Sweet zomic relief

What’s Eating You?
Review | by Sean McQuaid
The Guild, March 27, 2025 

Weird old man that I am, I was probably the only person in the packed opening night audience of zombie dramedy What’s Eating You? who kept thinking about His Kind of Woman, RKO’s 1951 film noir starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. 

At first glance it’s a seemingly random connection, even by the oft-erratic standards of the ramshackle Pachinko machine masquerading as my brain; but there is a link here, and the key is classic horror icon and occasional zombie slayer Vincent Price. 

His Kind of Woman went through near-endless rewrites and reshoots under meddling RKO studio boss Howard Hughes. His changes expanded the supporting role of Hollywood ham actor Mark Cardigan (played by real life Hollywood ham Vincent Price), who morphs into a campy action hero and steals the movie out from under its designated stars. 

Some critics feel Hughes’ tinkering ruined a perfectly fine conventional noir thriller. Me, I love Price’s kooky, over-the-top Cardigan despite – or maybe because of – the film’s tonal whiplash. When Cardigan’s really cooking, an ordinary noir picture becomes something weirder, sillier and much more fun. 

Which brings me back to What’s Eating You? (WEY for short), a heartfelt-message-driven drama that veers intermittently into surreal zombie apocalypse comedy and is immeasurably better for it; only instead of Vincent Price, we have Cameron Bennett MacDonald and Graham Putnam stealing every dang scene they’re in as zombie apocalypse characters Steve & Peter, with results that are equal parts ridiculous and glorious. 

In various forms of development since 2020, WEY is written and directed by PEI community theatre veteran Jay Gallant. The play’s main plot, about a woman coming out as a trans man after decades of denial and self-loathing, is deeply personal for Gallant, a trans man himself and a trans rights activist and educator. 

Not surprisingly, this is a very message-driven play, and it works well enough on that level. The show’s themes of self-acceptance, tolerance and pro-trans sentiment are expressed with sincerity, heart and frequent leavening comedy.  

But what elevates the play beyond its knowing-is-half-the-battle, eat-your-vegetables, very-special-episode levels of earnestness is Gallant’s deft trick of blending his trans quasi-memoir with zombie apocalypse content. Anytime the play’s message starts feeling heavy or heavy-handed, wacky zombie-related antics inject some bizarre comic relief. Or zomic relief, this being a “zomedy” and all. 

In a fresh twist on the old play-within-a-play structure, WEY’s main character Sam (played by Ash Arsenault) has an identity crisis triggered during a zombie apocalypse role-playing game (RPG) hosted by Sam’s semi-estranged childhood friend Laura (Kassinda Bulger) and her husband Denis (Noah Nazim). Putnam, MacDonald and Marli Trecartin all play characters in the game. Gallant’s script ping pongs back and forth between Sam’s real-world soul-searching and scenes from the zombie RPG, sometimes blending the two in unexpected ways. 

Arsenault is the least dynamic or showy performer of the bunch, but he gives Sam a sympathetic sad-sack everyman vibe and dials up the role’s energy in spots as needed. Bulger, often a backstage figure or improv comedian, reminds us she’s a very talented, genuine and engaging dramatic actor as Laura, while Nazim makes a yummy scenery-chewing meal of his role as melodramatic dungeon master Denis. Trecartin lends likable support in multiple roles (one of several cast members doubling as various flashback folk from Sam’s memories), and a very funny MacDonald shows impressive range in the play’s most complex role as an RPG character who becomes Sam’s advisor and confidant; but for sheer entertainment value nothing tops the oddball genius of Putnam, who spends much of the play as a zombie turned implacable undead running gag – well, more of a shambling or staggering gag, but you get the idea. 

Gallant and producer/stage manager Grace Kimpinski do a lot with a little here by using big-screen background projections to establish locations despite sparse set dressing. Backed by The Guild, PEERS Alliance and PEI Transgender Network, this plucky indie production succeeds largely due to its crackerjack cast and Gallant’s often self-satirizing, cleverly split-personality script, which sweetens its didactic themes with an oddball undead candy coating. Or to paraphrase Mary Poppins: A spoonful of zombie comedy helps the messaging go down.