Can a relationship thrive despite wildly opposing beliefs? This is the question posed by bizarre new musical Killing the Cat, brainchild of American composer Joshua Schmidt and British writer Warner Brown.
Maggie (Madalena Alberto) is a bio-physicist dubbed ‘the next Stephen Hawking’. She believes that humans are “molecular robots” and emotions merely a series of chemical reactions – love included. Freshly divorced and tired of answering questions about her bestselling book, she jets off to Livorno, Italy with (for some reason) her ex-husband’s sister Sheila (Kluane Saunders).
On landing, Maggie swiftly abandons Sheila (and common sense) after laying eyes on Luke, a chest-baring, skinny-jean-clad Aussie governed by all things spiritual and godly – everything she rejects.
Instead of doing the logical thing and putting their conflicting views aside in the interest of a no-strings-attached holiday fling, the couple apparently fall in love after just a few days, and consequently become invested in repeatedly hashing out their views about science versus religion; logic versus the soul; the meaninglessness of existence versus a higher power.
Broadly, these are compelling questions, but the dynamic quickly grows tedious. It’s difficult to feel invested as there’s nothing at stake, and we learn zero reasons for their liking each other aside from “You’re hot”.
Meanwhile, there’s a B-plot involving Heather (Molly Lynch), a plucky young Irish girl who claims to hear dead poets speaking to her, and her travel buddy Connor (Joaquin Pedro Valdes). The pair are gallivanting around Livorno together, but bafflingly we never learn how they know each other or what their relationship is. The pairs’ paths cross at the religious ‘course’ that Luke runs, and conversations ensue about the merits of art and poetry – and Heather’s unexplained voices. The purpose of these is unclear.
The struggle of this show isn’t the cast, who do a good job with what they’ve been given and boast brilliant musical theatre voices all-round, especially Lynch. But only so much character depth can be mined from dialogue that is frequently unnatural and clichéd; Maggie repeatedly says things like, “I don’t do poetry, I do facts.” Schmidt’s score is imaginative and often pleasant – On Such a Full Sea is a lovely, sweeping ballad – but the rampant electronics in The Chemical Brain hurt my brain, and overall the tunes don’t linger in the mind.
Sieving out the overarching message is a challenge, but it seems to be that conflicting views shouldn’t get in the way of true love and happiness. One could get on board with this to an extent, but it’s not like they’re disagreeing on whose turn it is to do the washing up – they’re trying to make a union work despite dramatically conflicting worldviews, and it just isn’t clear why. This is a show brimming with big ideas, but the execution is ultimately confusing and lacking in nuance.
