Off-Broadway Review: THE END OF ALL FLESH (Monday Night Musicals at Magnet Theater)

FLESHING IT OUT OF THE PARK

The Monday Night Musicals series at the intimate Magnet Theater is serving up a theatrical amusement for those who like their bluegrass pickin’ with a side of post-apocalyptic patriarchy. Produced by Theater of Apes, this one-act musical runs through June on Mondays. The series spotlights new works that blend storytelling, comedy, and musical innovation — and in the case of The End of All Flesh, some surprisingly well-spiced feminist revenge.

Greg Kotis (of Urinetown fame) brings us a stripped-down dystopian satire with a bluegrass score that wouldn’t be out of place at a porch jam in the Smoky Mountains. Set in a distant future so bleak it circles back to our primitive past, the show opens on a society that has survived “The End Days” only to reinvent MAGA patriarchy.

Pa (played by Kotis himself) is the grizzled patriarch clinging to his guns, genitalia, and his outdated gender politics. Despite his quiet demeanor, he lords over Ma (a wonderfully fiery Ayun Halliday) with a privileged swagger that’s as restrained and minimalist as any Beckett play. Their son, Boy (Sammy Pignalosa who uses his lanky gift as comic gold), and his girlfriend, Girl, (a quietly fierce Maithili Ginde), just want to run-off, wed, and change the world — one baby at a time. But first, they want to dine with Boy’s parents to serve the fish Girl has caught and spiced. Deliciously symbolic.

The performances hit the comic bullseye by leaning into the show’s tonal absurdity. Halliday and Pignalosa embrace a heightened, almost Li’l Abner-esque theatricality, with exaggerated gestures and cartoonish sincerity. In contrast, Kotis and Ginde take a more deadpan approach, letting the lunacy land amongst the mayhem. Their singing matches the raw artistry of the music. The result? A perfect comic stew — salty, hearty, and surprisingly nourishing.

Musically, it’s a high-lonesome triumph. The ten-song score is as authentic as a jug of moonshine — soulful, twangy, and expertly accompanied by a three-piece band. Melody Allegra Berger who wears several hats (violinist, music director, arranger, and coordinator) plays in the pre-show with soaring vocals that sets the tone. She’s joined by Stephen Anthony Elkins on guitar and accordion, and Marty Isenberg on upright bass. Kotis strums the banjo — because as Boy wryly notes, “that’s what patriarchs have time to do.”

Winner of Best Musical at the 2025 New York Fringe Festival, The End of All Flesh is a lean, sharp parable dressed up in overalls and existential dread. It skewers everything from environment to philosophy, and intergenerational angst to inherited ideology without ever losing its sense of fun. And when the family turns to address “the starers” — that would be us — it’s hard not to feel a little implicated in the ruins they inhabit.

The show ends, fittingly, with a toe-tapping finale that reminds us: “It’s fun to have a laugh while coping with disaster.” And indeed, it is.

photos by Pam Rice

The End of All Flesh
part of Monday Night Musicals
Magnet Theater, 254 W 29th St
Mon at 6:30
ends on June 23, 2025
for tickets ($25), visit Magnet

Gregory Fletcher is an author, a theater professor, a playwright, director, and stage manager. His craft book on playwriting is entitled Shorts and Briefs, and publishing credits include two YA novels (Other People’s Crazy, and Other People’s Drama), 2 novellas in the series Inclusive Bedtime Stories, 2 short stories in The Night Bazaar series, and several essays. Website, Facebook, Instagram.