A massively redone American Psycho: The Musical is on its way to Houston, with plans to remount it in London next year and hopes of eventually getting it back on a Broadway stage. Houston audiences will have more influence than usual on what the revised version turns out to be.
Why? Because the first three nights the show is performed at the Hobby Center will be previews complete with next day script adjustments. According to Robert Lenzi who plays the lead role, the script won't be "frozen" until opening night on September 5.
Despite an impressive lineup of buff stars in Psycho's first trip to Broadway in 2016, the original musical closed after 27 previews and 54 performances leading to all sorts of debates about why that happened. Was it the audience, the gory book it was based upon, the mixed reviews it received? There were some fans, but not enough.
Tony Award®-winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Glee, Riverdale, Pretty Little Liars) believe there is still something worthwhile to be salvaged in their new adaptation of the best seller by Bret Easton Ellis. Both of them have come up with a new script and revised score. But they want to do some more fine tuning before they head back to London, hence the stopover at Houston Broadway Theatre. Joe Calarco is directing.
Lenzi plays Patrick Bateman, the '80s era Wall Street exec who has it all, but turns into a creature much more violent, darker and without a conscience at night. He says he welcomes the fast pace of the changes coming his way.
"I love it. I’m an actor based in New York and I've done a lot ,one of my true passions is doing developmental work. When you do developmental work you really are kind of fast on your feet and trying this. You read something on Monday and you show up Tuesday morning and there's new pages.
"They are fresh out of the printer and it's the most exciting thing to be handed fresh pages. If you’re lucky as we are with this show, written by truly brilliant writers and reading them out loud for the first time."
The musical was originally produced in London in 2013 and brought it to Broadway in 2016. "Now our writers, Roberto and Duncan, are revisiting the piece and taking everything they learned from the London and the Broadway production and also spending more time with the piece and obviously the world has continued to change," Lenzi says.
"The preview process is an incredibly important part of when you're doing new work," Lenzi says. "Right now we're at a studio, it's just us. Eventually you'll perform the play at night and then the next day we'll get new pages. We'll rehearse all day, take a dinner break, breathe and then perform the new things that night and see how it goes. And continue that process until the show becomes 'frozen.' That is the version we'll do every night after opening."
Actually, Lenzi's history with the show includes the fact that his wife — his girlfriend at the time — was in the original Broadway cast. He saw the final dress rehearsal for that show and "was totally blown away by what the story had a say and by that character."
Asked to describe his character, Lenzi says: "He is troubled by the lack of authenticity in the world around him, this idea of materialism and hyper consumerism that he participates in. It drives him to want to take up the world and show them the horrors that are around them. He does that by committing acts of horror himself. It leads him down this rabbit hole of dark, existential despair."
As for portraying a character so diabolical, Lenzi says he doesn't have to like him, but he does need to understand what leads Bateman to act the way he does — to map out the logic of what he does.
The musical isn't just blood and guts, however, he say: "There are many satirical elements. It's also incredibly witty and and funny and absurdist comedy elements to it. There are dark elements, but there are also things about the absurdity of life that are truly hysterical
But Psycho is definitely not for children, Lenz says.
"At the heart of the play. It’s a great work of existentialism as in what is the point of all this. In the world today, we’re existing on our phones, we're presenting ourselves through social media. And when you sort of stop and think it's like what is the point of all of this? What is the point of human existence?
The show in a very absurd and dark way kind of tackles this major idea of what it is to be a human being," Lenzi says. "It's this one man trying to make sense of all this in a really heighted way."
Performances are scheduled for September 2-14 (with opening night on September 5) at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $33.80-$148.20.