CONTROVERSIAL: Poly’s spring musical, Heathers, was canceled due to negative feedback from individuals concerned with the play’s sensitive subject matter.
By Isabel Morehead, Staff Editor
Most can agree that there are some people that should not exist, people that consistently put down others or just generally make life worse. We all know at least one person that we wish would disappear, but what if we could make them disappear forever? What if we could rid the world of all the evil people, the bullies and the creeps, the girls who put down other girls and the guys who don’t take no for an answer? What if we could all just live in peace, with no social hierarchies or queen bees? If you can imagine a world like this, you can start to imagine the world of Heathers, the movie-turned-musical that was almost performed at Poly.
In March of 2018, Poly announced that their spring musical was going to be Heathers, an immediately controversial decision because of its dark and often explicit subject matter. The play was an ambitious choice, as it explores complicated issues that many teenagers face, such as bullying, suicide, sexual assault, and school violence. Almost a year after the show was announced and nearly a month after it was cast, the play was suddenly canceled because of pushback from certain individuals concerned that the play “glorified suicide.” Although the show covers many dark topics, to cancel a show months after it is announced is unfair to the students who put so much effort into the production.
Heathers, the Off-Broadway musical based on the 1988 movie of the same name, is a dark look at teen angst gone terribly wrong. Veronica, the main character of the show, is an outsider who aspires for the safety of popularity to protect her from the perils of high school life. She joins a clique of three vicious girls, all inexplicably named Heather. Though Veronica is now protected from the ridicule she used to face, she is burdened with a new set of problems: guilt stemming from her friendship with these teenage dictators of her school. Her guilty conscience only grows when she meets J.D., the angsty, damaged new kid that catches Veronica’s eye, and who makes her an accomplice in his “accidental” killing of everyone who makes their school worse, which just happens to be Veronica’s new friends. Although the show is dark and shows a side of teenagers and human nature that we usually don’t see or want to see, the show has an important message within the darkly comical musical numbers and croquet games. Just because people are awful in high school, that doesn’t mean that they will be awful forever, and everyone should get the opportunity to grow and change as people. Despite what one of the songs says in Heathers, “Our Love is God,” we are not God, and we don’t get to decide who lives or dies. Most importantly, even though everything right now, from what we wear and who we’re friends with, may seem like life or death, and in the case of Heathers it sometimes is, there is so much more to our lives than just these four years.
The main complaint of those who called for the show’s cancellation claimed that the play “glorified suicide.” Suicide is one of Heathers’s main themes, however, the play’s satirical tone ensures that all the death portrayal does not come across as a suggestion, rather as a way to point out the flawed way our society views teen suicide. In the play, after Martha Dunstock, the main target of the popular people’s cruelty, attempts suicide, she is ridiculed further and seen as someone who only wanted attention. Often, when young people self-harm or attempt suicide, they are torn down as only wanting attention, rather than having actual problems. Heathers humorously addresses these problems, often making jokes concerning suicide, but never suggesting it as a solution. The message conveyed in Heathers is that death, whether it be suicide or murder, is never the answer.
Even after months of work, including casting the show, learning musical numbers, making almost all of the sets, and buying costumes for the characters, Heathers was ultimately canceled because of the negative feedback it received. Despite the fact that the show had been confirmed since last school year, it was only now decided that the play was too controversial for high school theater. Since the play was cast, students put months of effort into putting the show together, from student choreographing musical numbers to spending their own money on clothes for costumes. For school administration to take away a show that students so deeply cared about is deeply disrespectful to all of the students who put their blood, sweat tears, and scarce cash into the production. Mackenzie Gallagher (12), a student choreographer for multiple shows, had already choreographed several of the musical numbers when the show was canceled: Along with the labor that students put into the show, those cast in lead roles were deeply emotionally invested in the show, and to have that taken away was a huge blow to the actors, most of which have only one more show that they get to perform as seniors. And even though the topics of the show were eventually deemed too controversial, certain individuals should have spoken up earlier, instead of waiting until the last minute to decide they are upset.