LUCIDMEDIA

Lloyd Kaufman helps launch Toxic Avenger to the Toronto stage

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Thursday, 29 October 2009 13:01

As you go down the Danforth you’ll eventually notice a building adorned with oil drums bearing the distinct yellow and black symbol for radiation. Fluorescent green goop seemingly runs from every window frame and the whole place looks as if it were boarded up. This is the Music Hall, and this is the Toronto home of the off-Broadway diamond in the rough that became a cult gem on the Great White Way itself.

Today is special for the cast and crew of The Toxic Avenger Musical. As they tinker and putter with the show, now in the midst of preview performances before its official curtain raising on Halloween, the man who gave the world New Jersey’s first superhero is in the building, up stairs and in the back.

Lloyd Kaufman co-founded Troma Entertainment with Michael Herz back in 1974. In its some 35 years of operation, Troma has given us such memorable titles as Surf Nazis Must Die, Killer Condom and Rabid Grannies, as well as the movies that came with them. But by far the studio’s biggest success is The Toxic Avenger, the tale of a health club janitor/weakling that becomes a loveably deformed superhero after a swim in some toxic waste.

The concept was solid, and Toxie (as he’s known to his friends and fans) has since gone on to star in three sequels with a fourth one recently announced for a 2011 release. But anyone can do sequels. Being reinterpreted as a musical, although becoming more common, is a rare feat indeed. But Kaufman is, always, extremely confident in his material. “I’m not surprised that the Toxic Avenger has a life of its own,” says Kaufman. “It’s the climax of a lifetime, and I’m certainly grateful, but I’m not surprised.”

Today Kaufman is in fine form. He warmly shakes my hand and hands me a Troma button he takes from his jacket pocket telling me that I was now part of the Troma team. Dressed in a grey sport coat and jeans with a Halloween-patterned tie, Kaufman doesn’t look like your typical studio executive, even when typing on his Blackberry.

Eschewing mainstream Hollywood in order keep creative control, Kaufman and Troma have struggled through the years but have won out in the end. Since the release of the first Toxic in 1984, Troma’s enjoyed a tremendous cult status. Still, Kaufman has remained humble, and grateful, about his own successes. “If you believe in what you’re doing, anything is possible,” he says. “Whenever I make a movie, I always think ‘This is it. This is Beethoven’s Ninth Concerto.’ And then of course six people show up.”

Low attendance numbers is something The Toxic Avenger Musical probably won’t have to contemplate for some time and Kaufman’s not surprised by its appeal. “I think part of the reason is that you never expected it to be a musical,” he explains when asked why Toxic made good stage musical material.

“[It’s] the fact the toxic Avenger is so harsh and so hilarious and so slap stick and politically incorrect and politically significant,” he continues. “So as much as Toxic Avenger steps over the line, it’s the perfect material to make a mainstream musical [out of]. I think it’s perfect; it’s the underdog, and it’s definitely got an interesting political theme.”

The mixture of the serious and the slapstick is what appeals to Kaufman. He says that he became fascinated with Chinese philosophy, particularly Daoism, while he was studying at Yale in the 60s. “The whole trend to mixing gore and comedy together was started by Toxic Avenger, and I think this musical will be a great inspiration for new direction in musicals, totally new and inventive and risky.”

As for the musical that now carries on the Toxic tradition, following all the films, comic books, action figures and even a Saturday morning series, Kaufman has nothing but praise for the cast and crew of the Toronto production. “It is a great musical and I’m an expert on musicals being a gay married man,” he says jokingly. “Toxic Avenger is a one of a kind musical. I’ve seen it a number of times in New York, but I just saw it last night here and it’s better than ever. I mean this theatre here and the environment is just perfect.”

The Toronto version of The Toxic Avenger Musical is not that much different from the New York version, but there are some “‘Canadianisms’ for seasoning” says Kaufman whose pleased that the previous night’s audience was able to pick up on them so well. “They were singing the songs as they were leaving the theatre,” he adds as another indication of Toxic’s reach. “Usually there are very few musicals where the songs are so great you sing them after only hearing them once.”

For his part, Kaufman’s glad to sit back and be moral support and offer morale boosting word of mouth to help the musical along saying that he’s a cheerleader for the production. “The reason The Toxic Avenger Musical is so good is that I’ve have nothing to do with it,” he says with typical self-deprecating humour. “They’ve kept me at mop’s length, so to speak.”

Kaufman admits though that he did have one piece of advice for the musical makers. “The only thing I told David Bryan and Joe DiPietro, and I think I didn’t have to tell them, is that The Toxic Avenger is not a horror film. It does not rely on fluids being squirted at the audience. It’s a comedy. Be funny and boy were they funny. The show is hilarious. It’s much funnier than the movie.”

But Kaufman serves a very important function for the production and it’s one that seems to come so easily for him. He’s a conduit to the fans, he says and he begins to list off some the Toronto fans by name that came to Thursday night’s show. They’re people he’s met numerous times at Bloor Cinema screenings and other Toronto events he’s attended. “The Troma fans turn up anywhere I am, they come to any Troma thing and are very loyal,” he says simply.

Loyalty is something that the Troma name inspires easily. Amongst his fans, Kaufman counts such A-list filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Kevin Smith and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. While continuing to operate on the fringes of Hollywood, the influence of Troma has been translated through these and other filmmakers into the so-called mainstream, and Kaufman sees something similar happening with The Toxic Avenger Musical. “I really think The Toxic Avenger will go down in history as a seminal musical, the same way the movie did.”

Like much of the Troma canon, The Toxic Avenger Musical will depend on the enthusiasm and dedication of the fans, but on this point Kaufman’s not worried. He has precedent on his side. “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead is a musical and people are flocking to see that chicken movie. It’s got very good word of beak. It’s a fowl movement,” he says rattling off the list of puns straight-faced. “People get the jokes. You can have explosive diarrhea and jokes about Schopenhauer. People get it.”

For more information and tickets for The Toxic Avenger Musical, go to http://www.toxicavengertoronto.com/