Line #50 Theatre/BatOutOfHell


1	[[quoteright:912:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_0595.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:912: A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age!]]
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4	''Bat Out Of Hell'', billed fully as ''Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell The Musical'' is a rock musical with songs mostly drawn from the [[Music/BatOutOfHell Bat Out Of Hell]] albums. Written by [[Music/JimSteinman Steinman]], it embraces his love of rock cliches and Peter Pan. The show debuted in Manchester in February of 2017 and has since travelled to London, then to Toronto, then to New York City, and then back to London.
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6	The plot follows Strat, the poster child of a group of outcasts in the city of Obsidian called The Lost, whose bodies and minds are stuck at age 18 following the Chemical Wars, and his romance with Raven Falco, daughter of a wealthy industrialist who is just turning 18 as the story begins. Their romance is impeded by her father's zealous protection of her from the likes of the Lost and is eager to kill Strat upon hearing of him, and the jealousy of Tink, a member of The Lost whose mutation goes further and has him stuck around age 15 and acting even more immature.
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9	!!''Bat Out Of Hell'' contains examples of:
10	* AbusiveParents: Falco keeping Raven locked up in Falco Towers for her entire life might be understandable given the general state of Obsidian, but keeping her on dream-suppressing drugs in the hopes it will prevent her from ''wanting'' to leave is beyond the pale. Sloane herself is a bit neglectful at worst and even has moments as a [[GoodParents Good Parent]], but of course she allows this to happen.
11	* AccidentalMurder: Falco is unquestionably a violent man, but ultimately his murder of [[spoiler: Tink]] is this.
12	* AfterTheEnd: The Chemical Wars are referenced as, among other things, the cause of The Lost's mutation, and the show is set in what was once Manhattan, now called Obsidian.
13	* TheAgeless: The Lost.
14	* AllThereInTheManual: An abbreviated newspaper written from an in-universe perspective is left waiting for the audience on their seats so they can find out things like the names of the less prominent characters, who the Falco family are, and what the deal is with The Lost.
15	* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Among Falco and Sloane's many faults. Best exemplified during [[spoiler: "Paradise By the Dashboard Light", when Raven walks in on them in their underwear about to have sex, at her birthday party.]]
16	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: In some productions, Tink’s song "Not Allowed To Love" is cut and replaced with him belting out a short reprise of "For Crying Out Loud" at Strat, which very much counts as this.
17	* AscendedExtra: Valkyrie started life as a background member of the Lost, but from the 2018 version of the show on, she took over Blake's role as one of ThoseTwoGuys after he was removed from the show, and she also gets a moment with Sloane.
18	* AutoErotica: "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" plays out between Falco and Sloane, complete with a car set piece. Also referenced in Ledoux's verse in "Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are".
19	* TheBabyOfTheBunch: Tink is this, frozen younger than the rest of The Lost, and he hates being treated as such.
20	* BadassBiker: Most of The Lost get a turn riding a motorcycle into a scene, but Jagwire, Ledoux, and of course Strat stand out.
21	* BetaCouple: Downplayed, or possibly even inverted, with Zahara and Jagwire. Zahara's emotional baggage leads her to utterly shut Jagwire's advances down early in the show, but their relationship doesn't receive much obvious development from then to "Dead Ringer For Love", by which point she seems to have gotten over it. Played straighter with other members of The Lost, who consistently couple up in the background.
22	* BrickJoke: Early on, the Lost propose asking for ransom for Raven, and Tink doesn’t understand the concept at all. Later, when he comes to make a deal with Falco, he demands ransom and completely fudges it, requesting only a handshake. Falco is utterly bemused.
23	* BuryYourGays: Played completely straight with [[spoiler: Tink. It's rather noticeable that he is the only character who does not get a happy ending, even including Falco.]]
24	** As-of the first UK tour this is inverted with several of The Lost alive & ending up in same-sex couples by the end of the show. This includes the new character of Valkyrie, who at one point [[spoiler: even proposes to Sloane]].
25	* ColdBloodedTorture: [[spoiler: The Lost (minus Zahara) receive this at the hands of Falco and his guards during "In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King", with electrocution, drowning and beatings being seen.]]
26	** Cut from the the New York City production, which makes [[spoiler: Falco's redemption]] more palatable.
27	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jagwire, Blake/Valkyrie and Ledoux use “Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” to admit their lives were awful even before they were frozen.
28	* DatingWhatDaddyHates: 90% of the conflict is derived from Falco’s fury that his daughter Raven is interested in a member of the Lost.
29	* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Jealous of Raven as the object of Strat’s affection, Tink offers to lead Falco to the Lost so he can take Raven away, on condition no one else gets hurt.]] Predictably, it ends badly.
30	* DemotedToExtra: Blake got hit with this from the 2018 version of the show onwards, becoming a nameless background member of the Lost, while most of his parts were given to AscendedExtra Valkyrie.
31	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: It's a Jim Steinman production, what did you expect? The show basically has this as its aesthetic
32	* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler: Strat, the main character, gets one at the end of act one. He crashes during "Bat Out of Hell", and everyone believes him dead, but Zahara nurses him back to health with some of Raven's blood.]]
33	* DomesticAbuse: There's no indication that Falco and Sloane's relationship has involved any of this before, except perhaps some mutual emotional abuse, but by the second act [[VillainousBreakdown Falco is decompensating badly]] and Sloane does ''not'' feel safe staying in Falco Towers once she's crossed him in a serious way.
34	* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler: Falco's redemption can seem like this; Tink's death was an accident, but he may have already crossed the MoralEventHorizon earlier in the show with the ColdBloodedTorture. The New York City production deals with this by cutting "In The Land of the Pig The Butcher Is King". Don't worry, he doesn't go ''too'' soft - as Strat points out "The entire city is burning."]]
35	* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: EVERYBODY. Even Falco and Sloane, for all their relationship problems and complaints about getting older, ''nearly have sex in the middle of Raven's birthday party'' - an early indication that they and their relationship still have a spark of passion.
36	* Fanservice: Pretty much half of the show is this
37	* FantasticGhetto: The Lost are relegated to an area of Obsidian known as The Deep End, which is implied by one line to be underground.
38	* FantasticRacism: The Lost are discriminated against for their condition, with society believing them to be violent and thoughtless. To be clear, we're talking about people whose idea of "kidnapping" Raven amounts to talking her into sneaking out of the house at night and showing her their underground clubhouse.
39	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Sloane and Falco]], sort of
40	* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: In fact, it begins at 18 for the random percentage of the population who become Lost.
41	* ImmortalImmaturity: To the point that The Lost seem to actually be incapable of developing psychologically past 18 as well as aging physically past it. Tink, who is described as "a mutation of a mutation" and frozen slightly younger than the rest of The Lost, behaves almost like a child.
42	* ImmortalProcreationClause: The Lost have a lot of sex, but the only place new Lost seem to come from is their mutation spontaneously appearing in children of ordinary parents.
43	* JukeboxMusical: Of the [[Music/BatOutOfHell Bat Out Of Hell]] albums mostly, but also some of Steinman's other work.
44	* KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: Tink, courtesy of Falco]]
45	* LadyDrunk: Sloane. It's implied that this is how she deals with being locked up in Falco Towers all day.
46	* LivingForeverIsAwesome: The Lost love their lives of endless sex, partying, rock & roll, and teenage adventures. Though they do have some scars from their pre-change lives (recounted in "Objects in the Rearview Mirror"), their only real problem currently is the FantasticRacism against them.
47	* MaliciousMisnaming: [[spoiler: when Tink comes to make a deal with Falco, the latter keeps getting his name wrong for laughs.]]
48	* MayflyDecemberRomance: A concern that Raven has about her relationship with Strat is that she'll age while he remains young.
49	* MegaCorp: It's not clear what Falco Industries does exactly, but it seems to have its fingers in housing and power, as well as having intimidating private security.
50	* MurderTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler: Or get her taken away and locked up by her father, that’s just as good, as far as Tink’s concerned.]]
51	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Falco did ''not'' mean to [[spoiler: kill Tink]], and he clearly regrets it terribly.
52	* OdeToYouth: "Wasted Youth" has The Lost revelling in their eternal immaturity, while "Who Needs The Young" has Falco and Sloane bitterly going over the finer points of aging.
53	* ParentalSubstitute: Played for laughs. When Strat and Raven get married, Ledoux excitedly asks if she will be their mother. The other Lost all give him weird looks.
54	* ParentsAsPeople: A show about eternal teenagers, rock & roll, and forbidden teenage love could easily have made the parents straightforward villains. Instead, it's clear that Falco and Sloane still have at least a bit of rock & roll in their souls, and a good portion of the show is spent on trying to rekindle their love and [[spoiler: redeem Falco]].
55	* RockOpera: Certainly has the right tone with Steinman at the wheel. Although the music wasn't originally written for the musical, it does try to bring together the Neverland concept that Steinman had been weaving into his work over the years.
56	* RunningGag: Strat recites the first line of the spoken intro to "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth", and is met with confusion by the person he's saying it to, and Strat indignantly declares "You're supposed to come up with a response!" The last person he says it to is Raven, who finally gives a response, which leads to the dialogue being finished and the song performed.
57	* ShoutOut: Multiple to Peter Pan, from the naming of Tink to the eternally-young Lost, to an advice columnist in the supplementary newspaper named Wendy.
58	* SpokenWordInMusic: The baseball play-by-play in "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" is preserved. As is the dialogue from "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth", for the above RunningGag.
59	* StealthPun: The one gay character, Tink, is based on Tinkerbell. A fairy.
60	* ThoseTwoGuys: Blake and Ledoux, friends of Strat and members of the Lost who don’t get as much development as Strat, Tink, Zahara and Jagwire, but are always there. Later productions removed Blake from the show and replaced him with a girl named Valkyrie, who doubles this trope with being Ledoux's [[PlatonicLifePartners platonic best friend]] (and more attracted to [[spoiler:Sloane.]])
61	* TimeSkip: Towards the end of the show, things skip forward six months.
62	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: According to the supplementary newspaper, the show begins in October of 2030.
63	* VillainSong: Falco gets "In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King".
64	** "Who Needs the Young" has traces of this for both Falco and Sloane
65	* VillainousBreakdown: As Falco loses control of Obsidian and his family, he starts decompensating badly.
66	* WalkingShirtlessScene: Both Strat, who never seems to finish putting a shirt on, and Falco, who rips his off at every given opportunity
67	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Averted. None of the Lost besides [[spoiler: Tink]] ever show much angst about their situation

Context Theatre / BatOutOfHell