Peter Cunningham; Sarah Krulwich/The New York Times
Molly Ranson, right, plays the title role in the revised musical Carrie, which is less bloody than the 1988 flop with Linzi Hateley, left.
OF all the infamous scenes in the 1988 Broadway musical “Carrie” — itself one of the most infamous productions in theater history — the Act II opening number “Out for Blood” has become the stuff of legend. Leather-clad actors playing high-school jocks leapt about as one of them slaughtered an unseen trough of pigs, whose amplified oinking haunts some theatergoers to this day (and not in a good way). “Kill the pig, pig, pig,” the boys chanted, and their shirtless ringleader, Billy, smeared his chest with the fake porcine blood that he would later dump on the title character at their prom, a horrifying humiliation that was immortalized by Sissy Spacek in the 1976 film version.
It wasn’t just Broadway audiences who were so shell-shocked that some actually booed the show. “Carrie” was such a critical and financial flop (at $8 million) that, afterward, its three creators refused to allow another professional production anywhere in the world — a rare act of artistic exile for a title that is a beloved Stephen King novel and a cult classic movie.
But this winter MCC Theater, a respected Off Broadway company, is trying to reclaim “Carrie” from contempt. The creators have rewritten the story into a modern-day tale of bullying, with mean girls mocking notions of “equality,” and replaced several songs for the $1.5 million production, which is now in preview performances and opens on March 1. Anyone expecting laser lights, simulated fire or the levitating prom gown of the telekinetic Carrie will have to keep searching for bootleg videos of the short-lived Broadway run, for this revival hews to the original vision of a fable about high school instead of the spectacle that became so ridiculed that it inspired a book about Broadway’s biggest botches, “Not Since Carrie.”
If the 1988 production is regarded as an apogee of camp, this Off Broadway revival is toned down — way down — and earnest in its portrayals of emotional extremes. At a recent rehearsal, for instance, the revised Act II began with Carrie and her high school classmates singing a pop-rock number about dressing up and losing weight for the prom (“I’ll be there with the best-looking guy/when we dance the last dance, I swear I’ll cry”). As for the barnyard butchery, which came from the King novel, it occurred offstage (and silently).
Yet a touch of the old outrageousness remained, as Billy and his cruel girlfriend, Chris, worked themselves into a sexual frenzy while riffing on lyrics to “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” It was the rare moment, during visits to rehearsals over the last two months, that recalled the “Carrie” of yore and lore — and made you miss the old girl for a moment.
That’s because this “Carrie” is as serious as a hostage-rescue mission, which approximates how its creators — the same men who kept it under lock and key all those years — see their task.
“The three of us did not exactly have the best time with the Broadway production,” said Lawrence D. Cohen, the musical’s book writer, during an interview with the composer, Michael Gore, and the lyricist, Dean Pitchford. “We had a dream 30 years ago for a show about outsiders,” and “now every day the three of us look at each other and we’re like, ‘We’re getting closer.’ ”
When they all first began collaborating, Mr. Gore and Mr. Pitchford were fresh off winning Academy Awards for best original song for “Fame,” and Mr. Pitchford would go on to write the script for the movie “Footloose.” Like those two films, the three envisioned “Carrie” as “a show about outsiders, about being misunderstood and struggling to make human connections,” said Mr. Cohen, who had also adapted the King novel for the film.
The creators were resigned to burying “Carrie” after the Broadway run until they were contacted four years ago by the director Stafford Arima, best known for the sincerely satirical Off Broadway musical “Altar Boyz.” Mr. Arima had seen an early preview of the original “Carrie” when he was 19, on a theater trip from Toronto with his mother, and years later the two shared happy memories about it in the days before her death. He soon began to pursue the idea of a stripped-down version centered on — what would you call it? — the bizarre relationship of the two main characters, the supernatural Carrie and her deeply religious mother, Margaret White.
“There was an excellent score and hugely resonant story at the core of ‘Carrie,’ “ Mr. Arima said. “I thought the best of ‘Carrie’ could be seen if it was staged as naturalistically as possible, rather than playing up the otherworldly aspects.”
The first meeting between Mr. Arima and the creators lasted eight hours. Mr. Gore said they put three questions to Mr. Arima that had tripped up producers and other directors who had pitched resurrecting “Carrie”:
“How would you handle the prom? How would you handle the blood? How would you handle the telekinesis?”
