Off-Broadway: “Ximer, An Electronic Concept Musical”
If Batman is vengeance, “Ximer” is zeal.
(Photograph: Courtesy Adam Smith)
Beneath the new EDM musical “Ximer”’s brilliant sheen lies a sense of doom. Look around you—can’t you sense it, too? Millions of us doom-scrolling through our phones with glazed eyes and fragile psyches, being spoon-fed tailor-made content catering to our every characteristic, unable to find connection and validation beyond the confines of our relentless inner monologues and seeking escapism through superficial interpersonal relationships just to register a pulse. You know, we live in a capitalist society. Creator Markus Ferraro explores these modern maladies in his new queer comicbook musical (a deliciously ambitious addition to his transmedia storytelling across graphic novels and music videos) with a comedic, clumsy edge, stuffing groovy, electronic beats with the vapid repetition of mulling adolescent thoughts– all to deliver a cliché, underbaked, yet sweeping experiment in American musical theatre.
“Ximer” (pronounced “shimmer”) aspires toward sincerity and radicality, to make a contemporary musical that’s actually meaningful in exploring queer spaces and reflecting on the visibility and vulnerability of individual identity. Unlike pop-pretentious productions “The Prom'' or “Head Over Heels,” “Ximer'' tames the musical theatre genre’s taste for palatable feel-good bops in favor of a dark, insidious persistence pulsing under electronic flair; if Batman is vengeance, “Ximer” is zeal. Set in the club scene of a seedy metropolis called Spectral, the show channels comic-book energy to tell the dark tale of a queer woman who summons the spirits of her past lives to unlock her “Ximer” and avenge the hate-crime murder of her gay brother– nary a Casey Nicholaw teenage cafeteria number in sight.
Breezy, post-disco earworms populate a retro sonic soundpit, with numbers like “Dark Out of the Night'' and “Break the Walls'' juxtaposing a slinky blur of EDM and groove, the romantic crush of shimmering production and vocal reverb providing a frisson of delight even if the venue’s sound design ricochets chaos over clarity nine songs out of ten. The all original score is a mixed bag, though, its club sequins-and-sunglasses vibe often so relaxed it pushed into boredom. Still, the prospect of a queer superhero show is enough to pique critical interest. With producorial help from industry veteran John Lant, and clocking in at almost three hours, it’s an ambitious undertaking and one that perpetuates a simple message: Love will save us. It’s cliché, it’s obvious, it’s slyly profound—it’s “Ximer.”
The key production issue is a weak amalgamation of directing missives and dramaturgical structural instability that push focus in a thousand directions when moments should be pulling us in. The cast includes more than two dozen performers bumping, grinding, and writhing their way around the crime-cluttered city setting across a two-story set design; despite the central role of Miss Dixie/Justice (a poignant, thoughtful Carly Wheeler during my performance) supposedly propelling the plot’s action, a cacophony of confusing lighting design, swallowing stage size, and curiously missing key book scenes gives way to passivity and multiple moments of “wait who’s singing right now?”
The biggest offender is a dragged out exposition (try thirty-minutes too long), positioning Bradley, a small-town boy moving to the big city under the wing of his cool city sister, as the protagonist (Sike! He dies). After a whole third of the show carries us through the most innocuous of Ibiza club soundscapes, replete with actor Daniel Pippert in an endearing, joyous NYC debut, the pacing drudges to sputtering skips in comprehensibility following his character’s death; turns out Miss Dixie’s grief to vengeance pipeline, skill training montages, and newfound superhero identity formation are difficult to stage emphatically and empathetically without the quick-cutability of a camera or drawing panel.
Similarly waffling is a quartet of Miss Dixie (or “Justice” as her hero persona comes to be known)’s past lives, guiding her and the audience through historical moments of pivotal personal pain for each of them linked to their LGBTQ persecutions. Electric performances by Laura Mehl, Bobbie Joan Lowe, Hope Dyra, and Leah Hall infuse energy and provocativity into the piece demanding to be heard and seen. They are accompanied by comic book projection and art design by Erika Reichert and Trevor Trotto that are almost scene-stealing, arresting in their innovation and intriguing construction in blending this comic book-music theatre crossover genre to fruition. With an echo of the powerful, elemental delights of Avatar The Last Airbender, the spirits and their storytelling design should be a high point, yet the quartet’s designated backstories never quite slot together naturally, creating something sticky and awkward via pedantic trauma dumping.
The hyperactivity of this action-packed piece is captured in other frenetic production elements like Emily Rose Phelan’s punchy choreography, Jordan Richards’ stunning fight choreography, or Laura Mehl’s meticulously idiosyncratic and delightful costume design complete with a superhero costume version of Bao Bao Issey Miyake’s iconic geometric handbags.
Dramaturgically, the lyrical and melodic repetition that electronic music (and often just songwriting in general) demands requires reason, something future productions of this show could work to better excavate through more piercing directional clarity. Ferraro and his cast remain grounded in the American realist acting style oft found in our beloved living room dramas, chucking staging opportunities for over-the-top extravagance and exuberance (which would match the musical DNA of the piece) in favor of feigned, scaled down intimacy. Had characters and production design been directed to bubble over in anguish, lean into the absurd, and perhaps even embrace the very melodrama the text demands, the main character’s journey and revelations could have been more clearly elevated and connected, unlocking new heights of radical performance practice to support the show’s ambitious EDM musical landscape, tipping us over into a worthy challenger to the German-Viennese-style mega-musical.
Overall, the songs of “Ximer” pop when they erupt with energy, when the cast’s joy and zeal are palpable. Take “Before You’re a Headstone” or “Ignite the Night,” glistening, limber, and exceptional proofs-of-concept exploding with the earnest, high stakes that eruption into song demands. Even when his songs reek of camp, creator Ferraro has enough moxie to elevate a potentially horrible idea into an intriguing, if not quite eloquent yet, exclamation point. The show is fun, sure, but it’s also a poignant, work-in-progress celebration of the risk and triumph of taking up space in a heteronormative culture, real or fictional. By positioning our cultural ills as urgent, life-threatening predicaments, Ferraro offers a useful framework for interpreting the rollicking, extreme EDM fervor to come. Here’s a way forward, he seems to be saying, winking at us, one that feels good; one that sustains, if we can fight off the darkness around us.
Production credits
“XIMER, An Electronic Concept Musical”
Creator/Director/Music Director: Markus Ferraro
Creative team features:
Producer / Production Manager - John Lant
Choreographer – Emily Rose Phelan
Production Stage Manager – Emily Pierce
Casting Director – Tamra Pica
Sound Design – Leo Leite
Projection Design and Operator - Trevor Trotto
Graphic Design and Artwork – Erika Reichert
Music Supervisor – Erich Rausch
Fight Choreography – Jordan Richards
Assistant Fight Choreographer – Mabon Gibson
Additional Lighting Design - Josh Iacovelli
Assistant Choreographer - Logan Kitchener
Prop Design - Jennifer Steward
Additional Costume – Laura Mehl
Additional Scenic Design – Jessica Fowler
Social Media – Jana Holkova, Teresa Morales
Additional Crew – Jamal Rodgers, Keith Adams, James Hailey
Cast features Katie Miller, Carly Wheeler, Rachel Barsness, Hallie Bond, Emma Brockman, Marisa Budnick, Teddy Calvin, Jay Lucas Chacon, Jayson Dixon, Hope Dyra, Ray Fanara, Sierra Berkeley Fisher, Mabon Gibson, Leah Hall, Daniela Kaplun, Teresa Lafferty, Bobbie Joan Lowe, Sarah McAfee, Laura Renee Mehl, Colby Ourand, Daniel Pippert, Cale Rausch, Jordan Richards, Tyrell Ruffin, Kevin L. Scarlett, and Weston Warren.
“Ximer” runs at the American Theatre of Actors (314 West 54th Street, New York City) from October 19 - 30, 2022. The performance runs approximately two and a half hours, including one intermission. For more information visit www.ximer.live.
Warning: Explicit Content with adult themes - sexually explicit themes, suicide, substance abuse, violence, profane language, NO NUDITY. This play is for mature audiences and is rated NC-17.