The Rockae

My friend Chris is playing guitar in a rock opera/musical that is part of the New York Musical Theater Festival - The Rockae. Kind of a cheesy title, yes. But it's a rock opera. What do you expect? It's based off of the Greek tragedy, The Bachae by Euripides.

To give you an idea about the play, the star's bio starts out "Michael Cunio is thrilled to be wearing such tight pants." And tight they were. The title doesn't even prepare you though for the amount of cheese they pour on in the musical. From the awesome glam rock costumes and makeup to the homoerotic sexual tension between Dionysus and Pentheus, the whole play is quite entertaining. Because even though it's cheesy, it acknowledges that it's cheesy and it kind of pokes fun at itself.

Michael Cunio outdid himself as the androgynous Dionysus, God of wine, mystery and intoxication. He has a really amazing voice and was quite funny as the cocky God. Although as the play went on he stopped seeming androgynous and started simply seeming feminine, which I didn't really like.

I know it is based off a tragedy, but the whole play is so much fun until the very end that I kind of wish they had stayed on that upbeat, comedic tone instead of switching, rather suddenly, to tragedy. I got kind of bored at the end.

Overall, though, I enjoyed myself a lot. Go see the show. It runs through October 14th I believe. Tata dahlings.

share this post on de.licio.us / facebook