This past weekend, the drama department and the students of Meridian High School presented a rarely-staged musical: “Ruthless!” (book and lyrics by Joel Paley, with music by Marvin Laird). This musical draws from the teen-centric dark comedies of the 1980s and 1990s, although, with its domineering stage mother, there are also parallels with the 1960’s Broadway and film hit “Gypsy.”
In the show “Ruthless!” Judy Denmark (played by Eudora Neal) wants her talented daughter Tina (Mia Schatz) to become the headliner in the third-grade production of “Pippi in Tahiti.” Both Judy and Tina are prodded on by Sylvia St. Croix (Paxton Hebblethwaite), an adult talent scout who takes young actresses under her wing to turn them into stars.
The third-grade teacher Miss Thorn (Isabella Baskins) adds to the pressure, taking on the role of the students’ drama coach and trying to impose her own artistic vision and strivings onto the students. In a macabre turn, Tina, upon being relegated to the lowly role of Pippi Longstocking understudy, commits a horrific crime. While her actions are seemingly condemned, her fate is ironic in that she ends up being sent to a reform school for “psychopathic ingenues” and the “criminally talented.” A further ironic twist is that Tina’s incarceration allows her mother, Judy, the freedom at last to pursue her own dreams of Broadway stardom as Ginger Del Marco.
Each member of the cast is talented in terms of both music and acting. The sets were simple but very effective, and the few props were used well to convey an American suburban living room and, later, a luxury apartment. The costumes (designed by student Sophie O’Hara), however, are stunning, evoking visions of an idealized 1950s past: Judy’s housewife dress suggests the kind that TV mom Donna Reed used to wear in the 1950s/1960s sitcom “The Donna Reed Show,” and Tina’s first dress recalls Shirley Temple. Later, a curiously stylish black-and-white striped dress/prison uniform worn by Tina in prison conveys that she still has dreams of stardom.
The live orchestra of mostly student musicians (Aiden Harper, Anna Gray, Jane Afsah-Mohallatee, Nate Hill, Owen Kummer, Tyler Huang, and one Dr. Yoo) was also a delight. The orchestra and singers performed delightful tracks of Broadway-style music, with the selections “Born to Entertain” and “I Hate Musicals” (ironically, a musical show-stopper!) being particularly memorable.
The show was directed by Shawn Northrip, who learned of the script from one of his students! Mr. Northrip tells the News-Press that “Every once in a while, we’ll produce one of the standards, one of the well-known shows. But I enjoy discovering things about which the students do not already have preconceived notions.”
Perhaps appropriate for the Halloween season, the show contained humor both riotously funny and more than a little macabre. Further, the show highlights in a humorous way a serious concern found in shows like “Heathers” and “Spring Awakening:” that well-intentioned parents, teachers, and other authority figures may pile unreasonable expectations onto students, leading to unexpected, and sometimes tragic, results. As for this particular staging of “Ruthless!”, the production truly showed the musical, dancing, and acting talents of the students at Meridian High School and gave residents of Falls Church a rare opportunity to see an entertaining, interesting, and rarely performed piece of the American musical theatre.