In this crowded Broadway season of movie adaptations, revivals, and Off-Broadway transfers, the most original and captivating tuner so far in 2023-24 can be found far from Times Square at the intimate Minetta Lane Theater. Dead Outlaw is a dark, fiercely funny satire on America’s warped obsession with crime, fame and death. Based on a true story, the titular stiff is one Elmer McCurdy, a small-time, incompetent train robber whose mummified cadaver is discovered in an amusement park horror ride in 1976. The journey from the desolate lawless West of the early 20th century to that sad amusement pier is one of desperation, alienation and longing to fit in.
This unusual reality-based material is given an imaginative production by David Cromer with a lean muscular book by Itamar Moses and a rock-infused, pulsating score by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna (Yazbek is credited with conceiving the show). Cromer places the action on set designer Arnulfo Maldonado’s wooden, mobile revolving bandstand which resembles a locomotive box car. Heather Gilbert’s lighting sets the garish, ghoulish mood and Sarah Lux’s costumes place us in the proper time period.
Led by folksy, magnetic Jeb Brown who acts as narrator, the onstage band begins the circuitous narrative of Elmer who flees a loveless childhood in Maine to lead a rootless, alcoholic existence. Andre Durand captures Elmer’s volcanic anger and jittery restlessness perfectly—and plays the most eloquent dead body in recent musical theater memory. After a brief attempt at normalcy with a steady girl and a decent job as a plumber, he erupts into a path of singularly inept banditry. Moses mines dark comedy as Elmer commits one screwed-up felony after another.
After losing his life in a shoot-out with the law, Elmer’s corpse changes hands numerous times, progressing from sideshow attraction to movie prop to horror-ride background dummy. Along the way, Yazbeck and Della Penna’s clever score shifts gears and genres, depending on the setting. We get melancholy country as Elmer’s lady friend laments their short-lived romance and later a sweet pop ballad delivered by the lonely daughter of the grade-B moviemaker handing Elmer’s remains. Both are beautifully sung by Julia Knitel. There’s also a very funny Vegas lounge parody on celebrity deaths reminiscent of the satire in Sondheim’s Assassins, smartly put over by Thom Sesma as the famous L.A. coroner Thomas Noguchi.
Trent Saunders has an affecting extended solo as a Native American athlete who shuns the tawdry glitter associated with the world of showmen who exploit Elmer’s body. Eddie Cooper, Dashiell Eaves, and Ken Marks complete the sharp cast, playing multiple roles ably. Throughout the show, the onstage band functions as a kind of rock Greek chorus, reminding us that the dead outlaw’s fate will sooner or later be ours.
