In general, I’m not a fan of musicals. It’s not that I mind it when good acting and dialogue are interrupted periodically to allow the players to burst into song. I’m not even necessarily against over-the-top dance numbers that come out of nowhere. No, the biggest problem I have with most musicals is that their stories and subjects tend to be incredibly dumb.
Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, the composer and writer behind [title of show], now through June 26, 2011 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, appear to share my pain, although they obviously love the genre a good deal more than I. That’s probably why they chose to express their frustrations with this archaic medium by creating a musical about it.
You’d have to be a serious sourpuss not to enjoy the current TheatreWorks production of their effort, which is about two guys with a dream of writing a musical that makes it to Broadway. Based on their real experiences in 2004, when Bowen and Bell entered a musical-theatre festival by submitting a musical about two guys writing a new work for a musical-theatre festival, [title of show] is self-referential by design. Its frequent jokes about masturbation are not an accident.
Director Meredith McDonough gets good performances and energy from the fine company of four actors and lone on-stage keyboardist (William Liberatore). Surrounded by an efficient and believable set from Kate Edmunds, the actors fill the stage with their convincing characterizations and strong voices for almost two hours without an intermission.