by RAF KATIGBAK

The roof of Toronto's historic Bathurst Street Theatre is about to come down. Soon the plush blue seats of the converted 19th-century Gothic-style church will be filled to capacity and the crowd - a motley mix of IT nerds, grannies, punks, countercultural types and regular Toronto theatregoers - will be yelling, jeering and crying "More blood!" while laughing their asses off.

In the front row, a gaggle of middle-aged, smartly dressed women will be drinking beers and joining in the raucous behaviour while a young man with a two-foot mohawk will be telling an older gentleman in a business suit how this will be the fifth time he's seen the show. Obviously, this will be no ordinary, stuffy theatre crowd. This will be the Evil Dead: The Musical crowd.

But right now the fans (who will fly in from as far as Texas, Boston, and New York) have not yet arrived and the seats contain only clusters of crew members flanked by a random assortment of props, lighting and half-finished boxes of cold pizza. On stage, nine people, the cast, practice their bows as stagehands rush behind them with laser-guided strides. By the urgent tone of their murmurs and the focused gaze of everyone in the room, it's obvious that it's crunch time.

Everyone in the room knows that this week-long stint in Toronto is really a practice run for the big Montreal debut at the Just for Laughs festival. Everything needs to be perfect. After all, the Deadites won't settle for less.

Evil Dead reborn

The Evil Dead film phenomenon started in the fall of 1979, when a film crew led by then 20-year-old director Sam Raimi sauntered off into the rural Tennessee woods and emerged with a cult classic. While the original Evil Dead movie was a milestone in the horror genre, Raimi's sequels (Evil Dead 2 in 1987 and 1993's Army of Darkness) perfected the horror/comedy crossover he flirted with in the original. The result? A fan base (the Deadites) whose dedication to the trilogy and online presence can only be described as fanatical.

Now, over a decade since the release of Army of Darkness, the Deadites have resurfaced, joined by throngs of theatre fans, to witness the latest chapter in the Book of the Dead: a musical adaptation of Raimi's first two Evil Dead films, aptly titled Evil Dead 1 & 2: the Musical, that is set to explode at the Cabaret du Plateau this week in a maelstrom of blood and guts.

The so-silly-it's-brilliant idea to turn a horror-slash-comedy into a horror-slash-comedy-slash-musical came two years ago, after a debauched night at a Toronto production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show left director Chris Bond and writer George Reinblatt brainstorming about starting their own cult musical production.

"When I first saw Evil Dead 2, I thought, this is amazing!" exclaims the young co-creator Bond. "All the catchphrases, charm and charisma, and of course all the slapstick - it was really the inaugural film of that horror-comedy genre. Just the main character Ash's swagger and the Velveeta of the whole production attracted me to it."

It was Reinblatt who suggested they beef up the show and combine the characters and plot from the first two films into one. But as a longtime fan of the film, Reinblatt also knew that you just can't mess with Evil Dead. Or can you? "George and I were dead focused in keeping it as true as possible to the original," explains Bond, "but we thought, let's take elements and exaggerate them, but let's not stray from what the story really is."

Singing zombies!

The story, as you may know, is pretty standard stuff. Boy meets girl, boy unleashes ancient evil spirit, girl turns into zombie, boy must fight to survive until dawn as his friends turn into the undead around him. While this scenario has been played out ad nauseam in 98 per cent of every video store's horror section, Evil Dead set itself apart from the rest by balancing the perfect amount of dark atmosphere, gore and comedy, drawing a new line between schlock and genius.

It was certainly a tough act to follow. But turning Evil Dead into a musical allowed the creators some comedic freedom while at the same time hopefully widening the audience. "It was the next logical step," explains Bond, who soon enlisted the help of composer friends Frank Cipolla and Melissa Morris.

Cipolla, who leads the trio that plays all the music, quipped, "When Chris first came to me with the idea, he just said, ‘singing zombies!' Come on, that's gold!"

"Every song was an assembly line," says Bond. "Someone would start with something and then pass it on until you got this fantastic tune." The results are 13 original tunes that hop from genre to genre, including such perhaps-not-so-soon-to-be classics as "It Won't Let Us Leave," "Look Who's Evil Now" and "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons."

According to Bond, while it's obvious their tongues are firmly planted in their cheeks, to say the production is a complete goof would be a little farfetched. "We take what's happening very seriously. These are killer zombies and they will eat your head off, but they may start singing." The musical, like the film, adds just enough eeriness to make the contrast with the humour even funnier. "If it's just laugh, laugh, laugh, it gets boring. We like to set the tone, and make it a little disturbing, then bam! You're hit with a tango. That's the genius of this show."

Their light-hearted take on horror belies the genuine fear Reinblatt felt wrestling with the writing of the play. "I was scared to death the first time it ran. Besides the main character of Ash, we changed a lot of characters and jokes, and they would either love it or hate it. Lucky for us, they all seemed to like it and we haven't had one Deadite say we ruined their movie. I was so scared of that happening."

Hashing out Ash

Another fear Reinblatt had to face was casting Ash, the cocky, kooky, chainsaw-wielding protagonist played by the incomparable Bruce Campbell in the films. As any self-respecting Deadite will tell you, Campbell made the films what they are and his blend of physical comedy, expressive eyebrows and ability to deliver one-liners on a dime left big shoes to fill.

Reinblatt knew that if they were going to be a hit, they needed an Ash. "This thing needed a star that could carry it. This was a group effort, don't get me wrong, but Ryan Ward as Ash, he's just so good at doing what he does. He just came in off the street - seriously, we didn't even know who he was."

A graduate of Ryerson's theatre program and accomplished physical actor who boasts of beating himself up onstage prior to the Evil Dead production, the tall and slender Ward was a longtime Deadite - a fact that certainly worked in his favour. "When we got together for the first rehearsal," enthuses Ward, "I read the script and said, ‘Fuck, this is fantastic!' Just the idea of having a guy singing while he's sawing up his girlfriend's head, and her blood spraying into his mouth while he's singing - how funny is that? How Sam Raimi is that?"

A true Bruce Campbell fan, Ward is more than happy to expound on the intricacies of the actor's genius. "It's all about how seriously he takes his stupidity. Take for example, when he's laughing and going crazy in Evil Dead 2. It's like nobody else." While his preparation for the role as Ash was harrowing (a strict regimen of yoga and Three Stooges movies), the toughest part for Ward came during rehearsals. "The real challenge was to find safe ways of having a chainsaw in your hand while you walk around on stage and go into a trapdoor. I really try and give it hell in the fights, I roll and flip and stuff. It's the most dangerous show I've ever done."

"The thing with this show," says Reinblatt, "is that for the hardcore fans who really know the inside jokes, there's a few nods to them and they really laugh where a normal person wouldn't. But even if you don't know the movie, everybody laughs at this show, and that was our goal. To appease both worlds and, amazingly enough, it worked."

Evil Dead: The Musical plays at cabaret du plateau (4530 Papineau) as part of Just for Laughs, July 2–25, $20.50–$26.50. Check www.hahaha.com or call 790-HAHA for ticket info

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