"The Trail to Oregon". Pilch. Review by Katie Kessler

The Trail to Oregon has perhaps one of the most alienating premises imaginable to an audience of British Gen-Zers: a comedy musical based on an edutainment video game from the 1970s about the Oregon Trail. When I first watched it on YouTube, in a free-to-view full pro shoot just like every other StarKid production, I had no clue about the inspiration behind it. I was perfectly happy to go along with whatever this oddly conceived thing was, based on my familiarity with the theatre company and my trust that they’d deliver something entertaining. It was on the same basis that I came to The Mollys’ production of Oregon: familiar with the play and the people who made it originally, I was primed to root for a student-mounted version of it. And I was right to do so.

The story of Oregon is one of a family of five: two parents, two kids and a grandpa, who leave their farm in Missouri to trek the dangerous Oregon Trail and seek their fortune. As these are video game characters, the audience has the chance to choose their names at the start of the play, which are used throughout that night’s performance. This bit of audience participation introduces an element of unpredictability and sets the tone for the improv-heavy stylings of the play. In many ways, Trail to Oregon is perfectly suited to student theatre, not just in scale, but in spirit. The original pro-shoot is filled with purposefully am-dram-infused moments, like the cast cheerfully waving red handkerchiefs to represent a wagon going up in flames, along with fourth wall breaks and meta quips galore.

The Mollys embraced this aspect of the show and carried it forward with their confidence, warmth and comedic chops. But the jokes about seeing something ‘professional’ next door hide the fact that Oregon is a fiendishly difficult musical to pull off, and the Oxford cast and crew nailed it to near-perfection. There are the usual challenges one would expect from a musical, compounded by the limited cast size: big, technically complex songs requiring rock-solid vocals and musicianship that the actors and on-stage band all provided in spades; cunning direction and production design to evoke the 19^th century American prairies and produce an ambitious final set piece in the Columbia River for the climax. But the most important, and the most invisible when achieved correctly, is pacing. On the night I watched, the energy and momentum were high throughout, and the audience were cackling their appreciation as the increasingly absurd misadventures unfolded. Some of that’s a testament to Jeff Blim and Team StarKid’s idiosyncratically witty script, but a lot of it is down to highly competent directing, which for the most part was a faithful recreation of the original, with some fun new touches thrown in, often in the form of background gags. And then there’s the cast.

Six actors carry the breadth of this epic road trip: four play the core family group, one doubles as Grandpa and Cletus, the villain’s henchman/husband(?), and the last plays everyone else, including the villain McDoon, the shyster ‘General Store Guy’, a deformed and lascivious ox, and countless other wacky personalities along the Oregon Trail. Every one of these performers was an individual delight. Sebastian Morson took on the Jeff Blim mantle as ‘Father’ – a farmer whose skills are useless on the trail – deftly carrying the majority of the sung solos, coming across as both hilarious and endearing in his haplessness. ‘Mother’ brought some of the most impressive vocals, as well as a classically engaging musical stage presence. Her character felt the most lived-in and grounded, appropriately so, as she delivers the central emotional ballad, ‘When The World’s At Stake’. Beside these two, Iona Blair and Izabella Angell as ‘Son’ and ‘Daughter’ (ingeniously christened ‘Markiplier’ on my night), brought some great physical character-based comedy, cartoonish with the right amount of three-dimensional sweetness. Vincent Chen handled his dual roles of Grandpa ‘2-in-1 Combination Shampoo and Conditioner’ and adoring sidekick Cletus with creativity and a dash of insanity, gleefully cracking up the audience and his castmates alike with some quick-thinking ad libs.

But the standout for me was Josh Bruton in a manic multi-rolling extravaganza. Juggling his wide roster of characters – not to mention their costume changes – is an impressive feat of timing, distinct characterisation, and sheer energy reserves, all of which Bruton demonstrated slickly and to great comedic effect. There was certainly a note of chaos in his flurry of entrances and exits, and larger than life delivery, but this rather added to the performance. ‘I think I got about 90% of the words there!’ he announced breathlessly after his debut song, ‘Independence’, in which he plays at least five different characters. I was informed that he, along with Angell and Chen, are all freshers, and can only express my admiration for their technical prowess and comic instincts.

Any faults that could be found with the production, I’m inclined to put down to the source material over this cast and crew. Some of the scenes do drag a little, there’s an over-reliance at points on randomness as a source of humour, and there are maybe one too many quirky filler songs. The high tempo of much of the singing also sometimes leads to indecipherable lyrics, a problem particularly exacerbated in this production by Grandpa’s muffling beard. Doubtless, some of the rapid-fire jokes, callbacks, and references to a 50-year-old video game went over the heads of anyone unfamiliar with the play, but fortunately, there are more than enough laughs-per-minute to compensate.

In all of this, what came across stronger than anything was a theatre company having a blast, while paying tribute to a different theatre company who made their name doing the very same thing. These are the minds that brought us ‘Breaking Bod’, after all: a student-written musical parody of popular IP whose genesis harkens back to the unexpected viral sensation that kickstarted Team StarKid, ‘A Very Potter Musical’. Back then, StarKid were nothing but a bunch of talented nerdy theatre kids trying to make their friends laugh. That’s remained the essence of their company even as they reached great heights of success, and it’s what makes their productions such infectiously joyous and beloved cult classics. That same feeling was in the air at the Pilch. It’s nice to know that however much things change, there are still talented nerdy theatre kids out there, using their time and skills to put on something silly and creative and full of heart.