Coney Island's roller coaster known as The Cyclone was simultaneously alluring and terrifying. The Cyclone in Ride the Cyclone, a glorious MCC production at the Lucille Lortel Theater is no different with its premise of promising members of the Saint Cassian High School chamber choir wiped out on a single ride. Alluring, yes, terrifying, yes, but add teeming with life, despite the down cycle of death. A disembodied carny head in a box predicts the teens' demise; the Amazing Karnac serves further to narrate their misfortune, and invite each to tell the story of a life interrupted. Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond's book focuses on these teens' inner lives, revealing much to sing and dance about, and they do, especially as Karnac will restore one of them to the land of the living. As directed and choreographed by Rachel Rockwell, each one makes his or her case: attention must be paid.
The Cyclone is a vehicle of transition. Karnac is aided in his prophesies by a giant rat named Virgil. No voyage to the Otherworld can do without its Virgil, however ironic the nod to Dante. The cast is superb: Tiffany Tatreau plays Ocean O'Connell Rosenberg, a red-haired child of hippies, so bossy she dominates in self-promotion, singing "What the World Needs is People Like Me," and puts down her self-effacing bestie Constance Blackwood (Lillian Castillo). Kholby Wardell's Noel Gruber has dreams of living as a French whore. Mischa Bachinski (Gus Halper) sings a rhythmic and reproachful rap. Ricky Potts (Alex Wyse) gets to throw away his crutches. But you will never forget the image of Jane Doe (Emily Rohm), a curly blond outsider with black eyes, okay, decapitated, floating in air.
As in the case of the remarkable Dear Evan Hansen, a musical featuring a dead teen, by the way, that started in an off-Broadway production and is now a Broadway hit, Ride the Cyclone would do well in such a transfer, but said the play's Karnac, Karl Hamilton, after a recent performance, it would have to be the right intimate space for such a move.
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