John Mellencamp Community

Ghost Brothers musical more hokey than spooky
By Jane Stevenson, Toronto Sun

TORONTO - Where to begin with the Ghost Brothers of Darkland County?

How about, as one of the lead characters, a modern day blonde hottie named Anna, says: “This place is weird. ... I want to get out of here!”

The touring production of the Southern Gothic-inspired musical co-written by literary horror master Stephen King and heartland rocker John Mellencamp pulled into Massey Hall for one night on Tuesday with a half-full house to greet it.

Not an early good sign.

Still, given the combined pedigree of its creators —  T. Bone Burnett also came on board to provide “musical direction” — you’d be right to have high expectations but be ultimately disappointed.

Despite consistently solid folk-roots-rock music from Mellencamp, who also provided the initial story idea about two feuding brothers in 1967 who fall for the same woman before the trio’s death leads to them haunting a southern lakeside cabin occupied by a modern-day family with two brothers fighting over another woman, this is one messy, rambling show with nary an intentional scare in sight.

My advice to Mellencamp would have been to just turn it into an album and not even bother King about collaborating on a musical.

First launched in 2012 in Atlanta with a touring production that followed in 2013, I’m sure there has been some retooling of King’s overlong, tangental story that sees 16 cast members share the stage the entire night along with four great sounding musicians who also play in Mellencamp’s band - guitarist Andy York, drummer Dane Clark, bassist Jon E. Gee and keyboardist-harmonica player Troye Kinnett.

But it clearly wasn’t enough reworking.

Staged as an old-time radio show on a barebones stage, the cast — led by Billy Burke of Twilight fame and Gina Gershon as the modern-day family's patriarch and matriarch, Joe and Monique McCandleless — never leave except for a 15-minute intermission.

Instead they all sit on wooden chairs in a semi-circle as they take their turns to get up and perform at a microphone.

It’s not that inventive and having to stare at the other actors while they sit there looking bored or downward just isn’t a great visual to present.

Then there’s the devil, or as he’s called The Shape, as played by Jake La Botz like he’s working a room in the Catskills bathed in red light and twirling a cane.

The lighting on the ghosts is white, just in case you don’t get they are not from this world.

It’s all pretty hokey.

Much better is Jesse Lenat as the Zydeco Cowboy, a Steve Earle-soundalike who is the musical’s narrator; big voiced singer Eric Moore as another ghostwho wascaught in the collateral damage and sets himself apart from everyone else in the cast on the standout number Tear This Cabin Down; and Zac Ballard as Young Joe, who is given little to do but excells vocally when he does.

Of the big names, neither Burke nor Gershon seem suited to the task at hand and I’d have shruken the entire cast by maybe half as they shout and scream at each other or merely try to get out of each other’s way.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/11/12/ghost-brothers-musical-more-hokey-than-spooky (http://www.torontosun.com/2014/11/12/ghost-brothers-musical-more-hokey-than-spooky)