Review: A Heated Rivalry Musical Parody Comes Hard for the World’s Wine Moms

Hockey players and gay sex. Romance novelist Rachel Reid saw the potential in that combo, and it paid off big time. She wrote a series of books about two hot rivals who secretly fall in love, and Jacob Tierney turned the story into the surprise blockbuster TV show Heated Rivalry, one of the queerest shows to come out of Canada since Schitt’s Creek. Naturally, it attracted a huge following of gay men. Go sports!

But something the producers may not have expected, besides the show becoming the surprise cultural sensation of the past six months, was how well it would play to other audiences. Most viewers who like watching its two main characters pole-check each other in bed are straight women—suburban housewives in particular. I would not be surprised if chardonnay sales have spiked.

The creators of Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody know all this, and its writer, Dylan MarcAurele, has made the smart and hilarious decision to tell this tale of horny puckers through the libidinous eyes of a bunch of housewives (Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, and Ryan Duncan)—all named Susan.

Their jaunty opening number fills us in on “What Women Want”: “Gay hockey players with big butts / Having sex in their beds / On the couch, in their homes / Also in hotels”—getting more explicit as the wineglasses get refilled. Redmond, channeling Aidy Bryant and Melissa McCarthy, is a scream as Main Susan, sporting a gradually unraveling beehive, and dressed in mismatched mom apparel (spot-on costumes by Brenden McCann). “My fellow Susans,” she says to us in a Midwestern drawl, “we are about to go on a wild ride.” She ain’t wrong.

Cramming six hourlong episodes of scripted television into about 80 minutes of musical theater requires big cuts. MarcAurele, however, has somehow managed to hit the high notes, from that first exchange of water-bottle backwash to the elysian fields of the cottage, where Shane Hollander (a ridiculously dim Jimin Moon) and Ilya Rozanov (Jay Armstrong Johnson growling with Russian surliness), discover that their relationship is about more than just hitting from behind. It’s about being able to host.

Moon is terrific as the naïve and awkward Shane, radiating sunbeams all over the stage whenever he smiles. His moving ballad, “This Fuck Was Different,” had me roaring. Johnson, playing a sterner character, gets fewer chances to make us laugh, but he does in his ditty about growing up with his “disabilities” in “Big Ass, Cold Heart”: “The bakery’s open / But no one’s inside,” he bemoans. Heartbreaking.

The rest of the cast is terrific in multiple roles. Duncan shines as shy barista Kip. “Maybe today’s the day that that special guy I’ve been waiting for will walk right through the door,” he pines to his “Girl”-girling co-worker, Maria, played to perfection by Torres. Kip’s dream lover does appear, in the form of a volunteer from the audience who gets an unexpectedly meaty role (if you’re picked, expect to be onstage for at least five minutes). It’s one of the show’s highlights.

Director Alan Kliffer and choreographers Brooke and Tiffany Engen deserve credit for making so much happen on the Culture Club’s stage, which is about as big as a penalty box. Even in such a small theater, the lyrics sometimes got lost in Germán Martinez’s sound design. But that seems like one of the show’s charms with its DIY-like aesthetics. Devin Cameron’s lighting doesn’t have far to go when a spotlight illuminates the whole stage, and Sully Ross’s set, with revolving panels that sometimes seem to get stuck, add to the fun of watching a show that doesn’t have a big production budget.

Kliffer missed some opportunities for sight gags. For all the fuss made over Ilya’s enormous butt, his cake looked normally baked to me (no offense, Jay). But Kliffer bangs it home in the last five seconds of the show, when he gives us what we all came to see: Shane and Ilya in jockstraps. Score!