“[title of show]” Wins with Exuberance and Talent

The concept behind [title of show], a one-act musical, could have been trivial and self-indulgent. The conceit is basically that you're watching a musical about the creation of the very musical you're watching. The plot runs you through the writing process, taking the show on the road to festivals, then off-Broadway, and ends directly before â┚¬â€œ and I hope I'm not issuing a spoiler here â┚¬â€œ it's premiere on Broadway.

Having run for 102 performances in 2008 on Broadway's Lyceum Theater, the show proved to be anything but trivial. As it turns out, the script was deftly handled and hilariously funny, and the music infectious and memorable. While its run was relatively brief, it garnered rave reviews and ignited a rabid following of supporters.

Two of those supporters are my best friend and his partner. So while I only saw [title of show] twice during its run at the Lyceum, it was the subject of scores of conversations, complete with recountings of the literally dozens of performances my friends saw, their personal interaction with all four stars of the show, and general worship. In fact, [title of show] is so permanently attached to my memories of living in New York that year that I was not perhaps the best person to offer criticism of a local production.

And as I settled into my seat, I found my brain picking apart components of the show â┚¬â€œ particularly around casting â┚¬â€œ that would seem jarring for those who know the Broadway incarnation. The casting of the two leads features a weird coincidence: the person playing Hunter (Kevin Kelly) bears a striking resemblance to real-life show writer and star Jeff Bowen. The actor portraying Jeff (Rob Lott), meanwhile, bears a similarly eerie resemblance to the real-life Hunter Bell. They are so similar to the other's real-life source, in fact, that it's practically impossible to believe it was by accident. While I'm confident the producers saw the Broadway production, based on the faithfulness of their version, it was almost as though they cast the parts based on unattributed photos of the stars and assumed that one was the other. It took me 20 minutes to stop thinking of the oddity of that.

It also has to be said that the relative age of the actors was a bit undermining. One of the great things about [title of show] is that it is about two young but knowledgeable and talented â┚¬Ëœnobody's from New York' doing the unthinkable: staging a Broadway show with a bare stage featuring four chairs and a piano, and four unknown actors. Lott is perhaps too young for his role, and Kelly perhaps just a bit too old. Kelly has an avuncular presence when dealing with Lott as Jeff, and it makes some of the later conflict ring a little hollow.

The show itself brought me out of my analysis. Consistently clever and funny, if not a bit too referential of Manhattan and Broadway to keep Orlando audiences in the joke, the show contains laugh on top of laugh, and musical numbers that are both tuneful and advancing to the plot.

So at some point, I stopped looking at it and started watching it. What is revealed is a tremendously entertaining and joyous 90-minute musical. Not only does the whole cast sing well, they're all clearly having a great time.

Kelly's performance as Hunter, in particular, is original and organic as he creates a lighter, but believable persona for the writer of the show book. Robyn Kelly as Susan steals a good many scenes with her natural stage presence and believable quirkiness.

The other performances are more uneven. Rob Lott as Jeff is an enormously affable stage presence, although he doesn't quite pull off the hopeful yet world-weary Manhattanite/Broadway-phile persona effectively. He sings better than he acts, and some of the sharpness in the script is lost in his reading. Sometimes it doesn't seem that he quite understands the references he's making.

Melissa Mason as Heidi rings the falsest note, but that said, this was also probably the hardest part to cast, given that it is the big female â┚¬Å”Broadwayâ┚¬Â voice in the production. While one could see the other three characters being friends, Mason sticks out in a pedestrian, uncool way. She just doesn't fit, and is unbelievable as a Manhattanite, let alone a Broadway actress. (Better costuming and styling would have helped.) Also, during her one â┚¬Ëœbig' solo, she performs beautifully, but her singing throughout is a bit more up-and-down.

John B. DeHaas as the musical director/pianist Larry is an even more vacant presence than in the Broadway version. In the original, Larry had a presence onstage even without lines. He was engaged and emoting during the production. He mugged for comic effect. (That said, he was also lit, which the character in this production is not.) DeHaas looks like he's multi-tasking the entire time, so inert is his expression throughout. He appears startled when he has to deliver his very few lines in the show.

But these are just nits. The sheer fun of it all had me smiling, cheering, and at the end, joining in the standing ovation offered, deservedly, to this imminently watchable cast.

It was a tough ask, but this production of [title of show] won me over through its respect for the material, its exuberance and the talent of the performers.

Show: [title of show]
Theatre Group: Wanzie Presents â┚¬â€œ Orlando, FL
Venue: Silver
Remaining Performances:
5/24 Tue. 5:00 PM
5/26 Thu. 10:10 PM
5/28 Sat. 9:40 PM

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