That basic premise recalls the Eisenhower-era horror classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” which gratifyingly suggested that those who rule the status quo are really mindless pod people. At first Jeremy — the anxious son of a morose single Dad (Jason SweetTooth Williams) who mopes around the house in his underwear — is ecstatic just to fit in.
But like the leading characters of “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Mean Girls,” Jeremy learns that popularity comes at a dehumanizing price. His hour of reckoning takes place during a performance of a school play about a zombie apocalypse, during which he wrestles with his bad cyber angel.
He is assisted by his bestie, the forever gauche Michael Mell (the highly emotive George Salazar), whom Jeremy had abandoned on the road to social success. He is also inspired by selfless love — for the madcap Christine Canigula (a hyperkinetic Stephanie Hsu).
This all sounds like more fun than it is — at least for anyone over the age of 21. (That’s a generous cutoff point.) The acting, singing and dancing (choreographed by Chase Brock) are all, to put it kindly, frenetic. The set (by Beowulf Boritt), lighting (Tyler Micoleau) costumes (Bobby Frederick Tilley II) and projections (Alex Basco Koch) bring to mind bright fan fiction comic books drawn in fluorescent crayon.
Despite a lively production number that brings the classic “Telephone Hour” scene from “Bye Bye Birdie” into the present (as “The Smartphone Hour,” led by the powerhouse Tiffany Mann), the show’s cultural and technological frames of reference aren’t truly of the moment. Much of “Be More Chill” could have been staged in the late 20th century, when the first “Matrix” movie came out, without seeming out of place or even prescient.
But it may be its very lack of chillness that has allowed “Be More Chill” to capture so many young hearts. None of the characters on stage really look like enviably glamorous popular people, but friendly nebbishes imitating the social elite with slapdash satirical broad strokes.
The rhymes in Mr. Iconis’s lyrics feel like they might have been improvised on the spot by class-cutting stoners behind the gym. (An example from the showstopping “Michael in the Bathroom”: “I’d rather fake pee/Than stand awkwardly.”)
Doubtless much care and calculation has gone into remounting “Be More Chill.” But it still has the goofy karaoke quality of kids performing boisterously for other kids. It doesn’t try to dazzle its audience with glossy professionalism. For better or worse, this may be the only show on Broadway that a tween could see and think happily, “Hey, I could do that at home.”
