CD Review: Broadway Bounty Hunter – Original Off-Broadway Cast

BROADWAY BOUNTY HUNTER – Original Off-Broadway Cast (Ghostlight Records)

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

A musical theatre junkie cannot live on shaky Zoom duets of contextless show tunes alone. We are 50 days into lockdown and crying out for something – anything – to remind us of that bygone new musical theatre feeling. That thrill we all felt in the Lyceum’s stalls the first time The Lion King’s menagerie flocked around us, or when America’s first treasury secretary laid out his intricately rhymed manifesto in Hamilton, or when that green lady in Wicked did some flying.

Lance Rubin, Jason Sweettooth Williams (book), and Joe Iconis’ (music/lyrics/book) Broadway Bounty Hunter is unlikely to achieve the same levels of commercial success as those mega-musicals, but that isn’t its intention. Like Jerry Springer: The Opera, Charles Darwin: Live and in Concert or The Sam Neill Experience: A Dance Musical, this is one of those charming late-night-pub-joke-taken-too-far shows. A tongue-in-cheek musical comedy that asks the question: what if Broadway legend Annie Golden (Hair, Assassins, Orange is the New Black) grew tired of her significant talents being overlooked and decided to become a bounty hunter for some reason?

The novel twist of this production is that Iconis et al have managed to convince Annie Golden herself to play the lead role. Clearly game for a laugh, Golden throws herself into the madness with a relentlessly endearing performance. Even in a cast of Broadway’s best young vocalists, her powerful voice stands out. On the recording we are deprived of her well-established physical comedy prowess, but her acting-through-song game is on point and she communicates her character’s emotional journey perfectly.

Plot-wise, the musical draws heavily from the B-movie and exploitation films it parodies. Nothing makes a whole lot of sense – except apparently to the cast who face their respective plights with amusing earnestness. The show does spotlight some important issues around the typecasting of ethnic minority performers – as well as “women of a certain age” in Golden’s case – but its morality and politics are never given precedence over an opportunity for a cheap joke or playful dig at Mandy Patinkin.

Broadway Bounty Hunter’s ragtag cast of 1970s pimps and ninjas are given a period-appropriate backing by the score’s wah-wah guitar and gratuitous brass section. Iconis can write catchy musical theatre songs in his sleep, but fortunately for us he appears to have been awake for the majority of these numbers. There is enough sonic variety to keep the ear interested and, with the help of orchestrator Charlie Rosen, the genre pastiches are spot-on. As well as the funk, pop, and (out-of-nowhere) Randy Newman homages, Iconis even appears to mock himself in Young People: The Musical. A brave choice, but his long-time fans are surely well-primed to appreciate such meta humour.

Which brings us to the question of intended audience. Broadway Bounty Hunter appears to target some very narrow Venn diagram intersections: people who love Annie Golden but also ninjas for some reason; people who remember 70s exploitation films but also enjoy teen-centric musical theatre; people who will appreciate deep-cut Broadway jokes but won’t be bothered by Iconis’ occasionally clunky lyrics. The creators’ commitment to telling a very niche joke – even at the expense of mainstream appeal – is commendable and a big part of the show’s charm.

This release’s timing is quite canny. Presumably, we have all consumed every last piece of media that appears obviously in line with our tastes by this point in our respective lockdowns, so why not try something a bit different? That’s easy when it’s in the form of a cast recording you can put on in the background while ever-so-diligently “working from home”. If nothing else, the album has some great songs to dance to while boredom-cleaning your kitchen for the hundredth time this week.

If I had bought a $149 ticket to see the entire two-hour, projection-heavy show in its original Off-Broadway staging then I can imagine feeling a little put out by such a silly and frivolous story. However, as an album of fun music – with the added bonus of something very nearly almost resembling a plot to reward attentive listeners – it is just the tonic for these grim times.

Ian Bowkett