Review: HAPPY PLEASANT VALLEY: A SENIOR SEX SCANDAL MURDER MYSTERY MUSICAL

The title of Min Kahng’s latest offering is certainly a mouthful, so let me break it down. A senior sex scandal – a topic perhaps fraught with awkward silence, snickering or shock. A murder mystery with plenty of suspects and enigmatic clues. And it’s a musical to boot – I’m thinking Sweeney Todd or Chicago. Kahng’s 2017 award-winning musical manga The Four Immigrants was a season highlight for me and HPV is an ambitious venture including smart octogenarian humor, a broken family drama and a nice score.

Jade, a Gen Z vlogger, down ob her luck after some brutal comments are caught live, comes to the aid of her estranged grandmother, June whose past few peccadillos ended in tragedy for her suitors. Sophie Oda (Jade) and Emily Kuroda (June) star in this madcap adventure, surrounded by an ensemble of wacky seniors at the Happy Pleasant Valley apartments. Sexual drives are running at full steam here with multiple partners, bisexuality, sex toys and Viagra. Flaunting their sexuality is empowering and is mined for plenty of laughs.

The supporting cast each has bizarre backstories: Vicki (Lucinda Hitchcock Cone) is a squirrel fanatic, Bernice (Jacqueline De Muro) is a caustic phony, and Danny Scheie tries his best at being macho but explores his bisexuality. Dean, Jade's nonbinary cameraperson (Miller Liberatore) almost steals every scene they’re in. Michael Patrick Gafney has the luckless task of playing the murdered men, each death pointing their cold fingers at June.

The score had some highs and a few lows, hampered perhaps by actors who normally don’t sing. Sophie Oda has a great voice and contributes the lion’s share of the numbers. The three mystery-solvers sing about ‘partnership,’ June sings of her love for Angela Lansbury’s JB Fletcher character from Murder, She Wrote, and Dean has a hilarious song about his infatuation with Jade (“You Pump Me Up”). Danny Scheie’s closer from Act 1 was a clunker full of tired gay innuendos. Kahng’s style is not the typical verse – chorus- verse, his songs are more exposition.

The subplot of Jade’s estrangement from her mother, father and grandmother while interweaved into the main plot, stole some thunder, and added running time. Overall, Happy Pleasant Valley (the pun on the sexual disease was not lost) is a pleasant, entertaining mystery with plenty of potential.

Happy Pleasant Valley – A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical continues through March 30th. Tickets available at theatreworks.org or by calling 877-662-8978.