After my trip home to Tennessee I flew down to New Orleans to see Ren make his stage debut in a new musical at the Allways Lounge and Theatre.
Sidenote: The plane was full of Red Hat Ladies, all of whom were very nice and very brightly adorned, en route to New Orleans for what I want to believe was a weekend of debauchery because the idea of that happening makes me smile.
La Sirena, a new musical comedy written by Samantha Hubbs, follows opera singer Marina who has been kidnapped (on her psychotic husband’s orders) and taken to the secret lab of Doctor Trenton Crane, mad plastic surgeon. The lab is populated with other victims of the mad doctor’s design, including his own wife Barbara (see image), now a gorgeously plumed bird-woman who regrets the day she met the man. Marina is to be transformed into a monster like the others and sold into servitude at the Sexpo. Meanwhile, her costar and love interest, Richard (Ren’s debut role) appears on the news desperately asking viewers for help finding her… it also doesn’t hurt the character’s ego that his fame is growing exponentially thanks to the media coverage.
La Sirena wants to be a Rocky Horror Show… a fun, campy sendup of science-fiction/horror films with a rock ‘n’ roll score that you can’t stop singing.
The concept is solid but the show is still an infant and needs time to grow and mature. The show could do with some workshopping and plot refinements. The action appears to span well over a year, leaving you to wonder what is taking the mad doctor so long and how long will the news continue to cover Marina’s kidnapping. And throw some money at it and the production quality, while well suited for the small space, could ramp up to something truly spectacular.
The cast was great (granted, I’m biased but still) and standouts included both Ren, for his Hollywood playboy “wink at the camera” suaveness and humor, and Otter, playing the birdlike Barbara.
Now is the time for the show to grab its fanbase. There is an entire genre of gore films being pumped out of Japan now and La Sirena might benefit from an independent film treatment to get the cult following it so clearly wants. If I had the money and time I’d want to foster the show into its next incarnation and watch it really blossom into the splatter-fest it wants to be.
Kudos to all involved. Hopefully those Red Hat Ladies had the pleasure of taking in this lurid tale of scalpels and sex… I can’t imagine what they would have thought but I’m pretty sure their blushing cheeks would have matched the hue of their hats within the first three minutes of the show.
Tommy Karr 