This is one “Twisted” story in the East Village!
Murder, mayhem, incest, an ancient curse and a has-been starlet — it’s just another day in the life of the Delacroix family as depicted in the live action B-movie mashup that is “Twisted,” Joel Greenhouse’s “dark comedy with music.”
Opening on Sept. 28 at the Theater For The New City in the East Village, the production features a multi-talented cast and a multi-tasking one as well. Director Joe John Battista plays guitar in the band as well, and choreographer Sevin Ceviker also appears onstage in various dancing roles.
The play’s genesis dates back to a year before the pandemic; Greenhouse headed up to the Catskills to finish it during the lockdown.
“The idea came from a photo still from a B-movie — a half man/half alligator,” he recalled. “It’s influenced by every lousy movie I’ve ever seen and loved. The worse the better!”
The work slowly evolved — there was no music in the original draft and the theme of motherly love came later — and he couldn’t be happier with the result.
“I love all of the show,” he admits. “I love anything that gets a laugh.”
Brian Belovitch, who plays the matriarch Lavinia Monteblanc Delacroix, relishes the role.
“It’s so wrong in so many ways!” he declares. “I’m not a mean, nasty bitch, but it’s fun to be outrageously rotten. I love being able to explore that part of me.”
Of the play, Belovitch notes that it is “very well written — very zany and kooky, in the vein of the Ridiculous Theatre Company.”
Battista, meanwhile, is glad to have “a script that you can birth your visions from.” He notes that the time is right for the play, after the pandemic years of “isolation and death.”
“It’s time,” he says, “to perform and be free, and be happy that we’re alive.”
We’re not going to spoil anything by revealing the play’s body count, but Greenhouse does note that “the most sympathetic character is the serial killer daughter.”
Throw in a priest, an insane doctor, hookers, a creepy housekeeper, the slimy manager a family with a supernatural secret, and a few other unsavory characters, and you’ve got what Greenhouse simply calls “a plain old good time.”
See it for yourself through Oct. 15 at the Theater for the New City. For show information, visit theaterforthenewcity.
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