A musical based on American Psycho? Turns out it’s not as weird as it sounds

1 week ago 6

By Cameron Woodhead

September 7, 2025 — 7.18pm

MUSICAL THEATRE
American Psycho – The Musical ★★★
Chapel Off Chapel, until September 21

A musical based on Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho isn’t as weird an idea as it sounds. The author didn’t think the book could be made into a film, either, but the 2000 movie starring Christian Bale became a cult classic.

American Psycho as a musical isn’t as strange a concept as it may sound.

And it isn’t like the vicious, vacuous side of consumerist culture has gone away. If anything, Trump’s second term has provided a cultural moment peculiarly suited to Ellis’ postmodern satire, with another film adaptation in the works, and a revival of the musical scheduled for London’s West End in 2026.

Melbourne’s musical theatre mavens will have a chance to satisfy their curiosity at this indie production, which takes us into the disturbed mind of Patrick Bateman (Conor Beaumont) – a young New York investment banker in the late 1980s.

Obsessed by his physical appearance, Bateman envies and secretly despises his shallow, narcissistic, status-obsessed circle of yuppie friends, though it’s social inequality that provides the impulse for this wolf of Wall Street to turn serial killer. His first victim is a homeless person.

Ironically, of course, no one believes Bateman to be a murderer – despite a full confession – and he escapes both punishment and the recognition he craves for his crimes.

Conor Beaumont is a magnetic presence as Patrick Bateman.

The show amps up the camp as Bateman’s murderous orgy unfolds. It preserves the iconic Hip to Be a Square axe-murder sequence, where Bateman chops up his work rival (Sam Ward), and includes several novel arrangements of ’80s pop bangers by New Order, Tears for Fears, and Phil Collins.

Unfortunately, Duncan Sheik’s original songs are sometimes underwhelming in this production. The lyrical wit has a cruelly dark sheen, but the musical direction sometimes struggles to find the vibe vocally.

Amid a motley mixture of show tunes, elaborate choral harmonies, and melodically (and emotionally) flattened electro-pop of a New Romantic kind, some numbers need greater definition and attention to musical genre to have full impact.

Even so, Beaumont is a magnetic presence and he slices and dices his way through ice-cold black comedy to balance the over-the-top campery of supporting performances and choreography.

The show makes no apology for selling out a fraction of the tale’s ontological horror and Gen X nihilism for jazz hands and exaggerated grotesque, and nor should it. Indeed, such outlandish treatment might be essential to putting on American Psycho, especially in an age where Bateman’s celebrity idol, Donald Trump, is (gulp) the leader of the free world.

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