"Get rich or try dyin'!" - the actual tagline I did not make this up
Next to Operation Mincemeat this is my current favorite show for listening! I love ghosts and weird little concept album musicals so I feel like this was made just for me. Also I have a little celebrity crush on both Andrew Durand and Julia Knitel.
I love you Dead Outlaw. This show should never have gone to Broadway man it could have been an off-broadway darling like Little Shop. The country rock score and minimal staging was always built for a small intimate venue. Plus a fairly small cast with lots of doubling, an onstage band, and the short one-act runtime.
Dead Outlaw is the true story of Elmer McCurdy, the mummified body found in the Laff-in-the Dark amusement park ride in the 1970's while filming for The Six Million Dollar Man. It was discovered that his body had been toured as a sideshow exhibit, used as a prop in exploitation films, and stuck in a closet for the 65 years since his death in 1911. The music spends the first half focusing on his life, and the second covers the adventures his corpse was in afterwards.
The show is dark, yes, and a comedy, but ultimately aims to put some respect back into his story. To say his real name, when for decades he had been called a dozen different things to fit a narrative, portray him as a real person who deserved better. The main theme of the show, I'd say, is his struggle with identity. I do wish it took a little more time in the 70's and beyond, talking about the media coverage and people's obsession with the macabre, and where the show itself contributes.
Warning for those who are squeamish around dead bodies! There will not be any images of him on this page, but some links will contain them. I will give proper warning.
I think in this way the musical does what no other media has, it has portrayed Elmer as a real living person. It has told his story without showing pictures of the real body (most of the time). That's the way to do it. Live theater remains the most humanizing and intimate way to portray the past, for me.
Love the wide array of genres! The vocalists really get to show off with a wide range of rock, country, gospel, barbershop, and crooner vocals.
The Broadway production is diverse enough for the small cast. The historical characters of Andy Payne and Thomas Noguchi are cast their ethnicity, and otherwise it's cast colorblind with lots of doubling. I do wish there was more than one woman in the ensemble. Julia Knitel is amazing as the few named female characters in the show, but I don't get what was stopping them from having at least one other woman who would take on male ensemble roles occasionally. That's my main complaint.
My other complaint is that some of the ensemble choreography, such as in Somethin Bout a Mummy, is a little lackluster for a huge stage on Broadway. But I'm nitpicking!
I really want to direct Dead Outlaw. In a small intimate bar venue, just like it's early 54 Below concerts. Performers running through the audience, interacting, involving them in the story, real intense right there in the action. I also think the show is a little unclear on whether it wants you to like Thomas Noguchi or the Oklahoma delegation, I would love to just add more space in the direction.
It would be a lot of fun too, if Elmer could actually react, just a little bit, to what's going on after he dies. Just little facial expression sthat no one sees! I have this idea in my head where during Crimson Thread, Elmer looks into the faces of all the ensemble members and sees all of those he met in his life and those who saw him after his death, and he gets his own peace knowing that his existence mattered in their lives.
It's a missed opportunity to me that they don't draw the connection between the sheriff threatening to hang him in jail, and the fact that his body was hung from a noose in the ride. It feels like the ultimate disrespect. Not to mention painting him red! Without visuals, and never seeing the actor himself in that noose, I think those moments aren't really driven home just how awful and dehumanizing it is. Even more than everything else.
