Arts :: Theater
Community, theatre by Brian Jewell
contributing writerThursday Jul 31, 2008 Bared souls and bad habits
"You don’t see me," is the constant cry of the high school characters in Bare, an emotional pop opera by the team of Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere about the highs and lows of adolescence and first love. Nevertheless, the five main characters spend more time dwelling on secrets than talking about them, brooding over and sometimes relishing their inner turmoil with a blend of drama and diffidence that is sometimes tiresome but certainly authentically, affectingly teenager-ish. The show has a slow-growing charm that seems due more to the graces of the F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company production than the strengths of the book and music.
The show is set at a Catholic boarding school, and since there’s a rule somewhere that you can’t have a boarding school drama without someone committing suicide, Bare begins with a funeral. (Have I overused the joke about supposedly pro-gay shows that dwell in misery and end unhappily?) We then flash back to a tumultuous senior year for theater geek Peter (an a-dork-able Trevor Croft,) who has secretly been bumping boots with his roommate, golden boy Jason (suitably studly Samuel Moscoso.) Since their love dare not speak its name, Jason has a hard time fending off the increasingly ardent advances of alpha girl Ivy (Ashley Yarnell,) and when the boys have a falling out over coming out, it’s time for an experimental hook up. This love connection does not sit well with their friend Matt (Andrew Mackin) who is nursing a secret crush on Ivy, or with Jason’s mopey sister Nadia (Keri-Ann Maguire,) a dumpy girl who resents the pretty and popular Ivy.
Although Bare can be sketchy in its setting - you’ve never seen a high school with so little adult presence - the characters are richly detailed. Each of the five main characters gets their turn in the spotlight as the show explores the conflicts between the reality of young people’s lives and the teachings of the Catholic Church. If anything, the kids’ emotional lives are a little too authentic. The songs are stuffed with callow lyrics like "please let me touch your soul" and "little girls grow up so fast." The music, too, sometimes verges on cliche, composed mostly of generic Broadway and Motown pastiche. But there are some nice surprises too, like the hilariously bad whiteboy hip-hop number, and Nadia’s rocking screed "Plain Jane Fatass." If director Joe DeMita and his talented cast are aware of the show’s shortcomings, they don’t telegraph it. It’s all played with a sincerity and naturalism that’s hard to resist. The show may be a little overcooked, but it’s served with love and skill.
Twelfth Night
Theatre makes a bad hobby. Not necessarily for the hobbyist, who presumably is having a good time, but for those pressed into watching. You don’t need an audience if you build scale models, while a play is incomplete without people to watch it. But it’s really not fair or reasonable to charge people 15 bucks to see the theatrical equivalent of latch hook rugs and melt-and-pour soap.
Alas, Bad Habit’s take on the Shakespearean comedy Twelfth Night is a hobbyist’s show: a wildly uneven affair mounted with more enthusiasm than skill. It’s an easy vehicle to be enthusiastic about, full of classic comic devices like mistaken identity, crossdressing, and a love quadrangle. But on top of this framework sits Shakespeare’s dense and allusive verse, a language that half the cast doesn’t seem to understand. Wordplay is delivered and received with no apparent consciousness of the wit, there’s little sense of playfulness or vulnerability between the various lovers, and entire scenes are misguided and plodding. This isn’t director Midori Harris’s first time at the Shakespeare rodeo; presumably she had a more specific vision than "doing Shakespeare," but most of the cast is simply in over their heads, delivering the attempt and not the deed.
The news isn’t all bad. Adam Sanders makes a very good Malvolio, perfectly priggish while remaining a little sympathetic. Jonathan Overby is an amusingly bemused Sebastian, and Victor Shopov is pleasing as the dreamily besotted Orsino. But a few good supporting performances, and Pamela DeGregorio’s excellent costumes, aren’t enough to keep this Twelfth Night from feeling like twelve long nights.
Bare plays through Aug. 2 at The Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown. Tickets $12-$18. For more information call 617.921.4351 or visit www.fudgetheatre.com. Twelfth Night plays through August 3 at the YMCA Cambridge Theatre. Tickets $15. For more information visit www.badhabitproductions.org.
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