Theatre review: Heated Rivalry:The Unauthorized Musical Parody

In recent years quickly churned-out parody musicals based on the latest pop culture hit have become increasingly common and I've largely avoided them as likely to be cheap and easy cash-ins. In the case of Horny Hockey Show there's been multiple competing parodies at the same time, but with actual established musical theatre actor Zheng Xi Yong playing Shane Hollander I figured Dylan MarcAurele's (book, music and lyrics) Heated Rivalry Colon The Unauthorized Musical Parody seemed the most promising. And while I can't comment on the quality of any of its, well, rivals, I can say that Alan Kliffer's production is slick fun. Lots of studios have recently announced knock-off sports romances, invariably with straight couples in the lead, having presumably missed the point entirely and thought the big attraction was the hockey.

From the off this show knows exactly what the point was, namely that a lot of straight women, possibly all named Susan, like watching young men with big asses getting naked together.

So May Tether as the Main Susan is our narrator, telling us of rising Canadian ice hockey star Shane, his incredibly supportive (as long as he never fails at anything ever) Mom (Sylvie Stenson,) and his Dad, who doesn't have enough of a defined personality to appear in this musical. Shane's career is on the rise until Russian player Ilya Rozanov (Joseph Dann) scores a point off him, which for some reason means they're now famous rivals.

But behind the scenes they're eye-fucking at the gym, sneaking off to hotel rooms together and exchanging highly cryptic messages that nobody around them can make head nor tail of, like "tonight, we do anal." The story keeps jumping forwards in time several months to whenever the two have their next match against each other, and at one point leaves them completely to tell the story of smoothie bar employee Kip (understudy Kush Hitesh Pattni,) just your average nerd with an eight-pack, his relationship with another professional hockey player, and his best friend whose dialogue consists entirely of the word "girl" in different cadences.

So Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody hits all the right notes of affectionate parody - making fun of the jarring jumps around the story, the lead characters' abrasive parents, Ilya learning the valuable lesson that you should probably read the whole of your dead mother's last letter to you before building your whole personality around it, Shane attempting a fake relationship with the female star of Kidnapped and Kidnapped: For Good, and a whole song about Ilya's ass. It also skewers the rabid fandom around the show and the obsession with every aspect of the characters' and actors' lives: Ilya's great shame is his parents finding the YouTube videos of a camp young Connor Storrie bitching about Katy Perry lyrics.

At the same time Yong and Dann recreate some of the genuine sweetness and sexiness of the central relationship, meaning that for all that it's a piss-take it's not a cheap and cheerful one. MarcAurele has delivered a lot of laughs, some very silly songs and something impressively slick considering the show only blew up a year ago, and the vocal powerhouses of the cast also make this worth the visit.

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody by Dylan MarcAurele is booking until the 1st of November at Underbelly Boulevard (previously the Boulevard Theatre.)

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Matt Crockett.