Way back when Tim Burton was a much weirder filmmaker, my wee brother and I were unreasonably thrilled by the chaos engine of awfully bad behaviour that was Michael Keaton’s unhinged and unwashed demon, Betelgeuse.
The grotty stripe-suited monster ate up the 1988 film of not quite the same name – the studio figured folks would stay away unless the title was simplified to Beetlejuice. Named after the red supergiant star blazing ferociously in the constellation of Orion, some 600 light years from our solar system, Betelgeuse is an outcast from the hilariously bureaucratic afterlife, aka the Netherworld. Which leaves him preying on the naïve recently deceased, like sweet young couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), in an attempt to crowbar open the sort of ridiculous loophole the Greek gods are fond of.
Say his – apparently too complex – name three times and he’ll be unleashed on the mortal coil once more.
But Betelgeuse’s sleazy attentions are soon distracted by Winona Ryder’s goth child Lydia, when she reluctantly moves into Adam and Barbara’s now-empty house with her dad, Charles (disgraced actor Jeffrey Jones), and his new squeeze, OTT sculptor Delia (fabulously demented goddess Catherine O’Hara).
A smash hit, Beetlejuice is a wild and unruly thing writhing with unhinged ideas, from its stop-animated black and white sand worms to characters shrunk into a model of sleepy town Winter River, and on to the hilariously-depicted dead of the surreal realm below, overseen by permanently smoking – through both her neck hole and mouth – Juno (Sylvia Sidney). When Burton and co returned for a sequel 36 years later, many feared he’d choke. But by dint of being just as ingeniously daft, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice succeeded.
But before that unholy reanimation, Melbourne musical theatre maestro Eddie Perfect, following the path to Broadway laid down by Tim Minchin, created the Tony Award-nominated Broadway production that has finally dug its way through the dirt down to his hometown, ironically opening in the same month as the similarly afterlife-focused Hadestown. Can lightning strike three times?
YES, screeches the answer from beyond the veil. The auditorium of the Regent Theatre is doused in a blood-red glow tinged with anaemic green as we take our seats, a buzzing neon sign already dropping his name twice. Providing both the manic music and leery lyrics, Perfect is, well, perfect as our unseen by most living souls poltergeist of ill-repute, accompanied by a jaw-droppingly bawdy book from Scott Brown and Anthony King.
Filling us in on where he’s involuntarily stuck in opening number ‘Invisible’, Betelgeuse on-brand chews up the fourth wall and spits it out at the audience. He can see us, announcing in his nasally grunting way that things aren’t going to go exactly as we recall, even berating us as no better than him for the fun we’re about to have at other folks’ misfortune. Karis Oka (Six the Musical) is the perfect foil as the headstrong Lydia, mourning her mum and prompting the entirely too jaunty swing of ‘The Whole “Being Dead” Thing’, with its naughty nod to Rocky Horror Show’s sword of Damocles line.
Elise McCann (Groundhog Day) and Rob Johnson (Calamity Jane) are jolly good sports as Barbara and Adam, normcore types trying to make sense of their stuck-in-limbo abnormality. With Lydia bemoaning being all but invisible to her father (Tom Wren, Mary Poppins), a real estate tycoon looking to make a quick buck from setting up a gated community in town, she can see the haunted home’s flustered former residents.
In a strong ensemble, Erin Clare stands hell and high water above them all as dotty Delia. It’s no easy ask, going up against comparisons with the mighty O’Hara, but Clare reshapes the role magnificently with a subtle tweak to the story’s bones, transforming her into a wellness-adjacent life coach. It’s a scream watching her less overtly awful take as the character navigates a NSFW relationship with Charles, technically her boss, and thaws out a bond with the frosty Lydia. Noni McCallum has a hoot as the tug-of-war Juno, who also benefits from a late-in-the-game twist I won’t spoil here.
Director Alex Timbers makes herding anarchy look easy in a gleefully wicked show frothing full of salty lines. Connor Gallagher’s tippity tap on to joy choreography sings as bright as the stars, with Oka and Clare both raising the Maitland’s roof. David Korins delivers on the set front, even if the Netherworld and the surreal Dune-like wasteland haunted by those stripey worms – somehow even better on stage – aren’t quite as foregrounded as they could be, with the attic map antics entirely jettisoned, sadly.
It’s a minor grumble, thanks to the abundance of theatre magic on show, with ample support from puppet master Michael Curry. William Ivey Long sinks his teeth into the spooky cute-costumes, from Delia’s hawwwwwt as hell couture to the oversized jazz hands of a coterie of skeletons via the shrunken head of the film's infamously ill-fated hunter.
Just as Keaton harnessed dark magic in making us care for his thoroughly atrocious reprobate against our better wills, Perfect’s maestro of mayhem is malignantly marvellous too. Expertly conjuring the blithe spirit of the movie, complete with its iconic ‘D’ay-O (The Banana Boat Song)’ possession, you’ll want to ‘Jump In The Line’ by curtain call on this riotously rabid real good time.
Beetlejuice the Musical is showing at the Regent Theatre until August 31. For more information and to book tickets, head to the website.
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