Review of Soon I Will Be Invincible at Lifeline Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Soon I Will Be Invincible. It was adapted by Christopher M. Walsh based on the novel by Austin Grossman. The music and lyrics were by Christopher Kriz. It was directed by Paul S. Holmquist and the music director was Laura McKenzie. It was about this superhero squad called the Champions and they wanted to save all the humans on earth from Dr. Impossible (Phil Timberlake). Fatale (Christina Hall) is the newest member of the squad and she is a cyborg and she has x-ray vision, she can shoot lasers out of her hands and she is very strong too. The head of the squad is a woman named Damsel (Corbette Pasko) who reminded me of Wonder Woman because she comes from an alien planet. She is a strong person but in distress about her marriage to Blackwolf (Tommy Malouf) who is an autistic Wolverine-like character. There was also a girl named Elphin (Sarah Scanlon) who was an elf who was a good fighter and reminded me of Thor. Mr. Mystic (Frederick Harris) reminded me a lot of Zatanna because he was a magician. There is also Rainbow Triumph (Taryn Wood) who reminded me of Harley Quinn but not evil and she was Blackwolf's sidekick. Lily (Justine C. Turner) was like a mix of Lois Lane (I won't tell you why) and Mystique because says she comes from the future. She used to be a supervillain and date Dr. Impossible, but now she was with the Champions. They are all trying to find CoreFire (Jason Kellerman) who is like Superman--he has all the power and everybody knows about him--so they can defeat Dr. Impossible. It is about discovering who you are and how superheroes have problems too. I thought this show was a good idea because I like superheroes and it is fun to see superheroes do kinds of stuff that normal people do.

I loved the look of the play. I thought the set (by Alan Donahue) was really cool and it reminded me a lot of a headquarters--like the doors came up and down automatically. It was so cool! The projections were really cool too; they made everything look like it was in Ben-Day dots. The set had platforms covered with Ben-Day dots too. I thought that was really amazing. I saw little inspirations from characters I knew already in the costumes (by Aly Renee Amidei), like Damsel's kind of looked like Wonder Woman but it didn't look so much alike that you just thought it was Wonder Woman. I also really liked Fatale's outfit; it looked like an actual cyborg and had all the cyborg parts and the mask was really cool. I thought Rainbow Triumph's outfit was really colorful and cute and I really liked it. Lily's outfit had a don't-mess-with-me-or-I'll-kill-you kind of look. It matched her voice! She seemed very icy, and I thought that made the character more mysterious and awesome.

The scene where they were trapped in the forcefields that Dr. Impossible made showed a lot of what the characters really felt for each other. I really like scenes where you get to realize new elements to characters. You watched Fatale and Damsel talking and realized that they actually really liked each other and that they weren't enemies. You also got to see a new side to Lily, but I won't talk about that because that is a big reveal. I thought that this was a really crazy scene because it turns out that the long lost love of Dr. Impossible has been standing right in front of him all the time. You never expected that person because she doesn't seem like a sweet nice girl.

I thought it was pretty cool how they made Dr. Impossible one of the narrators even though he was still the villain. They didn't try to find a way to make him good or anything. His narration was pretty funny because he basically admitted everything. Like he said, "The cape is just for effect; it doesn't do anything." I thought that character was pretty cool. Most supervillains don't seem to admit they've been defeated, but Dr. Impossible did and he wasn't like one of those supervillains who don't seem to remember ever being defeated. I thought that was pretty cool to have a villain like that, but I really wish I could have seen Dollface too.

There were some things in the show I found unnecessary. I found some of the songs kind of repetitive, like it felt like it would just be the chorus over and over again in some songs. I wish there had been more scenes and fewer songs because, if a lot of the content had gone into scenes where you can get more information and characters spoke directly to each other, that would have made the story more intriguing. I felt like a lot of the songs sounded the same, so that made the story seem more repetitive and predictable. But I felt like all the singing and all the performances were great.

People who would like this show are people who like awesome Ben-Day dot sets, amazing costumes, and great acting. I think this is a very fun idea for a show and I loved the performances. Your last chance to see it is this weekend!

Photos: Suzanne Plunkett