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Cannibal! The Musical
by J. Neil Connelly 
Cannibal! The Musical was Trey Parker’s first foray into writing for the theater, and he brought the same energy and disregard for political correctness that later earned him accolades as a creator of South Park. A fictional account of an otherwise true story, Cannibal! The Musical follows an expedition of gold-seekers across the Rockies, where they get lost and resort to eating each other’s flesh to survive. The full truth may never be known, but Parker invents a highly entertaining version of what events may have transpired. Alferd Packer’s eating habits out in the wilderness made him the first and only American to be convicted on charges of cannibalism.
Alferd Packer did in fact lead an expedition from Utah back across the Rockies to the Colorado Territory. The group Packer led did consume the flesh of a dead man in order to keep from starving. The jury did find evidence enough to declare Alferd Packer guilty of cannibalism, and he was indeed hung until dead. That much is true. The rest of the play is a fantastic farce, making the production a cross between Alive and Blazing Saddles. Much of the dialogue and impromptu singing were concocted by Trey Parker, and are not in any way factual, but they do make a potentially horrific story hilarious. The play is part South Park, part Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The caricature personality types, set-up lines for riotous puns, and ventures into well-crafted crass are all South Park staples, and the impromptu singing and dancing reflect both South Park and Monty Python. Despite the overall jocularity of the play, the expedition’s quest for survival sucks you in with a degree of seriousness before bursting into song. Suffering from severe frostbite, with nothing to eat but their own boots, one member of the expedition, Israel Swan (Ben Thietje), launches into a rendition of “Let’s Build a Snowman”, shucking, jiving, and even tap-dancing around the stage as he constructs a snowman in his insanity. The songs of this sort happen at multiple stages of the play. As Packer is preparing himself for his own demise, walking slowly up to the noose, the townspeople begin celebrating, doing chorus line kicks and singing “Hang the bastard, hang him high, hoist the body to the sky…” The cast sang superbly, an invaluable addition to a play stacked with songs. Josh Mitchell and Ben Thietje nailed the manner in which Parker intended the songs to come off, combining the melodic sincerity of a Disney song and the lyrical depravity of Cartman’s finest crooning. In the middle of their expedition, the crew randomly stopped hiking and began engaging in elaborate choreography, nodding heads and shaking their butts, taking a potentially somber and sincere story and turning it on its head. Thietje should be lauded for his additions to the choreography, which manage to fully accentuate the preposterous nature of the songs. In terms of natural sound, the cast projected quite well in the small space of the 4th Street Theater, and the singing was actually outstanding, but they were let down by technology. Relying on pre-recorded segues between scenes, Cannibal! played a tape while an image was flashed on a projection scene. The sound system was scratchy and garbled, and the images ranged from superb to sup-bar. The opening montage of Packer chasing his victims through the woods is comic genius, but the subsequent map footage that traces the expeditions travels ala Indiana Jones is merely acceptable. Combined with an inferior sound, these segues slightly tarnished what was an otherwise delightful performance. Directed by Ice Wang, this production by The Mechanical Division did an excellent job of embracing the tongue-in-cheek spirit of Trey Parker. The little things are what really make this play take off. The finger snapping members of the “Hotchick Tribe” of Native Americans, who perfect the Valleygirl accent, and the overly pious spiritual leader, who infuses his character with an ideal degree of false enthusiasm as he places people in “time-out…the best way to cool down when things get steamed up,” make sure there is never a lull in this fun-fest. Given the strong similarities to South Park, it is evident where Parker would have wanted this play to go, and The Mechanical Division took it there, and then some. Cannibal! The Musical will be playing every Thursday - Sunday for the remainder of January. Tickets are $16 for adults and $13 for students. For more information, call 612.226.4941, or visit www.mechanicaldivision.com. 
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