By Bart Greenberg****The Green Room is a new off-Broadway musical that updates the whole hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show genre. This time it’s the story of four college best friends (two of them siblings) who dream of being NOT on Broadway, but Off-Broadway. Despite echoes of musicals from Babes in Arms to Baby to Merrily We Go Along to Grease, there is a freshness to the cast as well as the songs, which keeps the entertainment rolling along, despite some major issues for the evening as a whole.
The quartet of actors who inhabit the show are all very talented and charming. Eli Douglas LaCroix plays Cliff with a huge amount of zeal. He’s the newcomer to the group who hang out in the eponymous green room at St. Gustov College and it’s he who’s written “the play.” He also subtly conveys growing maturity between the two acts, which spans a gap of three years. Sami Staitman portrays his sister Anna, the campus golden girl, with a good deal of insecurity under the surface. It’s not her fault that she can’t quite convincingly capture some of the abrupt character changes the script requires (more on this later). Corbin Williams is convincing as department stud John, who has some major daddy issues. And last, but definitely not least, is Ariana Valdes as the driven Divonne, who comes close to stopping the show with “It’s All About Me,” a number that more than one cabaret belter should check out.
That song, and the entire score, is by Charles Pelletier. He excels at clever lyrics and has a good ear for pastiche—a 1950s doo wop “Good Looking Girls” for the show (about a modern-day Don Juan) and a terrific “Do Me Blues” for the unhappy-in-love siblings. Even the questionable “Nothing Can Stop My Boys” (the braggadocio of a young man proud that he’s gotten his girlfriend unexpectedly pregnant) has a great deal of clever word play. Unfortunately, the performers have to sing along with a recorded score, which is not well-reproduced, delivered through a tinny sound system that often results in poor balance between vocalists and music. A single live piano or synth would have been a better solution, and would thus make the entire venture appear more professional.
And that brings us to the book by C. Stephen Foster and Rod Damer, which is the major fly in the ointment. They do quite well in capturing the insular (almost incestuous) cliques that form within theater departments. But they fail to suggest a world outside the Green Room, except for a few references to a specific teacher/director. While off-Broadway economics understandably prevent troupes of theater students from dancing across the stage, it seems rather odd that not a single fellow thespian is referenced during the evening, either as friends, rivals or romantic interests.
But the bigger problem is the strangely sexist attitude of the show, very out of step with current social moods. In the first act, the resident stud brags to the brother of his girlfriend that he plans to seduce her (she is a virgin) and then drop her because that’s what men do. That may not be an uncommon belief among male college students, but using that notion as a bonding duet (“Bachelor’s Anthem”) with his target’s sibling is a bit creepy. Then, in the second act, when the same young woman expresses discomfort in wearing a leather dominatrix outfit in the show written by her brother, he and her returned boyfriend (who deserted her after their tryst in the green room closet) emotionally blackmail her into donning the costume. After the requisite second act power ballad “I Wanna Go to the Extremes,” she gives in and this seems to be a reason to celebrate as opposed to a moment of subjugation.
Director/choreographer Jessica Jennings keeps things moving along without much invention but no interference. But it was a major miscalculation to shove a 15-minute intermission into the middle of a 95-minute musical. Yes, it conveys a major time jump, but a minute-long interlude would serve the same purpose. Curiously, there is no costume designer listed, but Kyrie Ellison is credited with “additional costumes,” many that are for shows within the show, which is quite clever. However, the violet lycra briefs on LaCroix are a major mistake for obvious reasons. The rest of the physical aspects of the production are dreary and not up to off-Broadway standards.
The Green Room runs through October 27, 2019 at The American Theatre of Actors’ Sargent Theatre, 314 West 54thSt., New York City. Tickets may be purchased via BrownPaperTickets.com.
All photos by S. Scott Miller
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