When Michael Douglas’ Wall Street wanker Gordon Gekko said, “Greed… is good,” in filmmaker Oliver Stone’s 1987 triumph, Wall Street, he nail-gunned the decade’s selfish excess to the wall so hard it basically birthed Patrick Bateman.
Set two years later and released in 1991, American author Bret Easton Ellis’ gruesome third novel, American Psycho, is hung on the self-centred Bateman, a 27-year-old preening predator in a pinstripe suit.
An ambitious investment banker obsessed with horror movies, Huey Lewis, his skincare regime, business cards, restaurant reservations and one-upping the competition, Bateman is an empty shell of a man. Lurking in the darkening void where his heart should be is a far more odious truth. Worshipping “The Donald,” he shares the now-President’s malignant narcissism.
That, and he’s also a cold-blooded serial killer.
Christian Bale breathed baleful life into this slick-haired monster in Mary Harron’s menacingly marvellous 1998 film. If you pay close attention to See You Sunday’s return season production of the musical – with a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik – you’ll spot a cameo by Bale.
Wait, what? Is Christian Bale in American Psycho: A Musical Thriller?
Sort of. Directed by Mark Taylor in conjunction with musical director Aaron Robuck, See You Sunday’s spectacular production at Chapel Off Chapel stars chillingly precise Heathers bad boy Conor Beaumont as the Valentino tuxedo buttoned-up psychopath.
But in a stroke of genius, set designer Harry Gill’s compact yet world-expanding set, all floor-to-ceiling windows and the era’s contradictorily austere minimalism, includes Bateman’s 70-inch television.
Displaying clips of Trump and other Reagan-era figures, the set also snapshots quotes from luminaries like Maya Angelou and Tennessee Williams, alongside unadulterated evil forces including Adolf Hitler. It also shows clips from Bateman’s favourite video nasty rentals, with a time-warping shot of Harron’s movie – not yet released when the show is set – and Bale’s infamous stairwell chainsaw drop.
This sounds so cool! Who else is involved in American Psycho: A Musical Thriller?
It really is, with Beaumont backed up by a knock-out ensemble championed by Mia Dabkowski-Chandler as Bateman’s non-murderous, but also quite evidently awful girlfriend Evelyn Williams. Dabkowski-Chandler’s astounding vocals, chaotic good line readings and wild swing physical comedy ensure she can hold her own against Beaumont’s more reined-in, yet insidiously creepy performance.
Dabkowski-Chandler matched in American Psycho’s Nicole Kidman in To Die For energy by Meg Williams, as Evelyn’s brattish bestie Courtney Lawrence. Jordan Twigg is tartly acidic as Bateman’s perma-sunglassed mother.
Bateman’s cohort of business bros are also brilliant, with Jake Ameduri’s muscle-bound short king swagger, as sleazy colleague Timothy Price, a particular standout (he’s also Beaumont’s stand-in for Bateman). Dan Ham goes the full bozo as Craig McDermott, while Lauchlan Mant’s OTT read on the pandering David Van Patten is a hoot. Aaron Robuck is also great as Luis Carruthers, the closet case who craves Bateman, but what he sells comically loses a teeny bit in the tragedy, though it’s an infinitesimal niggle. Montana Sharp slices through all this misfiring testosterone as Bateman’s also besotted secretary, Jean.
Harley Dasey also cuts a dash as Paul Owen, the better-business-carded competitor whose inability to recognise Bateman. His backstabbing of Bateman will lead him to a diabolical date with destiny, popping down newspaper and plastic in the book/film/show’s most iconic sequence, which chops the show in half, ending act one with a riotous rendition of Lewis’ Hip to Be Square.
How does American Pyscho: A Musical Thriller stand up?
While American Psycho the musical has definitely shaved the limbs off the darkest corners of Ellis’ novel and Harron’s film, it’s still surprisingly macabre, closest in sickly spirit to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Sheik’s score spears the '80s synth-pop vibe and its freakier pulse-pounding sounds. The fashion-forward lyrics of 'You Are What You Wear' includes the chef’s kiss couplet, “There’s nothing ironic about our love of Manolo Blahnik.” If you think that’s deliriously daft, I dare you not to spit-snot laugh at the show’s long-bow rhyming of Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera. The show keeps giving on this front, with one character mishearing “murders and executions” as “mergers and acquisitions”, in a work that deliberately breaks down reality as a coked-up Bateman spins further rout.
Further along the spiral, there’s a low-key shiver of a Phil Collins classic, with The Human League, Tears for Fears and New Order joining Bateman’s Huey Lewis fave. Assistant director and choreographer Sophie Loughran expertly leads the cast in outstanding dance numbers that explode off Chapel off Chapel’s tight stage, with cast members lending a musical hand on the keyboard, too.
Costume designer Jessamine Moffett makes the most of the '80s big shoulders and bolder cuts, as these plastic fantastic mannequins swirl thought fast changes and killer abstract slayings, as copious fake blood sprays. Lighting designer Sindey Younger uses Dario Argento-like red flashes and white-outs sparingly, allowing our wigged-out minds to fill in the gory details of this savagely funny show.
So who’ll like American Psycho: A Musical Thriller?
Horror film fans, readers with a dark imagination and anyone who mainlines the '80s look and sound will be astounded by this five-star production that dismembers the greed is good mantra like a chainsaw to the brain. Just don’t forget to bring your best business card and be ready to scream.
American Psycho: A Musical Thriller is at Chapel Off Chapel until 21 November. Book tickets here.
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