The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Playwrights Horizons’ Teeth

By Ross

With a sharp and dramatic drop and reveal, Playwright Horizons‘ new musical, Teeth, dives into a sexually naked sermon about snakes and demons, delivered with a deliciously over-the-top unraveling by Steven Pasquale (CSC’s Assassins). Shaming those who listen underneath that glowing red cross, he oratories about the dangers of female sexual embracement, living and breathing inside this disturbing terrain. “Yes, pastor,” these young women respond as if the Kool-Aid they had drunk before this gathering was very strong with stupid devotion to the ridiculous. “Why would Amy do that?” they ask, feeding on their shame, guilt, and sexual awakening. The pastor’s response is that the unseen Amy gave up on her promise, and it is in that promise where Teeth bites down hard into the apple.

Based on Mitchell Lichtenstein’s 2007 cult film of the same title, this new musical, with a captivatingly clever book by music composer Anna K. Jacobs (POP!; Anytown) and lyricist Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), asks the question, somewhat, “are you a virgin? or a whore?” to the young Promise Keeper Girls, in their Pink Lady-esque denim jackets on their sacred knees. Pasquale, as the pastor, exudes the compelling but complicated balance of evangelical lust and passion, dripping in female adoration, covered up with internalized (and externalized) shame and the requirement of ultimate submission.

Teeth is hilariously well-tuned, graphically gory, and deliciously sly, until it turns, every so often, into an arena that is momentarily dark and uncomfortably violent. In a belt-cracking scene with the Pastor’s son, Brad, played intensely by Will Connolly (TNG’s Clueless), the tension is palpable. And the punishment; extreme after he discovers him jerking off – well, really just touching his body, as he tries to connect, via a virtual reality group, to his masculinity. It’s one moment that made me look away in discomfort and building anger, but for the most part, beyond that father/pastor/son/disciple dynamic, the effect of Teeth is compelling, sharp, and biting. Especially when the teeth of revenge are exposed with a sharp slice.

Focusing the musical gaze on the step-daughter of the pastor, Dawn, played to the parody-max by Alyse Alan Louis (Public’s Soft Power), Teeth finds its glorious bloody bite in the macabre and its sharp satire. She’s the head cheerleader of the Promise Keeper Girl pack, who lives and breathes in the idea fostered onto her, mainly because of the Pastor’s fear and ‘sinful’ desires that require female sexuality to be harnessed and locked down inside. But unbeknownst to even her, Dawn has internally started a revolution, developing a set of incisors and molars in her vagina. She’s the mythological embodiment of Vagina Dentata, set forth into the world to exact revenge on those who try to control, manipulate, and abuse young women.

It’s a murderous rageful rampage in the making, that starts out, dynamically, with a love scene gone terribly wrong when her boyfriend, Tobey, expertly played by Jason Gotay (NYCC’s Call Me Madam), steps across the line when filled with non-consent-driven desire for Dawn. And with a snap, the scene leaves him castrated and floating in the lake, magnificently rendered thanks to the fine feisty work done by set designer Adam Rigg (Broadway/LCT’s The Skin of Our Teeth), lighting designers Jane Cox (2ST’s Appropriate) and Stacey Derosier (RTC’s The Refuge Plays), and sound designer Palmer Hefferan (Broadway’s Just For Us). But his death ignites the lightning rod that the Pastor has been eagerly waiting for, quickly becoming that torch-carrying religious fanatic, screaming and ranting about the devil, when he himself is the source of all that pent-up fear and furious fervor.

The truth, we are told, “is between her thighs,” yet inside Jacobs and Jackson’s bipolar book that bites and snaps back and forth from deliciously wicked comedy, ultra-religious insightful skewering, and camp horror deliciousness to disturbing tracks of predatory sexual grooming and date rape, the overall effect is as complicated as it is bloody good fun and piercingly sharp entertainment. Pasquale’s Paster father becomes an even more complicated creation once we start to experience the uncoverings of his anger and passion, resorting to a violence that makes us step back from the satirical edge. It doesn’t navigate that divide well, leaving us a bit emotionally boomeranged and removed. But as the doomed gynecologist who Dawn finally goes to see about this crazy idea that she might have Teeth inside her vagina chomping at the (literal) bits to rein havoc on the oppressors, he regains the same sense of satirical humor that is the best part of this clever, but conflicted musical.

Directed with a slanted entertaining eye by Sarah Benson (TFANA/Soho Rep’s Fairview), the fun lives in the tragic quest for acceptance for our own sexual enlightenment in a world filled with other darker ideas about women, power, and control. The musical, finding its footing in the solid music and lyrics delivered strongly by music director Patrick Sulken (Broadway’s Pretty Woman), orchestrations by Kris Kukal (Broadway’s Beetlejuice), and music supervisor Julie McBride (PH’s Unknown Soldier), also attempts to unpack homophobic conflicts that sneak inside, internalized within Dawn’s gay best friend, Ryan, played hilariously well by Jaren Loftin (Vineyard’s Gigantic). He simultaneously embraces the athletic build of Dawn’s fleeing boyfriend with wonder and excitement, while also desperately seeking to find acceptance and assistance to change his ways through Dawn and the other Promise Keeper Girls (Courtney Bassett, Jenna Rose Hisli, Lexi Phoades, Wren Rivera, and Helen J. Shen). Those gals, wonderfully unique and precisely delivered, particularly the emotively wonderful Rivera (Broadway’s Jagged Little Pill), initially shame him, that is until the light is turned around and shone back into their holier-than-thou faces.

Naturally, some of the funniest lines are delivered by the conflicted Ryan, until he exposes his internalized homophobic self to be as equally misogynistic, sharply overstepping the consent boundaries with shocking ease. Using Dawn, without really considering the consequences and meaning of his action beyond himself. And when that bloodied amputated appendage is held high like a symbolic battle cry to the gods and those waiting Promise Keeper gals, the inferno war has begun, dressed to perfection by costume designer Enver Chakartash (PH’s Stereophonic).

Like a volcano erupting spreading red hot lava on all those who ventured too close, Dawn, in full warrior mode flies forward in all her furious fury. Bloodied and on fire, courtesy of special effects designer Jeremy Chernick ((Broadway’s Hadestown), Teeth bites deep and delicious. It’s gory good fun, especially when its wicked fangs find the funny bone deep in the flesh of its male oppressors. Connolly’s Brad and his Truthseeker avengers fail to ultimately register as the show flames and falls forward, like the show, losing its way, when it forgets about its solid satirical bite and latches on to some other big solid real-world issues than its main thrust. Not a terrible way to get lost, but it does somewhat dull the overall sharpness of its own Teeth.

Playwrights Horizons‘ Teeth is now playing on their Mainstage, extended until April 28th, 2024. For more information and tickets click here.