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Thanatics -- A Rock Opera

by K.S. Haddock

 

Self-indulgent lectures derail a show with a cool indie-rock sound

review by Chloe Veltman, SF Weekly June 22, 2005

 

Thanatics -- A Rock Opera is not really a "rock opera" in the traditional Rocky Horror Picture Show and We Will Rock You sense of the term. This spirited -- if somewhat self-indulgent -- hybrid features 15 songs performed live by an indie rock band interrupted every now and again by a pseudo-academic lecture about a group of artists, the "SoMa 7," who get themselves entangled in a self-destructive fringe political movement. Although the lecture parts of the performance ramble on incoherently and fail to make sense of the already impenetrable plot (which feels more like an in-joke among the production's creators than anything else), Crooked Family, the band responsible for the show's tuneful medley of rock, punk, rap, funk, country, and metal numbers, is a tight outfit. The songs -- all of which, bar one, are original compositions by writer and director K.S. Haddock -- make you wish you were bopping about at Café Du Nord or Bottom of the Hill instead of sitting awkwardly in a black-box theater.

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