I really never thought this would happen. If you hadn’t seen my Tumblr pre-Lenten hiatus, I am quite anti-Fifty Shades of Grey, especially the book. I don’t need to tell you why, you already know.

My friend Annie got free tickets to go see 50 Shades! The Musical Parody. I knew it was going to be a parody, but at the same time, I mean… this was going to be a raunchy show, ya know? I wasn’t really feeling it, but somehow even though I was very unenthusiastic when Annie invited me, I heard myself answering “Yah?” when she asked if I was going to go with her.

Oops, I guess I’m now watching a Fifty Shades musical parody at the Warner Theatre?

Well, first we went to the grand opening of Melt Shop, a new grilled cheese joint in Farragut. Everything was 50% off on grand opening night, but I didn’t know that we were going to have dinner beforehand so I had already eaten.

Also I don’t like cheese, much less grilled cheese. So I just got myself a loaded tater tots (minus the cheese) and an Oreo milkshake. (You know what grinds my gears? Thick milkshakes that are served with standard aka small straws. Especially when said thick milkshakes also have Oreo chunks in them. It was tasty but dang, my cheeks hurt from trying to get it through that tiny straw!) The tots were good but the restaurant is teeny so I mostly ate my food standing up.

Anyway, onto the show.

In short, it was really hilarious and well done. Are you surprised? I sure was. I mean, I went into this eyes rolled, fully prepared for a total suckfest. But it was basically the perfect musical parody of this crazy phenomenon.

A narrator starts us off, informing us that the show lasts 69 minutes including intermission heh heh heh. (Eye roll.) We opened with 3 character we don’t see in the books or movie: 3 housewives holding a book club. This story device sets the tone for the rest of the show pretty well. Each act starts with slapping and moaning sounds that just turns out to be the housewives doing random housework when the lights come up. There’s a lonely housewife who has been left with her five cats by her husband, just wants to read Martha Stewart’s Soup for One for book club and is, of course, tragically vanilla in the bedroom department. These ladies work as the story within which FSOG is the inner story. (They are the doughnut, if you will, and FSOG is the doughnut hole.)

Casting for Christian Grey was spot-on. Instead of a certified hottie-tottie, we had a…….. rounder man. And I loved that! Because Christian Grey’s actions and words are really bizarre and creepy, but I guess they seem more excusable when a hot guy says them? NAH our Christian exposed Christian Grey for being the complete and utter weirdo that he is. And it was perfect. He was pretty great onstage, although his voice wasn’t too strong, and I laughed my butt off.

Don’t fret, eye candy seekers. We had plenty to look at on stage. In the background were 2 ab-licious dudes and a bodacious babe in fishnets. One of the ab-licious dudes played Elliot Grey, Christian’s brother? He was pretty scrumptious. I really liked their involvement in the show because they were really fun, added a lot of great musical theater flair to the whole production (they had more of the complex choreography) and they added this extra meta-awareness of how we objectify the human body. At one point, each of them carried a painting over their faces and rotated around to mimic Anastasia walking down a long hallway. It was a silly scene but I liked it a lot.

Also, can I say I loved the character of Jose so much? I can’t say too much more except that he was easily THE most fun character of the entire show. Hilarious without becoming a caricature.

I think that what this musical did really well, besides accurately lampooning the ridiculousness that is FSOG, was give each character depth without resorting to stereotypes. The closest was our repressed housewife who, of course, had 5 cats and came roaring out from her vanilla bedroom ideals. Still, she was genuinely funny.

I thought I was going to hate this but I actually loved it. I highly recommend it, even if you hate FSOG as I do.
But don’t go see it with your parents.