'It Happened in Key West' - RomCom or True Crime Horror?
January 27, 2024 |
| Opening Night/US Premiere of It Happened in Key West at Fulton Theatre Lancaster - January 2024 (I keep going higher and higher on the seating chart) |
Good morning beautiful people,
I am soaking in the delight, and horror, of last night’s show - the Opening Night/US Premiere of It Happened in Key West, a musical at the Fulton Theatre, here in Lancaster.
I was drawn in by the ‘romantic musical comedy based on a true story’ tag and chose to see it because catching a love and laugh story during the Winter season is exactly what we all need. I did not know who or what the 'true story' part referred to, and I am glad I did not - and if you are planning to see it, I would advise you go in without any background knowledge. As a matter of fact, read the next paragraph and then log off.
Summary of show in less than 100 words: Think of it as a ‘funny love story' where this dude gets a vision of his soulmate, searches far and wide for her until he gets her in a place called Key West and then sticks by her side through sickness and in death, literally. The show has two acts, Act One is 1 hour 15 minutes, followed by a 20 minute intermission then 45 minutes of Act Two...ok stop reading if you are going to see the show.
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| It Happened in Key West runs from January 26th to February 11th, at Fulton Theatre Lancaster |
For those who will not be going for the show, I have a whole essay. We will start with the longer review of the musical before we get to the true story that inspired it.
Based on cues from the show - the accents, music and hand rolled cigars, one figures out that Key West is an island type place in Cuba. From the one of the five Key West Installments at the Fulton Theatre, Key West (Cayo Hueso) is a real place - at the very edge of Florida, US…and very close to Cuba.
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| Yes, Key West is a real place…and yes, the events covered in the play are based on real people and real things that happened there - Key West Installment 1/5 at Fulton Theatre, Lancaster |
And because every love story has 'love birds', the main characters in this ‘love story’ are Carl Tanzler, a German 'doctor' and Elena Hoyos, a Cuban-American girl. We do not get to learn her occupation from the musical. We, however, learn that she has two sisters and a husband, and both her parents are an integral part of her life.
The show opens with Carl’s dream about a girl who is his soulmate, and his travels around the world to find her. He eventually ends up in Key West, and gets a job working the X-ray machine at the local hospital. Tuberculosis (TB) is the ‘deadliest’ thing at the time and so most people coming to the hospital have it or want to confirm their status (love this Wikipedia overview on the history of TB). Elena is one of those people and when Carl sees her, he knows she is the one he has been looking for…Romantic right?
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| The real Elena and Carl in black and white and the actors playing them in color - Key West Installment 2/5 at Fulton Theatre, Lancaster |
Well, not so much because 1) Elena is married, and 2) she has TB and might die soon. These things do not deter Carl from pursuing her…he offers to pay for her treatment when he learns she has TB, and offers to take care of when her husband abandons her because of her health status…Elena eventually dies and is buried.
Over the period of two years, Carl visits her grave severally, then ends up marrying her and goes on to live with her (her dead body) in his house, until her sister finds out. He gets arrested and the body buried where he cannot find it. He later dies and the show ends.
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| Treats from the opening night reception - It Happened in Key West at Fulton Theatre, Lancaster |
During the opening night reception after the show, some folks and I were sharing our thoughts and there were different views on what people got from it - I was on and on about how we all grieve differently, plus that ending is all creator's creativity and a little of that old school 'follow you to the grave' type romance.
We, however, agreed that the two leading acts did a splendid job.
I particularly liked the guy who played Carl. He had quite 'a pair of lungs' on him - and something about him and the show's emphasis on Carl’s scientific experiments (he made his own airplane) reminded me of Freud or my perception of him (talked about Freud in this post)
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| Key West Installment 3/5 at Fulton Theatre Lancaster |
Let us move from the creative side of this story to the real life side. Remember when Elena died, well that (to me) is where the 'romantic comedy' ends and the true crime horror begins.
Carl actually stole her body two years later, married her (dead and all), and reworked her body with wires and Plaster of Paris as he lived with her for seven years…yes, 1,2,3…7 years. There are vary accounts of what happened during those 7 years and how he was discovered. I opted not to watch the thousands of YouTube videos on this story but picked the first YouTube short that gives a concise description.
As an aside, when I was trying to pin point Key West on the world map, I found out that one of the greatest tourist attractions there is an Ernest Hemingway Museum - and that he (Hemingway) wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro (which I mentioned in this post) when he lived there.
Reports show he was there in the 1930s, which is around the time Carl and Elena’s story was happening…I am not a Hemingway scholar per se but I am interested in the biopsychosociology of suicide and so my interest in him is more on the series of suicides in his family that his writing. I, however, cannot help but wonder, did he know about this 'relationship'? Is this the type of story that he would write about?
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| Key West Installment 4/5 - Fulton Theatre, Lancaster |
A little more Googling revealed that the real Carl Tanzler was actually married with kids. For some reason my mind went to Paulo Macchiarini whose story is highlighted in Season 2 of Peacock's Dr. Death (also available on Amazon).
Dr. Macchiarini is an Italian Doctor who lied about most of his credentials, and was traveling the world 'planting artificial tracheas' on people. Because this was seen as a wonderful medical breakthrough, he got a place in Karolinska Institute - which does top notch medical research globally and has a say in some Nobel Peace Prizes - and loads of interviews.
When doing a documentary with NBC (a network in the US), he ends up getting involved with one of the producers, proposes to her and fake plans a wedding that he says would be officiated by the Pope (yes, the Vatican one) and have all these celebrities and dignitaries that he claimed are his VIP patients.
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| Key West Installment 5/5 - Fulton Theatre, Lancaster PA |
We are not here for him so I will let you read the thousands of articles or binge watch hundreds of true crime episodes about him (Google 'Paolo Macchiarini'). I bring him up to point out that like Carl and Elena's story, Dr. Macchiarini's story also has that romance and true crime horror mix (Yesim Cetir, one of his patients ended up getting close to 200 surgeries in attempts to repair damages due to the artificial trachea) - and he, too, like Carl was married with two kids when all these was happening.
I have millions of questions about the Carl situation. I am also curious about the creator's angle and Fulton Theatre's marketing strategy. Would I have gone if it I knew it was true crime horror script trying to pass as a lovey-dovey tale? I don’t know...but I am grateful that they kept it light enough for us to laugh but dropped enough hints to make pause and think, and eventually dig deeper.
I went very light on my research because it is the weekend and I have a couple of assignments - which I would rather be stuck with instead of opening the endless true crime horror trap doors...next thing I know, it will be Monday morning and I have not slept for two days but know a hundred other ways my life would end (no thank you).
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| Capturing my reflection at the Fulton Theatre Installments section during the Opening Night Reception…oooh what a night, what a show, what a story behind the story...cannot wait for the next musical/play |
If you decide to go down the Tanzler or Macchiarini rabbit hole, ask yourself what is it about them as individuals, and what is it about the society and times they live (d) in, that 'enabled' them?
If you are in Lancaster, or can make it here, be sure to check out the show - it runs until February 11th - first before going down those trails.
If you are curious about the Fulton Theatre Lancaster and my top 3 shows, read this post.
Until the next play, Equus, which starts on February 16th, have a lovely weekend.
Sending love and light,
Sitawa
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