TTwo musical theatre writers are trying to write a new show around the musical, and to complicate things further, they appear to be modelling their work on Toby Marlowe and Lucy Moss, the creators of Why Am I So Single?
“Write what you know,” agents suggest. But that truism didn't apply when Marlowe and Moss first collaborated on their wildly successful Tudor-era musical, which they wrote while still at university. VIThe play, in which Henry VIII's wives are reincarnated as rock stars, continues to cause a sensation in the West End.
The characters, thoroughly modern twenty-something best friends, follow their agents' advice and huddle on a couch to ponder why they've remained single for so long. The concept is tantalizing, and the show doesn't enter real storytelling territory for a while, bogged down by its own structure: the characters name (or rather, disguise) Oliver (Joe Foster) and Nancy (Letha Tully) after their favorite musicals. The playful theatricality and cute visual puns recall Emma Rice. Moi Tran's set design features moving furniture, a costumed actor becomes a lamp, and another actor dressed in green stands in for a plant.
Co-directed by Moss and Ellen Kane, the film features skits about unreliable men who cancel on dates, get into power struggles over text and lie about their heights online. The string of “shitty men” the pair encounter are personified by actors dressed as trash cans. They're all funny, but they're pretty banal and fleeting, with scenes that don't quite connect with each other.
Beneath the jokes swirl powerful issues, from Nancy's breakup with her ex-boyfriend to Oliver's trauma about his identity: his/her pronouns shift, an unspoken backstory of hostility and secrecy about sexuality. Shhhh!!!! It's a Marilyn Monroe-esque number played with anguished laughter, but the inner drama of both characters is quickly forgotten.
What really elevates this album is the music. Every song is strong, even the ridiculous song with bees on the flat (Interlude in B minor). The musical genres are varied, from rap to disco, CU Never's amazing tap number, to rock and musical ballads. While perhaps not as memorable as Six, the songs are better crafted and more poignant, the lyrics sparkle with wit, intelligence and bravery, and in the second half carry emotional weight.
The lead actors also perform well — Tully's voice is full of emotion, while Foster gives her character more depth — but I wish the tone and story had more momentum and less irony, or perhaps a more cohesive, satirical performance that led to something more than a run-of-the-mill summary of the dating game.
The show, in its self-referential central premise, resembles Michael R. Jackson's poignant “A Strange Loop” but to bigger, deeper effect in that musical, which really feels like just two people onstage, along with another recurring character, Artie (Noah Thomas), and an ensemble that never really comes to life outside of Kane's fun, pop-like video choreography.
The drama hits its stride in the second half, when the characters become more vulnerable and intimate, culminating in moving numbers from Lost and Better Off Love Story. One can only imagine what the musical could have been if these themes had been better integrated and expanded upon. With vivid material about friendship, family and heartache that has nothing to do with finding a man, the first half's portrayal of dating woes feels dated in the spirit of Bridget Jones.
The songs are as great as ever, but in some ways the story is secondary. Moss and Marlow are arguably the most talented songwriters in music, and with this difficult second album behind them and freed from the burden of having to write what they know, I look forward to a long and glorious partnership, and may their friendship continue forever.
