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Upon entering the McGinn-Cazale Theatre on Broadway and 76th for the closing night of Jack Perry Is Alive (And Dating), another new offering in the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), a patron in the fourth row was heard to exclaim, in all truth and ignorance, "What a funny coincidence! The lead character's name is Jack Perry, and that's also the name of the actor who plays him! What are the chances?" This unto itself should have served as a portent of the packed house's collective intellctual level, for most of those assembled lapped up the musical like honey. The rest of us, not so much.
The show, with a book and lyrics by Harrison David Rivers and Daniella Shoshan, and music by Julia Meinwald, originally began at the Ars Nova Festival in 2009, with the leading man/title character, where it was supposedly very warmly received. It therefore boggles the mind to wonder exactly what might have gone wrong in just two short years before it was mounted herein. We're greeted at the outset by Jack, a very jaded single gay man, whose views upon the madhouse that is a love relationship in the Big Apple, are not merely that it's a losing game, but a dark cloud with no recognizable silver lining. Constantly pressurized by his four best friends (the straight couple Val and Henry, and the gay couple Logan and Tad), Jack consents to them posting his profile on a dating site. Then, when Jack receives an anonymous text message written with an exceedingly amorous tone, he goes on a wild goose chase throughout Manhattan, and with previous paramours, to try to discover the source, which ends as an exercise in disappointment. Now, let's for a moment merely gloss over such a formulaic plot and get to the heart of the matter; though the music is never anything less than extremely entertaining and the lyrics show occasional flashes of William Finn-esque brilliance. In point of fact, the evening emerges as a solid ninety intermissionless minutes, which no one will ever be able to reclaim in a more productive fashion. The content is often far too clever for its own good when utlizing such Internet chat parlance as "rom-com" and "meet-cute," not to mention inevitable references to Bethenny Frankel, but such intricate rhymes as "New York is not safe/For the non-wed and the non-waif." "I'm tangled up in knots/And in my wants and my don't-gots," will hardly take their place among budding modern-day Sondheims. "Upgraded" is probably the best song in the show, as much for its moments of palpable tension between Jack and ex-boyfriend Milan, as Pirrone Yousefzadeh's direction and Clare Cook's choregraphy, but this does not a hit create.
Casting-wise, we've got another completely mixed bag here. Though Jack Perry does a fine job and displays a very handsome face and figure, he's hardly effective leading-man material for the modern musical. His four castmates fare much better, especially Jake Loewenthal and Josh Sauerman in a variety of roles. Which is not to suggest that Charles Baskerville and Melissa Joyner don't also have their copious moments to shine, whether dramatically, vocally, or by dint of sheer charisma. But it's interesting to note that the four of them all look like real people, the sort of random New Yorkers one might encounter on a subway or a grocery line, whereas Perry is so stunning that it becomes truly baffling why the character of Jack is the only member of the proceedings unable to get a date.
Still and all, the evening is never utterly without redeeming qualities. Matt Brogan has done a marvelous job with the set design (in which several pieces are utilized as a bar, a taxi, a subway car and a front stoop, among others) and also with graphic design, in which black and white images of the city's various locales are piped onto a screen at the rear of the stage. Mike Inwood, Eben Hoffer and Amy Pedigo-Otto also demonstrate spectacular handling of the lighting, sound and costume design respectively.
Perhaps the McGinn wasn't the best choice of venue for Jack Perry Is Alive (And Dating). Or perhaps the show isn't quite ready to sally forth beyond the confines of NYMF. In any case, it's a fair bet that it won't be traveling any further.
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