take a gander at their glossy playbill. No inexpensive xerox page, but a magazine worthy of GQ with ads for Rolex, Absolute vodka, Cricketeer and Flusser suitings, Clinique skin care, Crown Royal, and Lamborghini, all in the style of Patrick Bateman’s power world. Brilliant marketing...and expensive. Just what this show extols and exposes.
American Psycho continues through September 14. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 2 p.m. Sunday. Zilkha Hall at The Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $33.80-$148.20.