I attended the opening weekend of the world premier of Higher! Higher!, a new musical written by a brand-new arrival to the theatre scene, Nobel-nominated academic luminary and ethics expert Professor Tom Cooper. Actually, if weʻre being precise, I attended half of a new musical (at full ticket price): a 70-minute semi-staged sing-through of the musical numbers of Higher! Higher!, intercut with narrative voiceover instead of dialogue to explain the plot and set up each song. As I exited the theatre, I was left with more questions than answers.
Questions like: Why? And What? And No, seriously, what?
But among those head-scratchers, I was also left with another, more potent question: Did I just witness the birth of a new cult classic?
Hear me out.
On its surface, Higher! Higher! is a charmingly antiquated vision of a technodystopia and lofty ideals, punctuated by a series of forgettable and derivative tunes with lyrics that surely must have worn out Professor Cooper’s rhyming dictionary. But woven into this tapestry of schlock lies a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be polished up and shared with the world. With the exception of the shady warmongers playing villainy with all the subtlety of Snidely Whiplash (LeGrand Lawrence, Paul Garcia, and Mathias Maas, spectacularly clad in dress shorts and knee socks), director Brad Powell has inexplicably opted to have every character play the action of this show with deadly seriousness. This, despite the fact that one of the characters is named—and I’m not making this up— Christopher Vanderbilt Rockefeller Gates Bezos Sharkey IV. Not to mention such gems as: a “Zoom-watch smartphone”, an AI-powered wand that can project your memories in 3-D (no! In 4-D!)*, a hard-boiled private eye who discovers the meaning of love by duetting with a mountain, and ham-fisted social commentary directed at the audience like some kind of Victorian morality play. But the best part is that all of this is performed by some of the most talented singers on O'ahu. Vocal powerhouses Kyle Malis and Lea Woods Almanza as detectives Cutler and Rose lead the company, accompanied by some genuinely stunning vocals from Sage Roman (King/Lighthouse Keeper) and Guy Merola (Chris), as well as strong performances from the rest of the company. The talent in this show is off the charts, but sadly wasted in the show as it currently stands.
Higher! Higher! is undeniably, if perhaps unintentionally, absurd. It is high camp. It is B-movie trope after B-movie trope, standing on the shoulders of giants like Bat Out of Hell and Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. It is Florence Foster Jenkins wielding a batarang. It has the potential to become a chaotic sing-along night, revived every year, with people showing up in their own homemade dress shorts and shell tiaras, aping the “secret handshake”, shouting “strike!” at the end of “Blackballed”, and waving their glow sticks high in the air as they belt out the finale. It could be great, if only Professor Cooper would Hire! Hire! an editor.
Go see it for yourself, and hopefully you’ll understand what I mean.
*this plot point is not presented on stage, but is mentioned in the full script, which you can read in its entirety on Professor Cooper's website. I genuinely don’t know if reading it helped or hindered my understanding of the plot, but that’s not really the point. The point is that there are jokes in there that only make sense when written. And also helicopters with scorpion tails.
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