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    ‘Heathers: The Musical’ Returns to New York, Fueled by a Devoted Fandom

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    When the pitch-black comedy “Heathers” came out in 1989, a review in The New York Times said it was “as snappy and assured as it is mean-spirited.” An early scene was said to have “the air of a demonic sitcom.” This may explain why the composer Laurence O’Keefe initially had reservations about working on a musical adaptation.“I thought it was too nihilistic,” O’Keefe said of the movie, in which a frustrated senior (Winona Ryder) and her murderous boyfriend (Christian Slater) dispatch members of their high school’s bullying elite with theatrical violence. “This material is in some ways more despairing than ‘Sweeney Todd.’”Yet O’Keefe still thought there was a way to make the story palatable for the stage. He was right: These days, “Heathers: The Musical,” the adaptation he created with the writer Kevin Murphy and the director Andy Fickman, is gaining cult-classic status in its own right.It took a decade, but in December the Off Broadway production’s cast album, from 2014, went gold. Packed with a mercilessly catchy mix of bangers (“Candy Store”) and ballads (“Seventeen”), the recording was instrumental in fueling a “Heathers” craze in Britain, where the show has had several West End runs and tours, which were further immortalized in a second cast album and a live capture.From left, Winona Ryder, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk and Shannen Doherty starred in the pitch-black high school comedy “Heathers.”Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Stock PhotoNow “Heathers: The Musical” has returned to New World Stages, where it had its original New York engagement back in 2014. This version incorporates changes, including new songs, made to the show in the intervening decade. It will open on July 10 with a sterling cast list led by Lorna Courtney (“& Juliet”) as the arty senior Veronica; Casey Likes (last seen on Broadway in “Back to the Future: The Musical”) as the vengeful J.D.; and McKenzie Kurtz, Elizabeth Teeter and Olivia Hardy as the school’s queen bees, all named Heather.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘One True Loves’ Review: A Romance Lost at Sea

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      A film adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel has potential for drama, but it stumbles on stock melodrama.A woman stands on a dock, staring out at the sea through a set of binoculars, hoping for the impossible and refusing to accept the inevitable. “Emma, it’s your third day out here,” her sister tells her desperately. “I’m going to stay out here, as long as it takes,” Emma responds.It’s hard not to see these early moments of overwritten, stock melodrama in “One True Loves,” the ham-fisted film adaptation of the Taylor Jenkins Reid novel, as something like scenes in a comedy sketch. Emma (Phillipa Soo) has lost her husband (Luke Bracey) — he was her high school sweetheart — in a helicopter crash, a fact she reluctantly accepts. Slowly, she moves on with her life, eventually reconnecting with an old best friend (Simu Liu) and becoming engaged.But when her husband returns, back from the dead after surviving on an island for four years, the film homes in on her struggle to choose her one true love. Because of its poor pacing, and awkward sequencing and editing, however, the movie clumsily sets up this romance-pulp plot in its first half. Basic storytelling components are also ignored, as if entire scenes are missing, so that “One True Loves,” directed by Andy Fickman, stumbles even as a piece of Hallmark sappiness.There is potential for some meaty drama — in its best moments the film reads like a “Cast Away” spinoff, stretching out the rainy scene climax when Tom Hanks returns to his wife and is met with the cold, cleareyed truth that life has moved on without him. These late glimmers, though, are mostly drowned out. The Marvel superstar Liu and Soo, who is Broadway royalty, may seem suddenly exposed for a lack of innate star power here, but in a film like this, they’ve really just been left stranded on their own island.One True LovesRated PG-13 for some suggestive material and language. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Heathers: The Musical’ Review: For the Cliques

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      This musical may lack the 1989 movie’s nihilism, but the gags still work and the songs are great — who are we to quibble?The wicked comedy “Heathers” (1989) has not mellowed with age. To the contrary, the film’s acerbic description of deception, murder and high school cliques feels even more brazenly arch in our age of catfishing and banalized violence. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s musical adaptation pulls its punches compared to the original but it still has some bite, and a quiver of great songs. The show, which opened Off Broadway in 2014, has even acquired an international following of its own — this Roku Channel capture, directed by Andy Fickman, was filmed in London’s West End in May.As in the movie, nice-girl Veronica (Ailsa Davidson) enjoys a brief alliance with a trio of queen bees all named Heather and led by the imperial Heather Chandler (Maddison Firth) — they get the best number, the brilliantly glam-pop “Candy Store.” Eventually Veronica joins forces with J.D. (Simon Gordon), the manipulative loner who is the musical’s biggest casualty: the story hinges on him being unabashedly nihilistic but both the show and Gordon’s portrayal are too timid. Vivian Panka, on the other hand, easily commands center stage as a robotically intense Heather Duke, and nails her solo, “Never Shut Up Again.” That new song is among the changes Murphy and O’Keefe have made since the New York version — some underlining Veronica’s agency, others sanitizing a few lyrics (though there are still healthy helpings of the indispensable profanity). But despite these flashes of timidity and an overlong running time, the musical is a fun romp with plenty of, ahem, killer tunes.Heathers: The MusicalNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 16 minutes. Watch on the Roku Channel. More