Breaking news: New York City has exported its trash to Boulder. Not in bags—on stage.
That garbage is Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw, now running at the Dairy Arts Center through July 27. This joyless national tour of the Off-Broadway misfire takes one of horror’s most infamous franchises and turns it into a two-hour fever dream of inept humor and worse songs.
Who is this for?
Let’s start with the obvious: this show doesn’t know who it’s for. Fans of the Saw serires, a collection of hyperviolent horror films that helped define the “torture porn” subgenre known for its visceral traps and grim moral quandaries, will find nothing to sink their teeth into. There’s no suspense, reinvention or clear take on the source material. And for musical theater fans? The show’s clunky songs and amateurish book make for a slog of a night.
Rather than crafting a fresh take or mixing elements from across the franchise's 10 (soon-to-be 11) films, bookwriter Zoe Ann Jordan slavishly adapts the original 2004 film, scene for scene. The plot centers on Adam, a freelance photographer who spies on people for money, and Dr. Gordon, a morally dubious oncologist, who wake up chained to the wall in a grimy bathroom by a sadistic killer puppet known as Jigsaw.
Flashbacks introduce other players, detectives, Gordon’s family, and Jigsaw survivor Amanda, but the show does almost nothing to contextualize their stories. If you haven’t seen the film, good luck. The nonlinear plot, which worked onscreen thanks to sharp editing, drags like a rusted bear trap on stage, stretching a tight 103-minute movie into a bloated 125-minute production with an intermission.
A musical that makes you want to saw your ears off
Saw the Musical bills itself as “Little Shop of Horrors meets Avenue Q,” but that comparison is laughable. There’s none of the biting satire or musical craft of those hits. Instead, we’re left with a parade of tired pop culture jokes set to music that sounds like AI-generated musical theater filler.
The musical opens with “I Want to Play a Game,” a Cabaret-inspired number that imagines Jigsaw as a kind of demented Emcee. It's a clever concept on paper that elicited a few chuckles, but it never developed into anything interesting.
The rest of the score, written by Patrick Spencer and Anthony De Angelis, descends quickly into musical hell. There’s a bizarre love song referencing Applebee’s and multiple numbers filled with tired innuendos and (often literal) toilet humor.
As for the book by Jordan, it’s mostly direct lines from the films, unimaginative meta jokes and painfully dated punchlines about things like Cinnabon and streaming subscriptions. There’s no point of view, just the thinnest layer of parody applied to an already shallow plot. The only new angle added is a string of homoerotic innuendos between the two leads, which land like bad ‘90s sitcom punchlines..
The three-person cast, Brian Steinberg as Adam, Kyle Atkinson as Dr. Gordon and Morgan Traud as both Jigsaw and Amanda, tries its best, but they’re clearly hamstrung by the material. Steinberg has a pleasant voice, but his performance is pitched at full volume from start to finish, which quickly becomes grating in the Dairy’s intimate black box theater.
Atkinson tries to ground a character flattened into a sexist caricature, but he lacks the vocal chops to carry his solos. The only moment that sort of works is the song he sings while sawing off his foot, “Saw Right Through,” which at least has some bloody visual gags to distract from the vocals.
Traud fares slightly better, especially as Amanda, but she’s given a bafflingly sincere ballad to close Act One (“Amanda’s Song”) that feels like it wandered in from a different show entirely. Her take on Jigsaw is mostly sidelined, which is a missed opportunity—if any character could be reimagined in a larger-than-life parody, it’s the moralizing killer who rides around on a tricycle.
To its credit, the production design is one of the few elements that work. Scenic designer Sibling Sets recreates the infamous white-tiled bathroom with impressive accuracy, complete with working chains, an Ikea clock and a grimy tub. The blood-soaked mat covering the floor gets solid mileage during the more grotesque moments, and puppet work by Julia Darden adds flair. But all the flashy tech can’t cover up its hollow core.
Parody without a point
In the film world, parody works when it engages with its source material in a clever way. Wes Craven’s Scream is a brilliant example, simultaneously sending up and reinvigorating the slasher genre. In contrast, Saw the Musical feels more like Scary Movie: a hollow, gag-driven imitation that leans too hard on references and shock value without any meaningful commentary.
There are good parody musicals out there, like Evil Dead: The Musical and Reefer Madness. These shows understand that parody needs more than just references. You need perspective, purpose and craft. Saw the Musical has none of that. It’s a limp series of callbacks stitched together with the hope that blood and butt jokes will do the heavy lifting.
That disconnect was painfully clear on opening night. I counted twelve people in the audience, including myself and my partner. It’s worth noting that the show unwisely opened on July 3, the same night jam band Phish kicked off its three-day run at Folsom Field. Even so, the tepid audience reaction suggests the problem runs deeper.
Theater is struggling right now. But it’s shows like this, that cost upward of $40 a ticket, offer little substance and coast on brand recognition, are part of the problem. Lazy slop like this erodes audiences’ trust and makes it harder for the truly creative to break through.
If you love Saw, just rewatch the movie. If you love musicals, this show is not for you. And if you're a producer who greenlit this national tour, I have only one question: What the hell were you thinking?
ON STAGE: Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw. Through July 27, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St, Boulder. $45.20-$152.55