I walk away from MY GHOSTS confused, but on a higher level. Coming to us from the husband-and-wife production team Laros Theater Company (Erica Laros on the Book and
Costumes, Dave on Music and Lyrics), MY GHOSTS is a new musical about a writer battling his inner critics and overcoming the world’s worst case of writer’s block. Cab Curio (Played by
Dave himself) is a writer/musician holed up in the family mansion, struggling to put pen to page for a biography of Shakespeare worthy of the bard himself. In a twist of fate that would be the envy of any literary agent, Curio is informed he’s contracted “The Ring-itis” and will be dead in seven days’ time, book or no. So time to get cracking, bucko.
Double whammy, Curio is also tormented (haunted? It’s unclear) by the three shadows of great writers past: Shakespeare himself (Mundo Ballejos), his gender bent rival Christopher Kit Marlowe (Jessie Grimaldo), and Jack Wilson (Justin Anthony). Who? Quick Bing lists him as a member of Shakespeare’s contemporary troupe who may or may not have been their resident musician. A very obscure character that Laros essentially uses to build a musical foil to Shakespeare and Marlowe. It’s Kirk/Spock/Mccoy if you squint, and the three inner critics are a lot of fun running around as a leather-jacketed gang of pretentious assholes.
Finally, Curio is haunted by the actual ghost of his long-dead mother, Lenore (Jilliam Soares), who protects him through the back half of the book as both a spirit guide, muse, and, despite the text’s best efforts, some kind of lover. For all the obvious Shakespeare fanaticism that scaffolds much of the show, there’s a deep undercurrent of Poe (Edgar Allan) that runs through MY
GHOSTS. Not just the incest (it’s true, Bing it); the music itself comes out in a very moody, cabaret style, and the book frequently leans on gothic tropes as a parallel to the Jungian ‘Shadow Work’ that Erica Laros calls back to.
The music and composition as a whole get two big thumbs up from me, with a special shoutout to accompanist and music director Sean Allen Andrews on the piano. Rebecca Frazier on
direction and choreography also has a brilliant eye for Laros’ vision; the combined work of Andrews and Frazier makes every number a real hit. Unfortunately, the book proper is where
MY GHOSTS trips over the finish line, with both thudding dialogue and a muddled narrative arc. Much of the patter between musical numbers fumbles the momentum, and the exact mechanics of Curio’s two different flavors of haunting get very confused.
With MY GHOSTS, Laros Theater Company has a project that both hits and misses. As a musical or cabaret it works much more than it doesn’t, and the overall instinctive strangeness of
the creative team is very promising. But it‘s ironic that for a show about a writer being tormented by inner critics, MY GHOSTS feels as though the dialogue and structure are in serious need of some punch-ups. It’ll take more than a week, but I hope this project doesn’t die with its true potential still inside it.
The Independent Artists movement 