Review: BAT OUT OF HELL: THE MUSICAL at Palace Theatre

Wherever BAT OUT OF HELL: THE MUSICAL takes him, resident director/swingman John Zamborsky carries two important souvenirs with him to keep him focused – his father Ed’s two original CDs of Meat Loaf’s BAT OUT OF HELL and BAT OUT OF HELL 2.

The musical played a one-night engagement at the Palace Theatre in Columbus on April 19.

As the youngest member of his family, Zamborsky grew up listening to what his dad and his brother Teddy were interested in, which was mainly U2 and Green Day. Meat Loaf was not on the menu.

The actor recalls seeing clips from the London production of BAT OUT OF HELL: THE MUSICAL during the pandemic.

“It captivated me during a time when we all needed a little something to stay motivated,” said Zamborsky in an interview from Rockford, Ill. “I remember singing some of the music around the house and my dad goes, ‘Was that ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light?’”

Stunned, Zamborsky asked his dad, “You’ve heard of it?”

“He goes, ‘Have I heard of it? I grew up to it.’”

That’s both the draw and the danger of Jim Steinman’s music. While it comes with a built-in 50-and-over audience, jukebox musicals run the danger of relying on nostalgia, being underperformed by its actors, and/or having a paper thin plot. BAT OUT OF HELL avoided two of those three pitfalls. As Meat Loaf, the voice behind the two albums of which the show is based, sings “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

Whether they realize it or not, most of the baby boomers have heard Steinman’s signature pieces. In addition to Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut BAT OUT OF HELL (which sold over 43 million copies), Steinman penned hits for Air Supply (“Making Love Out of Nothing at All”), Celine Dion (“It’s All Coming Back to Me”), and Bonnie Tyler (“Total Eclipse of the Heart”).

Going to this musical was a refreshing whiff of the era of Izod polo shirts and feathered-back hair. The moment that drew the biggest laughs in the two-act musical came when Raven (Paige Anne Mills) and Strat (Reece Duncan) discover they are both 18 but Strat has been stuck at that age for life. Raven exclaims, “What happens when I turn … 30? (Incredulous gasp) Or 38? Or 39?” The audience laughed a little too knowingly.

The staging leaned heavily into minimalism. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it seemed to be made up of the remnants of a shattered society. One interesting fixture was a massive video screen showing the musical from different angles.
Tom Samuels moved through the show with a handheld video camera, giving the show a voyeuristic, reality television feel.

What the show lacked in pyrotechnics and scenic design, BAT OUT OF HELL made up for with vocal fireworks. It thrived on powerhouse rearrangements of the songs. A high point of the show was a reprise of “It’s All Coming Back to Me” by Mills, Duncan, Sloane (Tori Kocher), and Falco (Travis Cloer). Those four gave the number a much harder edge than Dion’s cover.

What the audience didn’t see was an even more dramatic story unfolding behind the scenes. When the tour bus rolled into Capital City, leads Travis Cormier (who normally plays Strat) was sick and Carly Burns (Raven) had a scheduled day off.

Zamborsky has been a part of three shows, ROCK OF AGES, QUEEN’S WE WILL ROCK YOU and the Christian boy band parody, ALTER BOYZ, centered around rock and pop bands. He said BAT OUT OF HELL is “the hardest, most demanding show I've been a part of.”

“Being on the road is always tough, but being in a rock show that's so physically and so vocally demanding is really hard,” Zamborsky said. “There have been plenty of nights where you want to go out and explore a city, but you have to stay at the hotel and rest.”

The resident director also serves as a swing for the production. Zamborsky can play nearly any of the male roles in a moment’s notice.

“I have what people call ‘a swing brain,’” said the actor, who filled as Esquivel in Columbus. “You have the ability to see the big picture of something and understand how to easily slot yourself in to make it work.

“My responsibility is to teach other people their understudy roles so they’re ready to step in when needed.”

In Columbus, Zamborsky and dance captain Paige Anne Mills stripped the cast to its bare essentials, eliminating three chorus roles and having actors play musical chairs with the roles.

While it sounds like a recipe for disaster, it wasn’t. If you hadn’t seen an earlier performance of the tour, you wouldn’t have sensed anything was wrong.

The high-octane vocals weren’t limited to the main four actors – it carried through the cast. Led by Kris Bona (Jagwire) and Tamara Denecia Daly (Zahara), the company mixed ballads and blasters with tightly choreographed routines.

The band, directed by keyboardists Greg Paladino and Luke Molloy, flipped the voltage switch to give the show a robust rock concert feel.

Like so many rock musicals, the drawback to BAT OUT OF HELL: The Musical is the plot. Some shows (MAMMA MIA, QUEEN’S WE WILL ROCK YOU) try to find ways to shoehorn songs into the storyline.

I didn’t feel that was the problem with BAT OUT OF HELL. When he was writing the music for Meat Loaf’s debut, Steinman had a vision of PETER PAN in mind. What comes across though is a muddled mixture of PETER PAN with elements of ROMEO AND JULIET thrown in for good measure. The storyline is hard to follow and often segues away from the main plot.

Steinman is an incredible composer and a great lyricist and his show has a solid assortment of musical numbers to it. What the show needs is stronger character development. I saw the roles; I just didn’t understand the why behind their actions. They didn’t feel fully developed.

In the end, BAT OUT OF HELL was like meatloaf -- not the singer, but the food. The perfect meatloaf needs to have the best ingredients, the precise measurements, and cooked at the right temperature for the right amount of time. This production was still tasty, but it felt a little undercooked.

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