Even that could work, in the manner of a witty, loose-limbed revue like “Spamalot,” but the jokes here are just New Jersey burns and “that’s what she said” groaners. (Mitch’s mother, a piano teacher in yoga pants played winningly by Marilu Henner, calls a “hedge fund” a “shrub fund.”) What’s left is a show that makes fun of the conventions of musical theater while trying desperately to adhere to them.
As such, the characters are barely even archetypes. Tygen (Brandon Williams) is a hair metal narcissist who can’t finish a sentence; his entourage are vamps and half-wits. In general, the women are groupies, dim blondes or foxy single moms raising teenage angst-machines; the men of Juggernaut are heart-of-gold sad sacks. By the time several cast members “break” in a clearly scripted eruption of supposed hilarity, you begin to feel that the show, in its mania to please, has crossed a line from silly to clammy. You want its hands off you.
With such icky material, a clean production like the one the director John Rando delivers can make matters worse. (It looks and moves like a real musical; why doesn’t it feel like one?) The scenic design by Derek McLane and costume design by Emily Rebholz are suitably cartoony, but the lighting, by Ken Billington, goes too far into rock concert fantasy. Likewise, Chris Bailey’s choreography leans heavily on mimed air-guitar licks and high-five exuberance.
The cast, too, sells the show as hard as it can, which is not a pleasant sensation when it’s clear enough that no one is buying. (Well, the town of Sayreville, N.J., where the story is set, is buying; it has signed on as a co-producer.) Still, I admired the band members playing their own instruments, and the quick-sketch confidence of Tamika Lawrence and Ryan Duncan in utterly beside-the-point bits.
But when the digressions are more engaging than the main story, something’s fatally wrong. In “Gettin’ the Band Back Together,” the problems likely started in the improv room, where a necessary atmosphere of supportive encouragement can lead to least-common-denominator results. Nor were those problems resolved during the show’s 2013 tryout in New Jersey.
Maybe, in hindsight crystal clear, the title’s annoying apostrophe should have been a clue to its ambitions. The show aims so low that all it achieves is a ruckus in the tuchis.
