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All short runs! All musicals! All singing! Some dancing! Some great! Some not so much. The early-autumn theatre festival of musicals is here. Many of the musicals are new, others not so much. It's NYMF. As in past years, I have some very varied reactions about whether or not to recommend what I've seen, so the abbreviation NYMF for me stands for: No/Yes/ Maybe/Fuhgettaboutit. Of course, it really is short for New York Musical (Theatre) Festival. My first shows seen are I Got Fired (a "Yes") and the others are less "Yes."
Write what you know, they say. Writer-performer Keith Varney did. In real life, whatever that is, while waiting for his preferred career to bear fruit, he had to bear a day job he was less interested in --- in an office --- and he bears the semi-truth bout what happened before he --you guessed it --- got fired. According to the press kit, he wrote the title song to I Got Fired in a short space of time right after he got canned, and a musical was born. After all, he now had time on his hands and had unemployment checks to pay for the paper and pencils needed. He plays himself in this production, naming the character "Keith." Other names have been changed, characters combined or created. His comes off smelling like a Nice Guy/Everyman who is the sane one in the bunch of folks who are perhaps suffering from too much investment in their jobs or were slowly driven insane by them. No one is a happy camper in the office. Mostly, it is fast and funny and fun -- certainly far more fun than actually working in an office of unhappy, back-stabbing people who are always watching their backs and back at the hellish game the next day. Keith came as a temp and was kept on, but still has the mindset of a disengaged, somewhat bemused temp keeping his distance and biding his time. Contrastingly, new worker Jenny is the bitch out to become the boss and advance at all costs, coveting each step on the corporate ladder and she steps on anyone in her path. Kelly Karbacz plays her with determined viciousness without going over the top as the wicked witch of the desk set, but her traps are set and sometimes telegraphed and each time the set changes, we are ready for her next victim to fall. Though she doesn't find any redeeming features or much humanity to flesh out the rather cartoony villain, there is restraint and she plays the character crisply and convincingly in her conniving caniptions, such as one can.
It's an occasionally self-referencing musical with some narration, the kind where character/narrator writer Keith can commiserate with someone who gets fired before he does and they can both break character as he invites the disheartened "ex-employee" to return for the musical's last song and get a sudden grin and agreement. Smartly and briskly directed by Steve Debout, the whole cast is solid, a well-oiled machine of "types;" anyone who's toiled in an office will recognize them. I especially liked, as the boss, Toni DiBuono's mix of no-nonsense command and treating the work as a necessary evil, always with her feet on the ground and her eye on the ball, but knowing it's not brain surgery, just a job that must be done. And I liked her mix of metallic exterior and a heart of gold as she rolled her eyes and rolled with the punches until one hits her. EJ Zimmerman gets lots of laughs from a character who is mostly limited to a variety of defensive, antisocial, rude conversation-enders. "None of your business!!" she snaps to those in the succeeding-in-business-without-really-trying, where everything seems trying, avoiding eye contact and the guy who might have a crush on her. Though much is amusing, things have a hard edge, emphasized by the use of expletives and vulgar words used constantly and coarsely as all-purpose words, as is increasingly common by many folks these days. It is realistic, I guess, but more articulate wit and variety would be welcomed. Some of that comes in the songs. Music and lyrics, also by Mr. Varney, are snappy and snippy and snarky as they should be, with admirable songwriting craft in evidence. All sing well and with characterization not sacrificed. They're accompanied by a four-piece onstage band, led by pianist/arranger Doug Oberhamer. Those of us who spend our non-theatre times in cabaret and jazz rooms will be glad to see the versatile guitarist Sean Harkness there, on the money and on the mark as usual, adding his drive and rhythms. The last scheduled performance is October 10, but I would "re-hire" these workers, one and all, to continue their employment as splendid workers in the salt mines of theatre with this salty-humored show peppered with laughs, neatly satirizing office politics. And maybe even giving some who take their office jobs too seriously at the cost to others' -- and their own -- humanity some pause for needed reflection. But don't let that stop you from laughing.
See www.NYMF.org for details and tickets
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