"You're tearing me apartment: The Roomsical" is hitting the Melbourne Comedy Festival
See article in its original context here by Eliza Goetze for The Vine.
Many great films have been made into musicals over the years.
The Room is not one of them.
In other words, it’s by no means a great film. In fact, it’s almost universally acknowledged as one of the worst movies ever (at odds with the claim at the end of the trailer that it’s the best); “the Citizen Kane of shit movies”.
But it’s this – the appalling acting, the cliché and often nonsensical lines (“YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!” “Oh hi Mark”), the arduous sex scenes and the ridiculous plot – that unites an inexplicably huge cult of fans, who might be excited to know that one obsessive enthusiast, Sydney’s Matt Downey, has translated Tommy Wisseau’s staggeringly awkward masterpiece into musical theatre.
“It’s definitely a dessert of intrigue,” he says of the film, dryly. “You can’t stop at just one view.”
Indeed, he’s seen it more than forty times now. “There’s a new little ‘easter egg’, as they say in video games – a new little treat every time I watch it.”
With a day job as a stage builder in Sydney, Downey works behind the scenes in theatre, but it’s his first foray into writing a production himself – “and, judging by ticket sales, the last,” he deadpans, a self-described “master of self-deprecation and a great fatalist”. “I had no interest in musical theatre, but I’m a great piss taker.”
The very idea of musical theatre is incredibly odd and “kind of perverse” to Downey. Many people wish that life was a musical, I offer.
He thinks it would be “a horrible existence. “I don’t think we’d all be singing joyfully about sunshine and skipping…people would be singing Get The Fuck Off The Road, Get Out Of My Way, Hurry Up, Hurry Up!”
He saw the creation of musical theatre parody as a challenge, and with some time on his hands and no small encouragement from his wife, Katie Jane (who plays alongside him in their band, Death Mattel), his idea grew from a one man show into a more involved production that’s been a couple of years in the making, on and off.
While Downey wrote the script, The Roomsical stars Jeremy Smith, Amanda Porter, Emily Faye, Anthony Ousback and Dave Rennick (of indie band Dappled Cities), and Downey describes director Ben Thatcher as “the filthy genius who held this all together”.
Screenings of The Room are known for being a hell of a lot more than your average cinema experience. “It’s like the new Rocky Horror,” Downey explains.
“You throw things at certain points, you scream particular call-and-responses – you’re lucky to hear a word of the original screenplay because there’s just so much going on and so much banter from the audience. The audience members dress up as characters and sing along to the bad R&B score.”
The Roomsical adopts this element of audience participation and injects it into a show that’s “more a satirical homage than a retelling”, which includes a new character created to narrate the scenes.
“As big a fan of The Room as I am, I wouldn’t want to go and just watch a retelling of the movie,” Downey says. “We’ve tried very hard to make it from the perspective of a fan…I want to know what the characters were doing the night before, or what they do as jobs when they’re not on screen.”
Songs include ‘Perfect Life’, a motif that references the trailer – the line appears nowhere else in the film, and as Downey points out, “This film doesn’t feature anyone with a perfect life, it’s the most ludicrous statement”; ‘Dog On A Counter’ (consider what this dog might be thinking); and ‘S.H.A.M.E. O.N. U’ – sung by “some otherwise silent characters who…I don’t want to give too much away, but they’d occupy most household bathrooms”, it’s an acronym which stands for “the Seepage Holding And Melifluent Emissions Omni-Netting Union.”
If you know what I’m talking about, grab your plastic spoons and prepare to see some serious football tossing. If you don’t, maybe you should dip a toe in the madness – you might find that it’s so bad, it’s good.