By Alidor Aucoin on May 23, 2012
Dracula meets Dogpatch in Haunted Hillbilly, the honkey-tonk black comedy at the Centaur until June 3. The show is based on Derek McCormack’s book which is centred around a hapless backcountry buck, Hyram Woodside, who sells his soul to the devil to win acclaim as a singing sensation known as “The Lonely Boy.”
The premise has been around for centuries: Luc Plamondon did it in his musical, La Légende De Jimmy, in which movie hearthrob James Dean sold his soul to the devil for stardom. In this case the Nashville setting is part of the joke. The play is send up of Hank William’s career -, the self destructive cowboy singer who was fired by the Grand Ole Opry for his alcohol and substance abuse, and died in 1953 at the age of 29.
