Wanzie’s Monorail Inferno opened with a fabulous opening number. The theater was dark, and the actors on stage held flashlights that created a menacing effect. I was excited, it looked like we were in for an amazing ride. Unfortunately that high energy suddenly died when the first act got under way.
A bored transgender Disney hostess guided wide eyed tourists around the stage. On the monorail any impending doom was masked by the mundane. The monorail got stuck on it’s tracks leading to a forced purgatory for everyone on board and the audience. A teen wore a red bow worthy of Minnie Mouse and her boyfriend just seemed to be along for the ride. a thin rail of a woman was a choreographer who was stuck doing choreography for theme park shows. A southern bell sat next to a southern hick. A small girl got into a screaming fit and was bound and gagged by the passengers. Each person on the monorail seemed like a caricature, rather than someone with a personal history worth learning.
The southern hick had issues with the Disney Hostess but thankfully they were separated by the line of seated passengers. There was some resolution as they both told aspects of their past that showed that they both suffered and suffering is a game that needn’t be won. After a long wait, passengers were finally allowed to disembark and the hick was the first to leave. He left behind a package which I thought was a staging mistake, but it was the cause of the inferno to follow. The show is a musical but several numbers could clearly be cut without
slowing down the plot. The worst is when a passenger breaks into song
for no apparent reason. The final number had the entire cast dressed in white singing and dancing in heaven, finally finding the happiness they never found in life. I suppose the story was intended as a morality tale but I was confused.
