Super Villain Monologues’ brings on the bad guys
It’s like ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ but for nerds.
- Stacey Bode
- SUPERMAX: Christian Danley, Lucky Yates and Alison Hastings
Dad’s Garage Theatre’s The Super Villain Monologues first seized a stage at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in August of 2010. That may have been the perfect time to see the anthology of diabolical soliloquies, right between the cinematic releases of Despicable Me and Megamind, and part of a wave of flamboyant bad guy spoofs from Adult Swim and elsewhere.
Making its local premiere more than a year later at the Dad’s Garage Top Shelf Theatre, The Super Villain Monologues emerges as an inventive, high-energy show with cleverness to spare, but feels like a step behind the geek cultural zeitgeist. Projects like Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” cast a long shadow over spoofs of sci-fi/comic book malefactors. Directed by Kevin Gillese and Jason von Hinezmeyer, The Super Villain Monologues turns the spotlight on more than a dozen over-the-top evildoers who sneeringly describe their world-conquering schemes when they’re not obsessing over petty grievances.
Christian Danley, Alison Hastings and Lucky Yates portray or operate the puppets of the various villains amid a set that ingeniously replicates a sinister underground lair. Frequently the larger-than-life, inhuman figures get hung up by the minutiae of 21st century society. Lord Overmind tries to rule the Earth from outer space, but gets in a pointless Twitter war with the leader of the rebels. Killbot keeps getting distracted while delivering his speech about humanity’s impending destruction: “Is that a DVR? Oh, snap, those things are great!”