[title of show]

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Jeff and Hunter and Heidi and Susan may be playing exaggerated versions of themselves, but they can't hide that genuine cheer, even in a big Broadway theater. [title of show] isn't ambitious in presentation, but it is impressive all the same, filling the house with honesty, intimacy, and lots of laughs. It's an homage to musical theater, but at the same time, it's a Disney musical in its own right: "Dreams Do Come True," it sings, and that's perhaps the rarest, most worthwhile spectacle of all.

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Perfect Harmony

***1/2 (...out of 5 stars)

The Essentials

Two earnest, high strung High school acapella groups duke it out for the National championship in this darling quirkfest of a musical play currently running at The Clurman on Theater Row. Never mind that perhaps some of the cornball choices undercut the sincerity of the piece (a haz-mat suit as a performance costume?, estrogen injections?) or that a few of the sub-plots are extraneous and/or weakly resolved, there is a gallon of charm in this engaging look at angst-ridden teens throwing their hearts and souls into their extra-curricular activities. Each character has their own pet foible (Tourettes, TMJ, agoraphobia, etc.) and our cast here revels in these foibles giving us rich, hysterical characters that you want to slap and hug. And yes, there is plenty of singing and it's a whole hell of a lot of fun (my fave: an acapella rendition of George Michael's "Freedom 90"). I was all wrapped up in the acapella scene when I was in high school (baritone/tenor 2) and this play nailed the earth shattering impact that this scene can have on a awkward teen looking for something to believe in. Thumbs up. Oh! And HGA!

Do Not Do This Ever Again

Photo/Caleb Hammons

"Dim O," indeed, to quote from Karinne Keithley's new and accurately titled play, Do Not Do This Ever Again. This wholly indulgent work, presumably about loneliness, is broken into four unrelated and abstract pieces, all performed with a heavy-handed seriousness. The only good thing here is Maria Goyanes's use of the deep Ohio Theater; too bad the script isn't nearly as deep. It's just an indecipherable mess, stilted and restrained, particularly in the "operetta," which features Marie Antoinette, Esme (a talking cat), and three deer. The action for this part, incidentally, takes place on transparencies, broken only by a clunky dance set to harsh and broken music. As always, this is just my opinion, but this is the sort of smartsy theater that drives audiences to the safety of Broadway.

Bouffon Glass Menajoree

Photo/Maike Schultz

Screw Tennessee Williams, that hack, and all his illusions that congeal to speak the truth. Instead, take the advice of Ten Directions, and buckle your seat belts for truth in the form of illusion, and their bouffon (anti-clown) adaptation of The Glass Menagerie. Eric Davis starts by throwing out the "memory play" narrative: with the use of a giant spiderweb-like dream catcher, he works in the nightmarish present. To this end, the characters are all played at extremes: Tom (Lynn Berg) is half-Quasimodo, half-quarterback, which reflects both his work habits and his recklessness; Amanda (Aimee Leigh German) is now a grossly obese woman, which makes her fixation on her gentleman-caller days as disturbing as her appetite; and Laura (Audrey Crabtree) isn't just physically crippled, she's mentally off, too: like an infantilized version of one of the villains in a Rob Zombie film. The aggressive, grotesque acting frequently directs them toward the audience, but their barbs are more humorous than hurtful, and often accompanied by free beer. All three of the actors have their distinct strengths, and they blend nicely, a real feat considering how much of the show seems to be improvised (especially with the final scene's "gentleman caller"). At the end of the show, the actors curse the audience with the memory of the show, but that too, is in good fun. From Berg's Robin Williams-like "night at the theater," to Crabtree's oversexed snarls and thrusts for her "unicorn," and German's mouthful of butter, having survived Bouffon Glass Menajoree, you won't really want to forget it.

Whisper

Is it any surprise that in a show involving whispers that actions speak louder than words? I find the technical craft on display here to be marvelous, with writer/director Peter S. Petralia making exceptional use of Rebecca M.K. Makus's silhouette lighting and Philip Reeder's sound design. But Whisper is a little too much like a Beckett radio play for my tastes: it remains at a distance, emotionally elusive, and the headphone gimmick makes it far too easy to tune this world out.

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Perfect Harmony

Photo/Jim Baldassare

The only thing Perfect Harmony is missing is the perfect harmony: unfortunately, that MAJOR problem makes a lot of other MINOR issues into a bigger problem, and ultimately, makes the KEY of the whole show FLAT. (The musical puns, incidentally, are capitalized so as to better emphasize how an inconsistent tone can make something clever into something that's far too obvious.) Getting past all of that, though, I'm glad to see that Andrew Grosso is keeping this play, a favorite of mine at the '06 Fringe, alive: I just wish that it had grown. The original was built through collaboration and improvisation with the actors, and the lack of synergy with the mostly-new cast (square pegs in round holes, save for a few exceptions) shows. Still, the concept itself is clever--and vital: the cheery atmosphere tries to do for a capella what 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee did for spelling bees. If only every section were as polished as Lassiter's doleful medley of pop songs.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: David]