Cthulhu: The Musical! sells out recordBar with unlikely combo of puppets and Lovecraft

Photo by Josh Fitz / Liquid Reel

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of puppets.”

I’m pretty sure H. P. Lovecraft said that, or something very like it. And if he didn’t say exactly that, maybe it’s because he hadn’t seen Cthulhu: The Musical! by Puppeteers for Fears.

Of course, that’s a joke. Because while Cthulhu: The Musical! is many things, “scary” isn’t one of them, nor is it ever trying to be. [One of the jokes in this R-rated puppet show is about how one character’s suicide from the story might be “too dark” because they don’t want to get “demonetized.”]

Cthulhu: The Musical! is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a musical, performed entirely by Muppet-like puppets, adapting H. P. Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu.” Early on, the show’s narrator, Bert the Shoggoth, chastises the crowd for being “lazy Americans” who aren’t familiar enough with the source material.

Familiarity with the source material may actually be more of a prerequisite for enjoyment than one might expect, however. While Cthulhu: The Musical! ostensibly retells one of Lovecraft’s most famous stories, good luck following the plot if you aren’t already familiar with it, as most of the exposition happens via songs, the lyrics of which can be difficult to make out.

And while the beats of the tale are the same, the effect is very different. To no one’s surprise (it is a puppet musical, after all), Cthulhu: The Musical! is more like a parody or a spoof than anything.

There’s even a gag about how Lovecraft was a “racist hack” and not all that great at writing–which is at least half right.

Undeniably, one of the factors that has helped keep the Old Gent’s work in the public eye for so long is how readily it shapes itself to spoof and parody. This is far from the first time that these stories have been set to music – or put in the mouths of puppets, for that matter. These days, Cthulhu is more likely to be seen in the form of plush toys or jokey political shirts than haunting anyone’s nightmares.

The jokes in Cthulhu: The Musical! mostly follow one particular vein: what you might call “Deadpool humor.” Lots of breaking of the 4th wall to address the audience directly, lots of meta jokes, lots of anachronistic references to modern pop culture, and lots and lots of sexual innuendo. A partial list of joke subjects includes Tinder, Japanese tentacle porn, Justin Timberlake’s DUI, Duolingo, and an extensive gag about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Obviously, this sort of thing works for a lot of people, and Puppeteers for Fears had no trouble filling RecordBar with a sold-out show that had folks waiting in line for doors to open, despite the 110-degree heat. That would be an impressive feat, even on a less sultry Monday night. The crowd may even have contributed to some of the difficulties of watching the show, as there were definitely seats where it was hard to see the stage, or the screen behind the puppeteers, where parts of the story were told via animated montages.

Which is a shame, because the puppets were the best part. Whether you liked the jokes or songs, the puppeteering is probably always going to be the biggest draw for a puppet show, and the crew at Puppeteers for Fears really gave it their all, despite being shackled with the unenviable task of crawling around, often on their knees, to work the puppets.

In fact, some of the show’s best gags involved the inventiveness of the puppeteers, such as a scene in which the Inspector Legrasse puppet answers the telephone, achieved by one puppeteer simply sticking their arm up above the stage partition and making the “banana phone” gesture.

Photo by Matt Honnies