By Kathryn Olsen
As soon as I spotted Doctor U on the list of upcoming productions for Salt Lake City’s Off-Broadway Theatre, I announced to a close friend that her attendance was not up for debate. After all, she had been the one to introduce me to Time Lords, timey-wimey, TARDIS, the Doctor Donna, Weeping Angels, and wibbly-wobbly stuff in the first place. I have not come across the work of Logan Rogan and Mike Brown, the playwrights-cum-cast members, but remembered a prior production at this theater as being both hilarious and more than a bit improvisational. Brown, the director, even says that the original 2013 cast grew so close that they would get together for months afterwards, and theaters as far away as Texas produced runs of the show. I looked forward to laughing myself quite silly over things that are a second language to me now and my friend, and I were seated just downstage of the TARDIS on the front row.
The plot of the play, while satirical, could absolutely be something out of Doctor Who or its campy spin-off for kids known as The Sarah Jane Adventures. The Doctor’s old nemesis, the Master, turns up in his secret lair in Magna, UT, and employs everything from Daleks to Cybermen to take down everyone’s favorite time-traveler. Along the way, they cheese off Ben Franklin, meet the female writer behind H.G. Wells, and even have a visit from Rick and Morty. The story takes place in and around the TARDY (Time and Relative Dimension, Yo!), small-town Magna, Barro, and a Pennsylvania hillside. The entire plot hinges on Benjamin Franklin never inventing Daylight Savings Time, so the Doctor’s entire personal history will be one hour late to arriving in the nick of time. Really, it’s quite brilliant in its own right, and it frequently makes use of the comic gold that occurred when 13 Doctors teamed up for the 50th anniversary special episode.
The strength of any comedy show is in its ensemble cast, and this production is helmed by Zachari Reynolds and Rogan, who previously worked together on Transformers: Mormon Meets the Eye. Rogan has a flair for the Doctor’s incomprehensible monologues and life-changing epiphanies, while Reynolds’s interpretation of the 11th Doctor is dead-on, down to the fantastically alien body language. They both occasionally break the fourth wall to great effect, but they know how to turn misspoken lines into improvised hilarity. Both of them are veterans of the theater’s regular improv shows, and it is noticeable.
The second dynamic duo is that of the two companions, Billie and Karen. Jessica Stevens’s performance has a feminist flair independent of Rose Tyler, the beloved companion that she is imitating, but she is still recognizable as an homage to that long-running series regular. Zoe Smith is a newcomer to this particular stage, but her sometimes-sporadic insertions into the story make you wish for more, and she effectively channels the devil-may-care audacity of her Doctor Who counterpart, Amy Pond.
And of course, no drama would be complete without an evil overlord and a mistreated henchman. Clarence Strohn plays the Master with the dress sense of John Simm but the scattered masterminding of the older seasons of the show. He, in fact, would be well placed in the epic Doctor Who spoof, The Curse of Fatal Death. In this case, his henchman, Cornucopia, is played by the multi-talented Cylie Hall, who you would never identify as the real-life operations director of Utah Repertory Theater Company from her subservient and pandering persona in this role.
An unexpectedly varied character is stage manager Eric Jensen’s Benjamin Franklin. He swings into action on the 1752 day when he experimented with a kite and winds up consorting with aliens in a time machine, all while showing a flair for hip-hop and comically missing some fairly obvious jokes. He responds to every utterance of “Get down!” with moves that belong in a dance club.
Many of the best moments are from ensemble members who are not identified by their characters in the program. We have Toby and Tequila, the Daleks who want to be seen as individuals and even need a hug at times. Ben Franklin ruthlessly trolls a Weeping Angel. Marty McFly skates in to warn the Doctor about the Libyan Nationalists from Back to the Future, and Rogan effortlessly sends him off with a convincing Doc Brown impersonation. The Doctor foils the efforts of a Cybermormon who was on a two-year mission to convert humanity into emotionless robots.
The show, while something that made me laugh a lot, is not for the faint of heart or ignorant of fandom. Unless you are familiar with Doctor Who’s stranger laws of villains, you won’t understand how funny it is that the Doctor and his companions help a stranded Dalek (renamed Derelicts in the show) get to safety before running for your lives. Anyone can appreciate the time traveler’s cause and effect, but without deep knowledge of the Doctor’s world, you likely won’t recognize that the Doctor’s propensity for having a current punishment fit a future crime can be traced to such incidents as him having no idea why Queen Elizabeth I orders his head cut off at first sight. It’s not mandatory to have seen a lot of Doctor Who to understand it, but the jokes will sometimes be inaccessible to the casual observer.
Praise has to be given to those who designed the play’s standing environment. The TARDY console includes a TV remote and an Atari joystick. Pennsylvania 1752’s setting is created by an idyllic matte painting backdrop. All time travel is highlighted with Christmas lights around the stage. The costumes perfectly match well-known outfits from the original show, but they also branch out to give us Derelicts with a weapon resembling the love child of a potato masher and a kitchen whisk.
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Where the show leaves some things to be desired is the often culturally tone-deaf humor. There are instances of homophobia and transphobia, and Ben Franklin is turned into a lecherous old man who licks another character’s hair lasciviously before commenting that he likes “salty” dirty old men instead. In audience interaction, he physically lavished unwanted and very sexualized attention on a front-row audience member and announced that he was going to kiss her on the lips. The new Doctor is shown just long enough for us to deduce that she’s either lesbian or ignorant of history. When the two companions are forced to battle each other, all is fixed by playing “Let’s Get It On” so they can gyrate like pole dancers for the enjoyment of the rest of the cast.
What had several audience members booing emphatically at times, however, are the writing of the interactions between Master and Cornucopia. The henchman is devoted heart and soul to her Master and ultimately rejected, but in a sexualized way that caused my viewing companion to announce, “They would never allow this if a man were stalking a girl like this, so having a girl do it is no less inappropriate.” In the context of the show, the talented and brilliant Hall only engages in such behavior to show she’s repulsive to everyone. She’s also rejected as a romantic interest by the Cybermormon because she’s a “special spirit.” (“It means you’re worthy to be translated into heaven, but too heavy to get off the ground,” explains Karen.) Having finally declared herself to be her own woman and no longer enslaved to the Master, Cornucopia finds a new love interest: Ben Franklin. “Whaddya say, Benji?” she chirps. “I say…I’m not picky!” he replies. Many similar lines were one-offs by the villain, and you’re supposed to hate him for being such a morally corrupt and heinous man, but when the stars of the show are doing it, it’s a break in character. The show tries to turn slut-shaming, body-shaming, and fat-shaming into a running joke and instead comes off as a merry band of misogynists. When so many other things were done right in the show, it’s unfortunate that they crossed so many boundaries for a cheap laugh.
This is a show that will keep fans of the original in stitches, but the MPAA would probably rate it at PG-13. The sets are ingenious and even play a part in the self-aware comedy. The musical numbers are sometimes an added bonus instead of an integral part of the plot, but they were well staged.
Grab your vortex manipulator and a sonic lipstick and come to laugh at innovative homages to a well-loved, classic show. Just don’t bring the kids.
Off Broadway Theatre presents Doctor U by Logan Rogan and Mike Brow
Off Broadway Theatre, 272 S Main St., Salt Lake City, UT 84110
June 15-July 21 (Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays) 7:30 PM
Tickets: $10-16
Contact: 801-355-4628
The Off Broadway Theatre’s Facebook Page
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