The Unsackable Man
Reviewed by Katie Buenneke
Zombie Joe’s Underground
Through April 30
I’m not a fan of Moby Dick or American football, so perhaps I am not the target audience for the world premiere production of The Unsackable Man, which aims to fuse the book with that sports entity.
The show is a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the classic Herman Melville novel, but here, Ahab (Jonica Patella) is not a ship’s captain, but instead captain of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who, as the worst team in the league, has just drafted college star Queequeg (Zeke Jones). Queequeg will only join the team if his new friend Ishmael (Larray Grimes) can join as well. Under the occasional guidance of Coach Starbuck (Steven Alloway), Ahab and the team try to achieve something that’s been haunting Ahab for over two decades: sacking the legendary Will White, Ahab’s ex-best friend and the number 1 draft pick the year Ahab was drafted. Interspersed throughout are songs, all written by Dan Waldkirch, who also wrote the book, and shares story credit with Tom Klind.
I should preface my following comments by saying that I was in the minority in the audience; everyone around me was laughing uproariously at the show, but while I cracked a few smiles at some funny one-liners, as a whole, the show didn’t work for me. Much of this can likely be attributed to the performances, which ranged at best from intentionally broad to the point of camp to, at worst, perplexingly unmusical (it is difficult to watch a musical when some of the soloists are significantly off-pitch and off-time).
It is also frustrating that in staging an adaptation of a book that features a diverse ensemble of characters, and then setting it in the NFL, which also has athletes from a variety of backgrounds, the cast here is overwhelmingly white, including a White actor in the role of Queequeg, whom Melville wrote as Polynesian.
While the show clocks in at around 75 minutes after a late start, its pacing is odd — spending a good amount of time at the beginning setting up the NFL combine and draft, but then racing through the entire NFL season in a few minutes. Despite this, the show’s back half still drags.
It’s hard not to root for the scrappiness onstage at Zombie Joe’s, as you can see that the whole cast is trying really hard to put on a fun show, and for everyone but me in the audience on opening night, they certainly succeeded.
Zombie Joe’s Underground, 4850 Lankershim Blvd., Pasadena; Fri.-Sat., 8:30pm.; through April 30. ZombieJoes.com. Running time: 75 minutes
