‘Night of the Living Dead’ goes live with tongue-in-cheek look at horror classic

TORONTO – The horror classic “Night of the Living Dead” is lurching onto the stage as a tongue-in-cheek theatre show, and yes, you can expect a send-up of beloved scenes from the 1968 zombie film.

But don’t call “Night of the Living Dead Live!” a spoof, says director and co-writer Christopher Bond, who revamped the slasher favourite “Evil Dead” as “Evil Dead The Musical” in 2002.

“One of the things I wanted to do is make this show a tribute to George A. Romero’s work,” says Bond, referring to the original film’s revered director.

“So is it a spoof? No. Is it a comedy? Yes. We lovingly address a lot of the comic moments in the original film but really, by no way do we make fun of anything or any character. We just tell a different story and create a different journey. Which is a comical one.”

The first act of the play pretty much follows the film as fans know it, he says.

That includes a recreation of the panicked efforts of seven people who try to escape a horde of walking, flesh-eating corpses by barricading themselves inside a rural farmhouse.

Because a lot of the film’s action is set inside the house, it was relatively easy to massage the story into a tightly contained play, says producer Chris Harrison, who came up with the idea with co-creator Phil Pattison after seeing a photo of a friend dressed as a ’60s-era zombie for Halloween.

You could tell it was a ’60s-era zombie because their clothes and makeup were all black-and-white, he says.

‘I was like, ‘Oh my God that looks super-cool,’” says Harrison.

“We could probably do this as a theatre play because (‘Night of the Living Dead’) is one house, one location…. And that looks really cool if we kept it black-and-white.”

As a result, the entire set, the props, costumes and make-up are greyscale only. The blood is black.

It’s also PG-rated, so any scares that take place unfold amid a lot of gags, says Bond. He notes that the cast is stacked with Second City alum.

That includes Darryl Hinds, who plays the heroic Ben, and sketch veteran Mike (Nug) Nahrgang (who was Jake in “Evil Dead: The Musical”) as the overbearing Harry.

Fellow comics include Dale Boyer who does double duty as Helen and Judy, Andrew Fleming as both Tom and Vince, Gwynne Phillips as Barbra, and Trevor Martin as Chief McClelland.

The stage play diverges from the film in the second half, when things are decidedly more silly than gruesome, says Bond.

He says producers initially wanted to do a straight stage version of Romero’s frightfest but that he argued for “a totally new experience.”

“I said, ‘Look, any time you try to scare an audience in theatre they just laugh at it. So let’s not fight it, let’s own it. Let’s make this a hilarious comedy, but still be true to the movie, be true to all of George’s work and his themes,’” he says.

“There was a lot of social unrest and fun stuff that was happening in the late ’60s so why don’t we goof on it? Let’s explore that and we do in our show. And funny stuff happens.”

Purists can be assured that all the tinkering was done with Romero’s blessing, as well as that of “Night of the Living Dead” screenwriter John A. Russo and producer/actor Russ Streiner, who played the doomed Johnny.

They’re listed as executive producers of the stage show, which hits Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille exactly 45 years after the original film stunned audiences with its graphic violence and introduced the notion of flesh-eating walking dead.

Co-producer Marty Birthelmer says elements from the film were updated for a contemporary audience.

“We’re not adding new characters or anything like that to any of the original story but we are definitely just updating some of the way that they talk,” says Birthelmer.

“We’re making it flow at a slightly different pace, it’s a little bit quicker.”

“Night of the Living Dead Live!” runs Friday to May 19 in Toronto.

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Online: www.nightofthelivingdeadlive.com