Critical Reception
“Dead aim, deadpan, dead-on new musical! With keen-eyed skill to spare, it manages to spoof everything that characterized the old science-fiction B-movies, from cheesy spaceships (with visible wires and erratic flight paths that send them bumping into the sets) to cheap weaponry (an ‘amplificator’ whose base is an Electrolux vacuum cleaner), stilted language (‘apprehensive’), Cold War paranoia, condescension toward women and utter conviction in the infallibility of the United States.”
“A splendid surprise! This crazy satire is absolutely enchanting. The book is deliciously silly, while the music and lyrics are sveltely appropriate to subject matter and treatment. The music ranges from Doris Day/Perry Como style romanticism, to Neolithic rock and dewy doo-wop. And there is even one number, “The American Way,” that might have been penned by that half-savage Harvard 1950s satirist, Tom Lehrer, with its comment aimed at our nation’s enemies: ‘Don’t just hate ‘em, exterminate ‘em.’ By all means see it - - it’s 24-carat fun!”
“Hilarious! Superb! Marvelous! Out of this world! A droll, tongue-in-cheek book and a zippy score. The plot may be silly, but when was the last time you heard a line with the literary overtones of ‘Never again will the stars glitter anonymously in the fabric of night like so many sequins on a drape’? A dizzy musical above and beyond the call of hilarity!”
“Takes an irreverent look at America’s naïve fascination with space exploration and all the Cold War paranoia that went with it. The songs are funny.”
“James Valcq’s book and songs are 10 times cleverer than anything on Broadway right now! The audience is sent into seventh satire heaven. This is a scream, hoot, and holler from A to Z and will probably turn up on many theatres’ rosters thanks to its small set and cast. Zombies is the most hilarious show of 1995-96!”
“Genial, appealing, with an easy-listening score, circa 1955. Delightful!”
“This dizzy little musical written and composed by James Valcq is so spaced-out you’ll need oxygen to get through it! ‘Second Planet on the Right’, ‘Atomic Feet’, and other numbers threaten to crash through the sound barrier.”
Read more about this topic: Zombies From The Beyond
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“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
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