Who are the Characters in LBHS’ Musical, Ride the Cyclone?

LBHS Continues Pattern of Controversial Plays

Note: This article contains material some may find offensive. Please be advised.

In a May 9 article promoting LBHS’ spring theater production, Ride the Cyclone, which opens today, Methow Valley News was in defense mode. Clearly, they could not escape having to explain why LBHS chose a play as dark and sexually charged as their current production.

The article opens like a hackneyed press release. “Clever, hilarious, and unconventional production by the Liberty Bell Drama Company, takes a seemingly dark premise- and imbues it with humor- in an exploration of what it means to live a life well-lived.” Funny? Clever? Perhaps, but at what cost? It’s certainly not unconventional. Not for the Liberty Bell Drama Department, which can’t seem to find a noncontroversial play since Danbert Nobacon, a self-described anarchist, and LBHS theater director Kelly Grayum took the helm. Nobacon stepped down for this production, but his influence, through his protégés, continues.

Grayum insists kids want this type of theater. “The [student] committee wanted to do a musical that wasn’t ordinary and to present something more interesting, dark and “edgy,” he tells MVN. If true, this state of affairs is of their own making. Most of these students haven’t seen a noncontroversial production at LBHS since before puberty. Dark plays seem normal to them. The bar has been set. The question now is, how far are you willing to go?

With one swoop, anything that isn’t controversial is seen as dull and boring. Grayum says as much, telling MVN, “It’s not your standard, industry-created, trope-following musical.”

Steeped in Sexuality

Grayum is right. It’s not a play one would normally choose for a high school production, unless, of course, you’re LBHS. The original production, which the high school version is based on, includes the following direct quotes, references, and scenes: fornication, repeatedly touching one’s groin, erection during a Biblical nativity scene, gay person wearing sexy women’s clothes, aforementioned gay person portraying a sex worker and singing, “I want to be that f*** up girl,” boy kissing another boy on the mouth, boy touching his groin to another boy’s groin, aforementioned sex worker dying alone in an alley, burning oneself with cigarettes to feel “alive,” “porno is magical,” “sexual provocation,” “sexual betrayal,” “grab your dicks,” “make love to me,” sticking the middle finger, reference to drug use, underage drinking, calling girls “bitches,” girl gyrating her butt at a boy, boy slapping girl’s butt, boy acting as a stripper, statutory rape monologue- teenage girl describes losing her virginity to a 32 year old man in a porta potty, “My virginity, I just wanted to get it out of the way. I just wanted to do it so I didn’t have to think about it anymore,” and “No, I just wanted to lose it in the most horrible way possible.” These are actual quotes and scenes from the adult production. Someone looked at it and thought it would be a great idea to bring to LBHS.

In an email, Merc Playhouse Executive Director Kira Wood-Cramer assures that LBHS is performing the high school version of the play. “I have watched a live performance of the adult version, and I can assure you that our high school script is very much different from the adult version,” she writes. “Our lyrics and blocking are cut down to accommodate for the age of the actors we use.”

This is problematic for three reasons. One, even if you make the play more palatable for younger audiences, the vector still points to the original. It’s like a fairy tale which you don’t fully understand until you’re an adult. At some point, if it hasn’t occurred already, these student performers will watch the adult version. How will they feel about their characters? Will they feel betrayed?

Two, even if a character’s monologue about rape is taken out, that was still the writer’s, Jacob Richmond’s, intention for that character. 

The third problem is that many sexual references are not taken out. Instead of wanting to be a female sex worker, the gay male character now wants to be a femme brisée, or broken woman, in the high school version. 

Then there are lines like this, which pop out of nowhere:

When a lioness has children, she stops making love to the lion. The lion gets jealous, sometimes so jealous he eats the children. You’d think this would upset the lioness. Far from it, they make love again, like the children never existed. I find that idea terrifying.

There is enough shock to wonder, what is going on here? Grayum will say they are not allowed to make any changes to the high school “adaptation.” Even if they could, it would be a challenge to redeem this play. It was never meant for young audiences. Sexual and dark themes intertwine with the narrative. All of the male characters remain horny in the high school version. It’s a pubescent boy’s dream.

When this writer asked for a copy of the high school version of the play, she was told it would only be available in the LBHS front office and could only be read under supervision.

Who are the characters in Ride the Cyclone?

The story begins with a freak accident. Six students from a Catholic school choir die on a roller coaster that goes off the rails. One girl is beheaded and no one knows her identity, except that her body was in a school uniform. In the afterlife, the students are greeted by Karnak, a mechanical fortune telling machine that promises to return one life back to Earth. Each character reveals aspects of themselves they hadn’t shared. The personal stories bring the group closer together. It’s a nice story arc, if it weren’t for so many unsavory details.

Noel, a gay student in the Catholic high school, fantasizes about being Marlene Dietrich’s character, Lola, in the 1930 German film noir, The Blue Angel. Lola, a sex worker in a cabaret, leads the protagonist to madness. 

Noel sings-

For I sing songs until the break of dawn
I commit a new crime every night
My life’s one never-ending carnival

I want to be une femme brisée.

The second male character, Mischa, a Ukrainian immigrant, is a gangster rapper who can’t stop fantasizing about an intimate relationship with a Ukrainian girl he has only met online.

… when I look into your eyes, I do not see the boy I am, but the man I must become to possess you.

Then, there’s Ricky, who became mute when his preacher father was bitten by a venomous snake. The character imagines himself a tomcat on a planet with female cats. Compare the original and the high school versions:

I guess you could say I'm pretty sexy on another planet! Lo, I'm a rival prophet from the Zolarian Starcluster, supreme leader of those that evolved from cats. There are seven suns on the planet Zolar, so the gravitational pull makes everything harder, longer, wider…

wetter. (Original version)


I guess you could say I’m pretty bangin’ on another planet. Lo, I’m the prophet from Zolarian Starcluster, supreme being of those that evolved from cats. There are seven suns on the planet Zolar, so the gravitational pull makes everything seven times… more bangin’..-er… -ee. Bangin’ery. (High school version.)

Is there a problem with an adult male playwright imagining children having sex?

Depending on how you read it, the character of Constance continues the theme. In the adult version, she has a monologue about losing her virginity to a 32-year-old carnival worker in a porta potty just before riding the roller coaster. Here is an excerpt of her song in the high school version:

I used to think that life
Was just a jawbreaker
You suck and you suck
And you suck some more
I used to think that life
Was just a heartbreaker

It breaks and it takes ’til you can’t take no more (Ensemble)

And now I’m floating high on a cloud
And I could puke a rainbow! (Constance)

The character of Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg, a straight A student who embodies the Mean Girl chic, is tame by comparison. She puts down her fellow classmates for being, well, unlike her.

Okay… It’s clear, I’m the top of the class
These folks here, well they pump the gas
Fetch me a coffee, shine my shoes
Some of us are winners, some were born to lose

You got the sandwich artist, the security guard?
The Walmart greeter with an overdrawn credit card
He “smokes ganja,” ooo, it’s so groovy
To stay at home and watch an Adam Sandler movie?

She serves me a coke and a medium fries
And no thanks, I don’t want it supersized
‘Cause that’s low class diabetes in a cup!
Keep your head down and things will look up

Ocean finds redemption in the end, but not before making her character look cool to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

The arc of the play stays true to the original production- that life can feel meaningless, that in the pursuit of truth there are no morals, that there is an aimlessness about life and morality is relative. What’s held sacred can sink into depravity, and what’s depraved can be accepted and turned into self-sacrifice.

MVN concedes that the show is rated PG-13 and may not be suitable for young children. Last year, LBHS distributed free tickets to all students for Mamma Mia, another sexualized production. This year, they are limiting free tickets to a few students and family of the cast and crew, according to their promotions.

Would the adults in the room please step forward?

Methow Valley News Publisher and Editor Don Nelson, who sits on the board of the Merc Playhouse, couldn’t or chose not to explain why the Merc is lending its stage to these kind of high school productions. Last spring’s production of Mamma Mia included a reference to oral sex, teenagers intimating sex, and songs and a story arc that celebrated promiscuity. Last fall’s production of one acts included a minor in lingerie in bed next to a boy, curse words, a character of an inmate touching another inmate’s thigh and, again, an undercurrent of dark themes. The LBHS playbill had a warning on the cover, “Some strong language and adult themes.” The question arises, why are minors performing adult themes?

Wood-Cramer, who is co-directing the spring production with Grayum, did not respond to a request to be put in contact with a representative of the Merc board. Her parting words were a now predictable response from the LBHS Drama Department- the students wanted it.

“Our High Schoolers were extremely adamant about performing this show. At the Drama Company, we respect our students’ input and they have always had a strong voice in all aspects of the performance. As an adult in the rehearsal process, I have made extreme efforts to make sure our actors feel comfortable and are safe in their environment.”

Somehow, helping high schoolers feel comfortable performing sexualized subject matter does not feel altruistic.

Grayum declined to talk about the play with anyone besides the writer in the room. He requested that concerns about the play be referred to LBHS Principal Elyse Darwood.

Darwood declined to comment for this story.

Ride the Cyclone runs May 14-19 at the Merc Playhouse. Tickets can be purchased through the Merc Playhouse here.