The Unicorn’s Heathers: The Musical is still dark, still funny

It’s hard to imagine Heathers, Daniel Waters’ 1988 black comedy, being released post-Columbine. The film lampoons — with little gravity or reverence — high school shootings and high-grade explosives as it follows Veronica Sawyer, a quick-witted 17-year-old, and her boyfriend, J.D., a wild-eyed “trenchcoat mafia” type who manipulates her into murdering cliquish classmates.

Over the years, Heathers has morphed into an unlikely cult classic. It deserves credit as the godmother of smart teen comedies (we wouldn’t have Mean Girls without it). But it’s also an awkward film, as unsettling in tone as it is content. The jokes, when they come, seem simultaneously cynical and pat, like something Bobcat Goldthwait might have written in his high school English class. It doesn’t help that most of them are delivered by a 16-year-old Winona Ryder, who even then had the comedic timing of a wet sock.

But “fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” because Heathers: The Musical — directed at the Unicorn Theatre by dream team Cynthia Levin and Missy Koonce — has improved on its model.

The 2014 musical is more sure-footed in its sense of humor and deftly ties up some of the source’s loose ends. In playwrights Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s adaptation, Veronica starts out as a bullied nobody; her talent for hall-pass forgery upgrades her to a useful — but fragile — weapon in the Heathers’ arsenal. The writers also beef up the role of outcast Martha Dunnstock (“Dumptruck”), making her one of Veronica’s close childhood friends.

At the Unicorn, Katie Karel sharpens Veronica’s sarcastic edges, grounding the character’s outsized actions in authentic high school angst. Newcomer Thomas Delgado is thoroughly convincing as the psychotic J.D. (though on opening night, he struggled with pitch on the hard-driving “Meant to Be Yours”). Mike Ott, who plays the high school principal as well as two of the kids’ fathers, is quickly becoming one of my favorite local character actors. And Shon Ruffin is snortingly and heartbreakingly genuine as Martha Dunnstock, Westerberg’s softhearted social pariah.

But the mark of a good Heathers is, you know, its Heathers. Molly Denninghoff is deliciously ruthless as Veronica’s savior and torturer, Heather Chandler, the bitch queen of Westerberg High. Colleen Grate tiptoes effortlessly up to the high notes as dim-witted Heather McNamara; her solo performance in “Lifeboat” is one of the musical’s most expressive and affecting. And Chioma Anyanwu lends Grade A eye-rolling and Minnie-Mouse eyelash fluttering to the scheming Heather Duke — though her role is regrettably shortchanged in the adaptation.

Although the musical heightens the film’s humor, not every song’s a hit. “Freeze Your Brain” is an unnecessary attempt to turn J.D.’s slushie habit into a ploy for emotional stability. “Our Love Is God” feels overtaxed as an Act One finale, with lyrics too cliché to carry the requisite wallop. And “My Dead Gay Son” isn’t as funny as its title (on Saturday, Vincent Onofrio Monachino’s delivery seemed more frenetic than polished).

“Blue” is a more successful raunchfest thanks to the brotastic teamwork of Jacob Aaron Cullum and Teddy Trice, who play the school’s star footballers. And “Big Fun” soars on the strength of the full ensemble (and Levin and Koonce’s snappy choreography).

The production design marries nostalgia with versatility. Scenic designer Emily Swenson opens up playing areas with a smart asymmetrical set. Hinged platforms arc across the stage to form church pews, gym bleachers or lunch table runways as needed. Lighting designer Alex Perry flushes the stage with a palette that screams late-1980s mall food court, and costume designer Zoë Still carries it over to the color-coded (and croquet-ready) clique.

But the musical’s crowning touch may be Levin and Koonce’s fastidious direction. Scene changes are shorter than the Heathers’ skirts, and the pair create hilarious tableau after tableau: majestic arches of plastic lunch trays, tire-screeching theatrical freeze frames and slow-motion fight sequences, all handled with more precision than cheese.

The result is a more confident, consistent show than the movie augurs — in the Heathers’ parlance, something so very.

Heathers: The Musical
Through June 26 at the Unicorn Theatre, Levin Stage
3828 Main
816-531-7529