NYMT's "Play It Cool"; At Long Last Love

I just wanted to give a shout out to “NYMF’s “Play it Cool” which I saw yesterday (Sunday Oct.5). Since this recent theater season began with the lame [title of show] and through the awful “13”, I began to despair for a decent new musical. (This includes some of the crap I saw at ‘Fringe’ this year.) Then some friends talked me into seeing “Play it Cool” and I am so glad they did! With no set to speak of and simple costumes, this show relied on a superb cast and a terrific period jazz score to tell it’s slight story about the effects of homophobia on a small group of Hollywood types in the early 1950’s. Best was Sally Mayes as the lesbian owner of a small jazz club living in fear of being closed down by the police. This Broadway musical veteran was a real vocal standout. Her bluesy voice shook the tiny TBG Theater on 37th street. Also excellent was Josh Strickland as the young gay man not willing to play the Hollywood ‘straight’ game. The other three cast members were equally good.

What made “Play it Cool” so enjoyable, was that here is a small, but extremely smart show with a clear point of view and a very cohesive jazz score by Phillip Swann and Mark Winkler, well sung. Book wise, there were some problems that could use a little tightening up, but that’s a minor quibble. In contrast to the junk I’ve been seeing lately (with the exception of “Fela!”), this show gave me real satisfaction and pleasure as well as hope. I’m only sorry that yesterday was its last performance (as well as the end of this year’s NYMF) so I could have let other friends know about it. Oh well, that’s the nature of festivals.

One last thought about “Play it Cool”, is that while not as ‘full bodied’ a show, it was thematically similar and as professionally done, as “Yank”. If that gives you any idea of how good it was.

“13”; My “A Clockwork Orange” moment.

 A few years ago I would be watching TV and idly changing channels when I would hit on “Saved By the Bell” a ‘80’s artifact that starred the pre-super buff Mario Lopez and a pre-slutty Elizabeth Berkley. It was an inane comedy that took place in the kind of high school only bad TV could invent. After a few minutes of idiotic chatter, I’d change the channel. The ‘90’s brought “Beverly Hills 90210” which substituted juvenile humor with puerile melodrama among a shallow group of high schoolers. Now we seem to have a show called “Gossip Girl” about the same high schoolers only much richer and far more tech savvy. Being much older, none of these shows, or their various knockoffs, interest me in the least, with the exception of “Everwood”.

As I sat watching the new musical “13” by Jason Robert Brown, I felt like I was Alex Delarge, the Malcolm McDowell character in “A Clockwork Orange”, as he was being given criminal aversion therapy by having his eyes tapped open and forced to watch the worst atrocities known to man. In my case it was watching this display that was basically a 90-minute ‘musical’ version of those aforementioned shows. In Alex’s case, he ends up trying to commit suicide only to find himself in a full-body cast and paralyzed for the rest of his life. Me, I lucked out when after 4 hours (or 90+ minutes in real time), I was able to race out of the Jacobs Theater (really the Royale) and onto 45th street where I was able to regain my equilibrium. The #104 bus uptown never seemed like such a sanctuary!

The plot, such that it is, revolves around Evan, living on Manhattan’s upper west side, (literally three blocks from where I live) who is about to have his Bar Mitzvah. The only thing on his and the minds of his friends though is who is going to have the best party. (To be absolutely honest, this did ring true, especially since I remember my Bar Mitzvah and I invited Howie Burnett, whom I didn’t like, just so I could go to his party. BTW, mine was a swim party at the local JCC and a major success, but I digress) Quicker than you can bring Dorothy back to Kansas, Evan is whisked to a very gray Indiana, (don’t ask!) and he has to befriend a new group of cool kids or risk having a crappy Bar Mitzvah party. Very, very, very standard complications ensure, but in the end Evan learns a valuable life lesson. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

Also embedded in the plot is a real stench of Anti-Semitism, which stems from the idea that all Jewish kids think about is the cool, expensive parties they can have, devoid of any religious content. As I can attest to, there is a lot more to a Bar Mitzvah than just a party. It is a lot work and study. The party is fun, but the achievement of being part in long tradition in ones heritage is the best reward. In “13” it’s all party.

The young cast is talented but exceptionally unexceptional. They all seem to have spent WAY too many summers at ‘Camp Musical Theater’ or whatever it’s called. As performers they are so generic that according to their bio’s, almost all of them are understudies for each other. In the lead, Graham Phillips as Evan was charming and at least looked Jewish, but as the jock, Eric M. Nelsen couldn’t shine the shoes of the great Chris Pratt as jock extraordinaire, Bright Abbott on the far superior show about teenage angst, “Everwood”.

If this show becomes a hit perhaps next we will see “15”, where in Los Angeles, 14 year old Marisol is eagerly waiting for her Quinceañera, when suddenly she is whisked to Vermont….