A Very Promising 13 at the Goodspeed

After the horrors of my afternoon show (see Happy Days review below), I felt the need to cleanse my soul. So I found a terrific (albeit pricey) restaurant in Chester, Connecticut called River Tavern, which is near the Goodspeed's ancillary Norma Terris Theater. The Goodspeed's two theaters are about 10 miles away from each other: Not a major inconvenience, to be sure, but hardly a hop skip and a jump for any double-feature seekers, like your faithful blogger.

Anyway, I saddled down at the restaurant between shows, had a phenomenal fluke, accompanied by a lovely Riesling, and as I was waiting for my date pudding (which was well worth the wait), I began eagerly to anticipate my evening show, Jason Robert Brown's Broadway-bound 13.

For the uninitiated, 13 is a bit of a concept show: there are thirteen actors, all around aged thirteen, and the show concerns the social pressures and challenges of being thirteen years old. The band members are mostly teenagers, too, a point that the production staff emphasizes by placing the band prominently above the bleachers in the show's gymnasium setting.

The central conflict of the show involves Evan, a Jewish boy from New York City who gets transplanted to Indiana after his parents have split up, which provides librettists Dan Elish and Robert Horn the opportunity to provide a lot of condescending humor about the provinces. This should play well to all the parochial New Yorkers who think of Indiana as beneath them, but it wears a bit thin. (Example: the kids in the show attend Dan Quayle High School, and their football team is called the Quails. Groan.)

But overall, the book is sharp and funny, and more than matched in quality by Jason Robert Brown's ebullient score. (JRB was in attendance the night I saw the show, perhaps tuning up the show before its Broadway bow next season.) The opening number is a very ambitious -- and successfully so -- 15-minute extended sequence, which sets the tone for many such sequences throughout the piece. It made for quite a welcome change from the stop-and-sing amateurism of Happy Days. For a behind-the-scenes look at 13, and an a capella rendition of the title/opening number, check out this video on YouTube.

Among the many standout numbers are "Tell Her," which features a compelling use of dramatic irony, and "Bad Bad News," a charming crowd-pleaser of a song, with a sort of "Everybody Out to Have a Maid" structure to it. It provides a great chance to showcase some of the very talented supporting players.

Not all the songs work, though. The very title of "What it Means To Be a Friend" illustrates not only what's wrong with the song, but with the rest of the show as well. There's an overly earnest, after-school-special quality to much of the material, which undercuts the show's effectiveness. Overall, the creators, along with director Jeremy Sams, have crafted a very promising show, full of verisimilitude and credible emotion. But in its current form, 13 is by turns brilliant and prosaic. Sometimes the winces come from recognizing your distant self in the painful social negotiations of the characters. Other times the winces come from scenes that are preachy, ham-handed, or obvious.

But that can all be fixed. Slightly more problematic, and ultimately more difficult to surmount, is the central conceit of the show. The material is complex, funny, and emotionally rich. But the current cast isn't always up to the challenge of the material, prompting the question: Will any cast of 13 year olds have the acting and vocal chops to pull off this admittedly worthy show? The cast here assembled is a talented crew, but there's something missing in terms of the believability of the complex emotions on display, and some of them have significant intonation problems.

I'll be very interested to see what changes the creative staff make to the show before it opens in New York. There's no question that they've got the makings of a fantastic show on their hands. The question is whether they can burnish the brilliance while banishing the banality. (And that exceeds my alliteration quota for the week.)

UPDATE: According to Playbill.com, 13 will begin Broadway performances September 16th at the previously announced Jacobs Theater. This news comes from a casting notice, which also reveals that "all roles are currently available, as are understudies and future replacements." It makes me wonder which of the kids from the Goodspeed production will actually make it to Broadway. Some of them were really quite talented, but I can see how the producers might want to start afresh with some of the roles. To be continued.

Comments

[Steve On Broadway (SOB)]

Chris, Thanks for the great post. Now I'm actually looking forward to this show again.

[Esther]

Chris,
I'm interested in the whole gefilte fish out of water plot. ;-) And there are absolutely no adults on stage, right? Hmmm. You may be right about acting and vocal chops. I mean, can a cast of 13-year-olds carry an entire musical? I just wonder if it'll be seen as a cute little novelty. Between 13 and Billy Elliot, it'll be kids night on Broadway every night!

[chris caggiano]

Yeah, Esther, no adults at all. I kept expecting the Charlie Brown teacher voice to emanate from the speakers:

"Mwah mwah mwah mwah MWAH mwah mwah..." ;-)

It appears they're going to be doing some recasting prior to Broadway, so we'll see whether they'll be able to cast this thing more successfully.

It's well worth seeing, even in its current form with the current cast. But something tells me that, as Sophie Tucker famously sang, there'll be some changes made.

[John Canning]

I had the opportunity to see the show in LA in 2007. I was amazed at the vocal chops of the cast and how well they carried the show. Some of the voices sounded tired, but they still sang in tune and gave a very energetic performance.

According to Jason Robert Brown's blog, they removed a number of the songs and replaced them with new ones. Based on the above review, I'm not sure those changes helped. The show worked quite well, although it was only about 80 minutes and without an intermission.

I missed the show at the Goodspeed, but hope to see it on Broadway this fall.

[chris caggiano]

John,

It's a very strong show as it is, but I'd live to see them tighten it up, remove the schmaltz, and cast some kids who are up to the challenge. I plan on seeing the show again in New York to see what they've done to the show. Even if I was the exact same show I saw in Connecticut but with a more consistently solid cast, it would still be worth the trip.

[PC]

The LA production got wildly mixed reviews and audiences either dug it or LOATHED it -- largely due to the stupid "I'm the only Jew in Kansas" plot, the shameless sexploitation of under-aged tweenagers, and the more-than-a-little-offensive portrayal of a disabled kid (afflicted with some unclear & inconsistent disability that pops up only when needed) to play the sad/quirky/magical/disposable friend. Yeah, I pretty much loathed it.