PANDORA PRODUCTIONS presents
bareBook by JON HARTMERE, JR. & DAMON INTRABARTOLOLyrics by HARTMERE & Music by INTRABARTOLOProduced and Directed by MICHAEL J. DRURY
Reviewed by Cory Vaughn
Entire contents are copyright © 2012 Cory Vaughn. All rights reserved.
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Katie Nuss as Ivy and Jason Brent Button as Jason
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Whether gay or straight, whether religious or secular, whether you married the love of your life or lost them tragically and prematurely, you undoubtedly know what high school was really like. “Best years of our lives?” Please! If you can honestly say that the best part of your life was limited to those four years, you are the owner of a sad and empty adulthood. For the rest of us, those years weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
bare, the moody rock opera which is the latest Pandora Production, was written by members of the latter group, and its familiar story unfolds under a heavy cloud of believable teenage angst, as portrayed by a versatile cast of mostly twenty-somethings. Angst is depressing enough when presented dishonestly, in the pandering and self-important form to which countless bad youth films and prime-time soap operas have accustomed us. In
bare, the alienation feels mostly truthful, and genuinely heartbreaking, and in the end I felt adrift with well-earned grief for the lost souls on parade.
The story of golden boy Jason (Jason Button) and introverted altar boy Peter (Robbie Lewis) and their closeted romance is told against the imagery of Shakespeare and the Bible, taking place at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Boarding School during the last semester of senior year and framed by rehearsals for the senior play, what else but
Romeo and Juliet. Yes, that was a foreshadowing, and an obvious one at that, although the director’s notes also hint at the tragedy awaiting us. The school is suggested by the ever-present outline of stained-glass windows dangling like avenging angels from high above the eastern voms of Actors Theatre Louisville’s Bingham Theatre. I almost forgot I was in an in-the-round space, although director Michael Drury only uses half of it for seating, just as he did last year with
Zanna, Don’t!
It’s interesting that Drury evokes
Spring Awakening in his promotional materials; “if you loved
Spring Awakening, you’ll love
bare,” proclaim the posters and programs. Having premiered in Los Angeles in 1999 and off-Broadway five years later,
bare actually pre-dates the better known
Spring by about seven years, but I can’t help but wonder how
barewould be received if it came to Broadway now, in
Spring Awakening’s shadow. Both are rather dramatically obvious but livened up by an occasionally hypnotic emo-pop score.
Spring at least had that cool, abstract staging, like something out of an Ann Bogart production; set in 1870s Germany to the musical styles of 2006.
bare, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward in its storytelling, mostly sung-through, and set in the same time period to which its music belongs. Rather conventional by contrast, but
bare still holds up well on its own.
The pecking order at St. Cecilia’s is quickly established. Jason is the alpha male, the star athlete, the valedictorian-in-waiting, and the guy every girl wants to date, especially Ivy (Katie Nuss), who’s had her fair share of the St. Cecilia’s guys. One classmate she hasn’t bagged is her hopeless devotee Matt (Amos Dreisbach). Matt’s a nice guy, but as the resident beta male, he comes in second in everything to Jason, and his understandable contempt is beginning to show. He’s not the only one who feels invisible; Jason has a twin sister, Nadia (Kate Holland), who is as overweight and sardonic as he is toned and outgoing, and who feels about Ivy (her roommate, of course) the way Matt feels about Jason. Ivy, for her part, knows her reputation, and in private, she worries that nobody notices the real her.
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Students at St. Cecilia's Catholic Boarding School (l to r): Gerald Robertson, Robbie Lewis, Phillip Rivera, Leigh Nieves, Amos Dreisbach, Neill Robertson, Lauren McCombs, Katie Nuss, Kate Holland, Valerie Hopkins, Jonathan Porter, Jamisa Spalding, Blair Boyd
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In fact, most of these characters are simmering with resentment at not being noticed. It’s that general malaise, Drury’s program notes tell us, that first drew him to this material. A key early scene, during tryouts for
Romeo and Juliet, is masterfully economical in setting up these characters’ personalities; their outlook and social status is reflected in the roles they are given to play, and their mostly negative attitudes toward them. Anyone who read even the Cliff’s Notes on
Romeo and Juliet in high school can understand how Poor, Persecuted Matt feels when Jason shows up at the last minute and steals the lead away from him, getting to play Romeo to Ivy’s Juliet, no less; how Poor, Persecuted Nadia feels about being relegated once again to the role of servant to that slut Ivy’s star turn.
In the same scene we meet the class klutz (Lauren McCombs) and the sexpot cheerleader who can dance but not sing (Valerie Hopkins), both of whom feel the drama director has it in for them, and the class clown (Neill Robertson, who, come to think of it, would excel in
Spring Awakening, play or musical), who helps his classmates forget their alienation by partying and dealing drugs, another foreshadowing. Then there’s Peter, the shy, introspective one, ironically cast as Mercutio, the loudmouth! Mercutio gets to make that famous speech about Queen Mab, who haunts young lovers’ dreams, and it seems Peter is living that speech; both of
bare’s acts begin with a nightmare, and yes, those are omens, too.
Meanwhile, Peter and Jason have their own secret star-cross’d romance offstage. They’ve been roommates since their days at St. Cecilia’s began, and lovers for nearly as long, it seems. Peter is deeply in love with Jason and wants to go public with the relationship, wants Jason to publicly acknowledge him, but he can’t even admit his homosexuality to the few adults in his life. The priest (Jason Cooper) is sympathetic but ill-equipped to deal with Peter’s pain, and Peter’s mother (Susan McNeese Lynch) avoids the subject during an emotional phone call home, not because she’s busy, as she claims, but because she knows exactly what he’s trying to say; the one positive adult influence is Sister Chantelle (Tymika Prince), the sharp-tongued black nun who directs the play. And whether Jason, in his own way, loves Peter just as much, I will leave you to discover on your own.
We are accompanied on the journey to the bitter end (I won’t say who becomes fortune’s fool in this twist on the
R&J lore, but it wasn’t the one I expected) by John Spencer’s four-piece band. The biggest difference between Duncan Sheik’s score for
Spring Awakening and Damon Intrabartolo’s for
bare is that where
Spring Awakening rages,
bare mainly cries. Some of the songs, especially Kate Holland’s “A Quiet Night at Home,” could get some radio play if an independent folk-rocker ever picked it up, and kudos to the composer for attempting to set music to Shakespeare’s lines intact, but for the most part it’s Jon Hartmere, Jr.’s character-driven lyrics that keep the forgettable score interesting. There is no song list in Pandora’s playbill to help you navigate the evening’s moody soundtrack, but I checked out the show’s Wikipedia page, and the list is long.
Very long. I’d cut that silly drug-induced hallucination number and let Ms. Prince escape with her dignity.
This is a dark musical, to say the least, and all the designs show it, from Karl Anderson’s oppressive window drops to all the pleated black-and-white conformity in which Donna Lawrence-Downs uniforms the students (side rant: I don’t care how comfortable flats are, girls, they’re ugly, outdated, and not worth whatever you spend on them; end rant). But it is Theresa Bagan, the most ubiquitous lighting designer in town, who outdoes herself, particularly in her inventive use of fluorescent body strobes to suggest a crowded nightclub while a simple gobo directs our eyes to the important private moment outside. Only the sound, by the usually dependable Laura Ellis, didn’t quite work, but because microphones are not user-proof, my difficulty in deciphering several key moments may also be blamed on poor production I noted from certain actors.
Till now I’ve tiptoed as best as I could around the spoilers, but I’ll indulge in one. I loved that the last song is left unresolved by the composer. My fellow musicians know what I mean, and the rest of you will understand when you hear it. It was the perfect way to end, because for all but one of these deeply troubled characters, the angst isn’t over when the house lights finally come up on
bare. There is life, and there are consequences, after graduation.
NOTE:
bare is the last Pandora Production, at least for now, to open in the Bingham; the evening began with Drury’s announcement not only of which shows the company will be doing next season but that they will be mounting all of them in their former home at the Henry Clay Theatre! As much as I have enjoyed seeing the company work in different venues over the past two seasons (with the notable exception of the Clifton Center), I am glad Pandora is returning home and I applaud the Henry Clay for having them back.
barePandora ProductionsP.O. Box 4185Louisville, KY 40204-4185
www.PandoraProds.orgpandora.productions@insightbb.com502-216-5502
Continuing through Sunday, May 20In The Bingham Theatre,Actors Theatre Louisville316 West Main StreetLouisville, KY 40202
Featuring:
Jason Brent Button (Jason), Robbie Lewis (Peter), Katie Nuss (Ivy), Kate Holland (Nadia), Amos Dreisbach (Matt), Neil Robertson (Lucas), Tymika Prince (Sister Chantelle), Susan McNeese-Lynch (Claire), Jason Cooper (Priest), with Blair Boyd, Valerie Hopkins, Lauren McCombs, Leigh Nieves, Jonathan Porter, Sara Renauer, Philip Rivera, Gerry Robertson, and Jamisa Spalding
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