Retribution, apathy and nostalgia collide in the slight but engaging world premiere musical “Glory Days” by Washington-area wunderkinds Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner.
The two 23-year-olds — friends since high school — have collaborated on a pop-rock musical, savvily directed by Eric Schaeffer, that affectingly reflects on that awkward time after freshman year of college where you feel caught between being a child and taking those first, tenuous steps into independence and young adulthood.
That’s exactly what four best friends are experiencing as they hang out at their high school football field on a warm May night. It seems at first like an odd choice, given that the guys initially bonded over suffering humiliations by jocks who wouldn’t let them off the bench. But then, this field — a starkly familiar place rendered by set designer James Kronzer as a bank of steel bleachers and blinding stadium lights — is emblematic of the pull between the comfortable known and the scary possibilities that lie ahead.
Led by the introspective narrator Will (Steven Booth), the friends razz and joke with each other and things turn serious as the night wears on. At first, the mood of the reunion is exultant, as expressed in the breathless, awed rhythms of the opening song, “My Three Best Friends,” where Will introduces the rest of the group — Andy (Andrew C. Call), the boneheaded athlete; Skip (Adam Halpin), the cynic; and Jack (Jesse JP Johnson), the voice of reason.
They gather to shoot the breeze, but also to exact revenge on the jocks who bullied them — a scheme Will has cooked up that involves retiming the sprinkler system. The caper falls by the wayside as the friends have bigger issues to face, among them, Jack’s confession that he’s homosexual (conveyed in the wistful and hopeful strains of the song “Open Road”). Jack’s coming out is one of the more fully developed aspects of “Glory Days” and feels both genuine and heartfelt. The friends’ responses to his news, ranging from Will’s needy acceptance and Skip’s knee-jerk teasing to Andy’s inchoate rage, also seem to be rooted in emotional truth.
You wish you could say that about the other three characters, who seem either unformed or riddled with cliches. You never quite understand why Andy is so furious — maybe he’s just too dumb to comprehend alternate lifestyles — and his constant bragging about babes, brawn and frat house antics make him come off as a complete jerk. Skip barely registers — the most interesting thing about him is his new haircut. Will’s first forays into becoming a writer are so stereotypical and heavy-handed that he seems more like a best-friend stalker than a budding Holden Caulfield.
The score is in the derivative Jonathan Larson pop vein, with the endless crescendos and the escalating harmonies of the boy-band era. The thing about this music — which seems so ’90s — is that it is “rock” sanitized by Broadway traditions and, as a result, is something a young person would probably never listen to or perhaps even hear.
There are a few songs of clever promise — the sarcastic charge of the lyrics in “Generation Apathy,” for example — and the young cast sings the score with all the brio and testosterone-fueled bravado they can muster. Mr. Blaemire and Mr. Gardiner exude freshness and promise as well, and you end up looking forward to future musicals where they tell their stories in ways and with music that speaks intimately to their generation.
**1/2
WHAT: “Glory Days,” music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire, book by James Gardiner
WHERE:Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Feb. 17.
TICKETS: $45 to $69
PHONE: 703/820-9771
WEB SITE: www.signature-theatre.org
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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