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music & lyrics by Dave Malloy, directed by Chris Abraham

Crow’s Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre & The Musical Stage Company, Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto

September 17-November 9, 2025

“Addiction, obsession / insomnia, depression / and the fear that I’ve wasted too much of my self / on rapid and vapid click-clicks”

Dave Malloy’s Octet is simply amazing. Malloy, composer and librettist for Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, has taken the musical as a genre to an entirely new level. The structure of the piece and its component parts is innovative and its libretto is so full of exciting ideas it is hard to take them all in at one performance. This is a landmark work of music theatre that no lover of the genre can afford to miss.

The setting for Octet is a church basement sometime in the present. Eight people meet there as part of a 12-step-like programme to overcome their internet addiction. The meetings are organized by a mysterious man named Saul, who never appears and is nowhere on the internet, and led by Paula, who is also an addict. As one might expect the participants proceed one-by-one to introduce themselves and tell their stories. The meeting begins and ends with a hymn and includes a period of reflection, a coffee-break and another hymn. After the strange “Tower Tea Ceremony”, the meeting concludes and the musical is over.

On the surface the musical looks like one of Sondheim’s plotless surveys of odd characters who all share a particular trait as in his 1990 musical Assassins which collected all the people who throughout history who have tried to kill an American president. In Octet the common theme is not of people trying to kill someone else but of people who fear that they are slowing killing themselves. All eight have come to the frightening realization that by constantly being on line they are wasting the time they could be using living in the real world. All eight are lonely and have or have had relationships that their internet addiction has ruined.

Malloy has structured the piece by having the participants tell stories that are increasing dark. After the introductory hymn “The Forest” in which the groups sings of being in a forest and its fear of the monster (i.e. the internet), the show begins with two light-hearted confessions. The first comes from Jessica about her obsession with social media until a video of her having a public meltdown went viral and caused so much negative comment that she, though lonely, feels she has lost her privacy. Jacqueline Thair with her light, high voice manages to convey Jessica’s frustration but in such a way that reveals her character as comically superficial.

Next is the gaymer Henry, who spends every bit of free time playing online games, especially those involving candy. He has a new boyfriend but he hasn’t told him yet about his addiction and does seem all that keen to conquer it. Damien Atkins makes Henry an amusing figure who is aware of the negative side of his addiction but finds stupid tile-matching games too irresistible to go cold turkey.

Group leader Paula goes next and reveals that constant internet activity by both herself and her husband has ruined their marriage by taking the place of any intimacy they once shared. As Paula, Zorana Sadiq uses her strong, low voice to bring out all the melancholy and longing of Paula’s situation along with her detestation of “the stale pale glow” of her husband’s screen. Malloy phrases beautifully the futility of doomscrolling when he has Paula sing, “Nothing is as vital as it seems / … / all these suffering souls / that you cannot control / and you invite them all / in our bed?”

The Paula asks for a break of complete silence for one minute. While this is meant for the onstage group, the audience also must obey and it is exceeding strange and invigorating to experience this silence marked by a ticks of a metronome in the midst of a musical. This tactic reminded me strongly of Fellini’s use of silence in his films (e.g., in 8½ [1963] or Amarcord [1973]), that puts everything we have seen into perspective, that suggests there is something greater in the universe than all the petty sounds, including Malloy’s music, that we human’s make.

It’s an unforgettable moment too soon broken by a sudden cacophony of the members of the group sharing various bizarreries that noticed online. During the coffee break, Velma, the newest member, goes on a virtuoso rant about all the occult groups she has joined online, especially a toxic tarot group, only to be disappointed by them all. Alicia Ault delivers this speech so rapidly and precisely that the audience accorded her rousing applause – the first time in a musical where a speech, not a song, has received such acclaim.

As a change both Karly and Ed speak next because their fixation on the internet has destroyed their love lives. Hailey Gillis perfectly projects Karly’s complex mixture of egocentricity and vulnerability. Gillis shows us that Karly, who criticizes her mother for gambling, doesn’t realize she is do the same thing only with her love life. Karly longs for romantic love but doesn’t quite see that her addiction to porn has poisoned any hope of her finding it.

Giles Tomkins plays Ed. Unlike the other seven performers, Tomkins is an opera singer rather than an actor who sings. His deep, resonant voice is considerably larger than those of the rest of the cast, but Tomkins carefully tamps down his volume to blend in with the others. Tomkins’s characterization of the involuntarily celibate Ed is at first humorous but ultimately deeply sad since Tomkins suggests that Ed has resigned himself to never experiencing love of any kind.

The most distressing of the stories comes from Toby who is obsessed with and appalled by the violent videos available online. He occupies himself with conspiracy theories and has one of his own, namely that the internet was invented to distract people from a power grab by higher-ups. Toby’s addiction has led not merely to depression but to a belief that nothing can be done to change things for the better. Malloy likely intentionally assigned this role to a male with the highest voice. Andrew Broderick’s voice could easily embody childlike innocence. Instead, there is a huge gulf between the purity of his voice and utter lostness he feels.

The last to share is the scientist Marvin whose story sends the show into a tangent that combines the supernatural with science fiction. If Malloy’s series of stories has become more serious their scope has also widened. With Marvin he widens the show’s themes to the very question of the existence of God. I will leave readers to experience Marvin’s tale first-hand since brings up questions concerning the very nature of belief and of what is possible. Marvin’s turn is primarily spoken and Ben Carlson, who is so eloquent a speaker, is the ideal person to take the part of a man who can so precisely narrate so fantastic a story.

While the group pauses for the Tower Tea Ceremony that has the effect of knocking everyone out, Velma, who does not participate, sings her first solo song. In this, she provides a significant counterexample to characterizing the internet as a monster the way the group’s hymns do. In a strong, clear voice, Alicia Ault sings Velma’s song of at last finding on the internet someone who is just like her, an event that makes her feel not so alone in the world anymore. The song is called “Beautiful” and it is a delicately hopeful song sweetly sung.

Malloy has thus uncovered an enormous number of ideas in the simplest and least promising of settings. What makes Octet even more unusual is that it is an a cappella musical. That’s right, there is no orchestra or band. Instead, the eight performers each carry a circular pitch pipe that they use to sound the opening note. As in The Great Comet, Malloy’s habit is to establish a rhythm before a singer begins a song. Here the rhythm for a solo is established by the staccato of the non-soloists’ voices which may also accompany the singer with descants or repetition of words. As the show progresses, Malloy begins to use simple percussion like drums or chair seats or short rain sticks. He also includes a brilliant “orchestral” interlude for eight pitch pipes.

The score covers a wide range of rhythms while Malloy particularly enjoys crafting unusual vocal lines and gorgeous harmonies. Under Chris Abraham’s insightful direction, the cast works as the best musical ensemble you’ve ever seen. The high, unified level of their acting and singing, as well as their dancing of Cameron Carver’s Fosse-like choreography, is flawless.

Abraham makes use of the video floor he has used in other Crow’s productions. Imogen Wilson’s clever lighting effects would be sufficient, but at least Nathan Bruce’s video design never becomes too much. I do wonder, though, during Henry’s song about video games if we really need to see a Pac-Mac-like game playing out on the floor. Theatre should follow the lead of Chorus in Henry V who tells the audience, “Think when we talk of horses, that you see them”.

Someone mentions in Octet that there are eight bits in a byte which is the basic unit of digital information. Some people may know that when the term byte is ambiguous the term “octet” is used. The marvellous idea that Malloy’s musical demonstrates is how wide and deep a range of information can be contained within a group of only eight components, whether these are bits or people gathered in a basement.

As a deliberate contrast to this technological metaphor, Malloy has built an ocult structure into the musical as well. In an insert in the original New York programme’s Malloy linked each of the characters to a specific card in the tarot deck.* In fact, the image for the New York programmes was that of The Fool (in the Rider-Waite design) carrying not a flower but a mobile phone as he stands on a cliff. Thus, Malloy parallels the duality of 1 and 0 in digital coding with the duality of chance and fate in tarot divination. The parallel seems to ask the question, “Which, if either, is the better guide?"

Why did Malloy write Octet as an a cappella musical? The reason is that this form is a perfect illustration that people can work together on their own without technology for a common goal. The form of the musical is thus in direct contrast to its content about lonely, isolated individuals tied to technology who feel they are wasting their lives. The musical itself demonstrates that even in the midst of an avalanche of technological distraction, people still can meet face-to-face to create and even achieve greatness. The characters' stories may tales of woe, but the musical itself is a symbol of hope.

Most musicals resist too deep a scrutiny, but Octet positively invites study and further exploration. The main proof of Octet’s power is that you leave the theatre feeling enlightened and invigorated, as if you had seen a whole new horizon come into view that you had never seen before.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Alicia Ault, Andrew Broderick, Giles Tomkins, Damien Atkins, Hailey Gillis, Ben Carlson and Zorana Sadiq; Alicia Ault, Zorana Sadiq, Jacqueline Thair, Giles Tomkins (back) Ben Carlson, Andrew Broderick, Hailey Gillis and Damien Atkins; (top row) Zorana Sadiq, Hailey Gillis, Andrew Broderick and Alicia Ault, (bottom row) Giles Tomkins, Jacqueline Thair, Damien Atkins and Ben Carlson, © 2025 Dahlia Katz. Octet album cover with The Fool, Nonesuch, 2020.

For tickets visit: www.crowstheatre.com.

*For those who are curious, the connections of character with card are Jessica with The Fool, Henry with The Lovers, Paula with The Empress, Karly with Justice, Ed with The Devil, Marvin with The Hanged Man and Toby with The Tower.