DEAD OUTLAW

REVIEW BY CELIA IPIOTIS

From the first irreverent song, “Dead” Dead Outlaw gallops into a story both weird and wonderful. An immensely talented creative team join arms to escort Audible Productions ‘ Dead Outlaw onto the postage stamp-sized stage at the Minetta Lane Theater. Conceived by David Yazbek and directed by David Cromer, the unflagging music and lyrics by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna are tied to a book by Itmar Moses conjuring a deliciously addictive production.

Based on a true tall tale–the kind that’s impossible to make-up– a game cast of actors/musicians drive the brisk one hour and forty minute show from train heists to mummy spottings. 

Unable to fit in, either at school, at home, as a son or gangster, Elmer McCurdy (a sensational Andrew Durand) meets his demise and his remains are forever frozen in time when a coroner hits him up with a nuclear dose of arsenic.

For the first half of the show, McCurdy delivers a dominant performance as the heedless outlaw. Utterly appealing, Durand perfectly captures the spirit of a young man unmoored in life chasing an outlaw reputation.

Armed with a witty and dangerous charm, the gravelly voiced Jeb Brown narrates the proceedings. He pops out of the high-stepping band to relive the myriad twists and turns of a decades-spanning adventure. 

While growing up in Maine, McCurdy’s aunt poses as his mother and his mother poses as his aunt. This mixed-up childhood foreshadows a life of confusion and mishaps.

Restless and unable to relate to anyone in his community, McCurdy jumps a freight train and heads to the Oklahoma frontier to become a bumbling heist man.

With the exception of his one attempt at love with Julie Knitel (the only female in the cast) beautifully rendered by a heartfelt dance (choreographed by Ani taj), McCurdy leaves behind the civilized world. The rest of his life is spent in a keystones cop scenario where McCurdy keeps bumbling his marks — frequently attacking the wrong train and blowing up everything but the safe. 

Throughout the dynamic production, the top notch musicians pump out a wild mix of music linking rock and roll to roots music, country western, cabaret and folk. 

In a hilarious scene, after an Oklahoma sheriff shoots McCurdy,  the coroner reviews the dead body and instead of dictating his autopsy notes, Thom Sesman yanks down the overhead microphone and starts to croon, cabaret style in a pool of white light by Heather Gilbert. In fact, because of the scenic lighting and Cromer’s staging, the succeeding vignettes plunge the audience into a fully cinematic atmosphere.

Once McCurdy’s corpse is mummified, the audience watches McCurdy standing in a coffin, rifle gripped in his hands, and transferred from circus to theme park to sideshow. He traveled the country and gained a level of notoriety he could never have imagined.

The cast of eight hard-working actors play dozens of roles, minimally altering their outfits by Sarah Laux and rearranging a handful of props designed by Arnulfo Maldonado. Their characters are juiced up by the band, led by Rebekah Bruce. 

Before I saw the show, a friend told me he couldn’t wait to go back so I asked “why” and he answered “I can’t really tell you, but I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis