Posted: 3/28/23 at 12:01pm
I went to a staged reading yesterday of a new musical called The End of All Flesh by Greg Kotis (Urinetown) and thought it deserved a little attention.
Billed at a "post-Apocalyptic bluegrass musical" it's set in a potential future where humanity has destroyed the environment to the point, no one has electricity, and everywhere but the mountains is too hot to comfortably live. The piece focused on a three person nuclear family of "Pa", "Ma", and "Boy". The fourth character "Girl" is Boy's love interest, and is the catalyst for the story's central conflict.
The patriarch is sexist, lazy, and potentially violent, and the younger generation wants to remove him from the family compound to start their own family. Meanwhile the mother is just trying to keep the peace, while also harboring a secret desire for a polyamorous lifestyle, which I'm not sure how that would even work, in a world where almost all of humanity is dead.
Kotis, taking advantage of the huge white beard he grew during the pandemic, played the father and his real life wife Ayun Halliday played the mother. All of the characters are intentionally broad caricatures, and in that context Halliday was the standout from an acting perspective.
The story was a lot of fun, and brisk, at less than 90 minutes. I also enjoyed the bluegrass songs, which Kotis composed after learning the banjo.
In a talkback, several people pointed out the girl's backstory, which isn't revealed until the end, as the part of the story they'd like to see developed further. The twist is the most compelling part of the story, and exploring her secret connection to this family earlier, would provide the narrative with more conflict.
The End of All Flesh isn't at a scale that would make sense on Broadway, there's no version of this story that would require more than four actors, but hopefully the piece will end up on off-Broadway eventually.
