Khan (Zachary Kropp) is flanked by two of his minions (Crystal Marie Stewart and Laura Whittenberger) in Star Trek parody (photo by Carol Rosegg)
KHAN!!! THE MUSICAL! A PARODY TREK-TACULAR
Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St.
Thursday – Sunday through June 4, $25-$65
www.khaniscoming.com
Brent Black’s Khan!!! The Musical! is a series of missed opportunities, unable to pass its own Kobayashi Maru training exercise, trapping itself too often in no-win situations.
In the 1967 Star Trek episode “Space Seed,” Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of the USS Enterprise exiles Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) and his Botany Bay crew of genetic superhumans to the abandoned planet Ceti Alpha V. Fifteen years later, Khan returns to seek revenge in Nicholas Meyer’s hit 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Khan!!! The Musical!, subtitled “The Parody Trek-Tacular,” running at the Players Theatre through June 4, takes place in 2336, as Lt. Commander Data (Julian Manjerico) is writing a musical about Kirk and Khan’s intense battle, to be performed by a holographic cast of members of Starfleet. The emotionless Data regularly stops the show to inquire how the artificially intelligent audience program is enjoying it and to introduce the next scene.
“Musical theater. Is it merely an archaic four-hundred-year-old art form gone the way of disco, boy bands, and Klingon disco boy bands? Or does musical theater hold insights for all humanoids?” he begins. “As part of my mission to become more human, I wanted to find out. So I forced myself to watch one thousand hours of twentieth-century Earth musicals, then synthesized them all into a playwriting subroutine, and assembled a musical comedy based on one of the most dramatic events in Starfleet history.”
Despite some very clever lines and funny moments, too much of Khan!!! The Musical! ends up feeling like it was written by AI or ChatGPT.
On hand are all the beloved favorites of the starship Enterprise: Mr. Spock (Max Nusbaum), chief medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Lindsey M. E. Newton), chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Newton), helm officer Hikaru Sulu (Clayton Matthews), communications officer Uhura (Crystal Marie Stewart), and Admiral Kirk (Shyaporn Theerakulstit, who played Sulu on three episodes of Star Trek Phase II); in addition, Pavel Chekov (Matthews) is now the first officer of the USS Reliant, the starship taken over by Khan (Zachary Kropp). New to the cast are Lt. Saavik (Laura Whittenberger), a half-Vulcan cadet who believes in following the rules; Joachim (Manjerico), Khan’s subservient right-hand man; Peter Preston (Manjerico), Scotty’s nephew; Dr. Carol Marcus (Stewart), head of Project Genesis; and her son, David (Manjerico).
Oddly, Captain Terrell, who in the film was played by Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Paul Winfield, has been changed into a redshirt, the term used for extremely minor characters who get killed on away missions; he’s listed in the script as Terrell, but my guess is that since there’s no Black actor in the cast, they opted not to have a person of a different background portray him. (The script requests that productions avoid whitewashing.)
Admiral James T. Kirk (Shyaporn Theerakulstit) leads a song and dance as he battles an old enemy in Khan!!! The Musical! (photo by Carol Rosegg)
Khan!!! The Musical! starts off with a bang as it sets the stage for what is to come. Ivey Jenkins-Long’s ultra-low-budget set features bridge consoles on wheels, a handmade cardboard Genesis missile, and a makeshift engineering room. Jolene Richardson’s costumes evoke those of the television series and films, with Kropp looking particularly fine in his torn, open-shirted warrior getup, although I still can’t figure out why they didn’t make a joke about “fine Corinthian leather,” as Montalbán described the interior of the Chrysler Cordoba in a series of mid-1970s car commercials.
Otherwise, inside jokes, pop-culture references, and shots at numerous Star Trek inconsistencies abound. “You know, Khan . . . you seem to leave a trail of death everywhere you go, but like some kind of Imperial Stormtrooper, you keep missing the target!” Kirk growls at his adversary. “The no-win scenario isn’t really about passing or failing. The point is your character,” Bones tells Saavik, who replies, “I have often wondered what the point of my character is.”
Nicholas Kaminski’s music direction and Angel Reed’s choreography pay homage to such classics as Chicago, Les Misérables, Grease, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show in such songs as “Young,” “The Needs of the Many,” and “Buried Alive,” but they quickly become repetitive, and too many numbers are unnecessary, particularly “When the Chickens Come Home,” with giant mutant fowl laying an egg kicking off the second act. Constant mentions of the game Battleship and Joachim’s desire to go bowling are tedious, as are Kirk and Spock calling each other by fan-fiction-inspired lover nicknames, “Frosty-buns” and “Jim-jam”; the concept is good, but it would have been better if they changed the nicknames each time. The show was co-conceived by Black with Alinca Morgan, who contributed “additional materials,” and is directed by John Lampe, who will have to take the Kobayashi Maru again.
It also gets confusing as some actors closely impersonate their characters’ voice and movement while others don’t; Theerakulstit’s embodiment of William Shatner is fun at first but slows down the pace as it continues, and the decision to have David talk like Shatner peters out immediately. And the amount of time spent on Preston is inexplicable.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of my favorite movies, so maybe I was expecting too much from Khan!!! The Musical! There were a lot of Trekkies in the audience the night I went, many of whom were off to the Trek Long Island convention that weekend, and they were having a great time.
The most famous moment in the film is when an angry Kirk clenches his fist and screams out, “Khan!”
After the show, I wanted to scream out, “Khan!!! The Musical!”