The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Where Hockey, Horniness, and Heart Collide in Musical Parody
By Ross
How many Susans does it take to get two hockey players to make out? Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody has clearly done its research. Three of them, as it turns out, and they are, as soon as they are done folding their laundry, completely ready to sing about sex, hockey players, big butts, lust, romance, and everything else that makes this particular Crave TV world so deliciously ridiculous. When I previously wrote about the television adaptation, I argued that Heated Rivalry resonated because it placed queer intimacy inside one of the last strongholds of performative masculinity, professional hockey, while wrestling with the complications of representation along the way. What made the story compelling was never simply the romance, but the longing shaped by secrecy, rivalry, and visibility. Turning all that emotional intensity into musical parody feels like a wonderfully logical next step. Theatre has always had a taste for exaggeration, confession, and emotional excess, and this story arrives with all three already built in.
At New York’s Culture Club, the 75-minute Off-Broadway romp, created magnificently by Dylan MarcAurele (Pop Off, Michelangelo!) and inspired by Jacob Tierney’s television adaptation of Rachel Reid’s beloved novels, has enough double entendres, terribly perfect wigs, and powerhouse vocals to keep the parody puck flying from the opening number to the final reveal. It has the most genius framing device one could imagine, giving the Susans the whole knowing-narrator thing, as they are the trio who fully understand exactly why we have all gathered here and are perfectly happy to take us by the hockey-gloved hand and lead us into this kooky, wonderfully camp fantasy world. As directed sharply by Alan Kliffer, Ryann Redmond, Ryan Duncan, and Cherry Torres throw themselves into the madness with the kind of comic and vocal commitment that makes even the most outrageous material land. And we are in it, on the ice with them from the first faceoff.
And there is plenty of outrageous material to play with (my lack of hockey knowledge makes any more puns somewhat impossible, even from this Canadian). MarcAurele has plenty of targets, from the enormous time jumps to the notion that Scott Hunter is anywhere close to being called an elderly man, from Shane’s supposedly humble ‘cottage’ to the mother-endorsed sponsorships that apparently want the entire world thinking about this humble Canadian hockey player’s feet. “Shane Hollander, Slap That Stick!” announces its intentions clearly, while “Big Ass, Cold Heart” brilliantly gives Ilya Rozanov the sort of power ballad that only a musical about hockey, lust, and emotional repression could possibly desire.
The score keeps jumping genres with gleeful abandon. “What We Want” lets the three Susans establish the sexual and emotional stakes hilariously, “Gym Song” turns an 80s jazzercise fantasy into a wild and wonderful “Eye-Fucking in the Hotel Gym“, and “I Can Host” arrives with delicious fervour. Then there is “One Heated Rivalry!“, a doo-wop number from Shane’s teammates that is so catchy you may find yourself wondering why hockey locker rooms have not always been filled with harmonies, and not just hormones.
The centre of all this nonsense is still Shane and Ilya, played by Troy Iwata (Off-Broadway’s The Boy Who Danced On Air) and Jay Armstrong Johnson (NYCC Encores’ A Chorus Line), and both actors understand the particular trick this material requires. Iwata, new to this parody musical (replacing the recently departed Jimin Moon), gives Shane a comic sweetness and naiveté that never loses the earnestness underneath it, while Johnson absolutely nails Ilya’s stoic Slavic delivery and blank stare. Their voices are superb, their comic timing is sharp, and the show is at its hottest when the two of them actually get room to play off one another.
Wisely working the ice from all angles, the production is also intent on honouring the stranger corners of the story. The Scott Hunter and Kip Grady (Ryan Duncan) material gets its own wonderfully silly treatment, complete with some devious and delightful audience participation and a hand-puppet embrace that had the room losing its collective mind. It’s clear these performers know exactly how absurd the assignment is and have decided to take every ridiculous opportunity they can find and skate cleverly forward.
That enthusiasm occasionally works against the central romance. There is so much story to celebrate, parody, and cram into 75 minutes that Shane and Ilya can sometimes feel as though they are waiting for the musical to return to them. A parody can be outrageously funny and still care about why its characters matter. The question hanging over Heated Rivalry is whether there is enough room for the emotional truth that made audiences care about these two men in the first place, particularly as the story moves toward its most consequential moments.
Fortunately, the actors keep pulling the heart back into the room. Iwata and Johnson give the romance enough sincerity to keep the ridiculousness from becoming disposable, while the ensemble surrounds them with an infectious sense of power-play wonder. Director Kliffer keeps the pace moving, and MarcAurele’s score has enough hooks to make the whole thing feel like a 75-minute protein smoothie blended from equal parts ridiculous and extremely clever.
I fully expected Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody to make me laugh, and it did not fail me on that score. But I also found myself rooting for these two hockey players to get their moment, which is probably the sneakiest trick the musical pulls. Beneath the wigs, the double entendres, the big beautiful asses, and the very enthusiastic Susans is a love story that still wants to be taken seriously. Fortunately, it knows better than to ask us to stop laughing while it does it.
