Recent arts coverage:
- Evolutionary biology. Aesthetic determinism. Live action role playing. The Rude Mechs are making a new play again
- Suburban battlefield: Women fight invisible foe in Amie Siegel’s ‘Black Moon’
- In eerie paintings by Ana Fernandez, a house isn’t just a house
More arts coverage | Follow this blog on Twitter @artsinaustin | Read recent arts reviews
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > February > 08 > Entry
Review: ‘John & Jen’
Penfold Theatre distinguished itself last year, surprising Austin theater-goers with ‘The Last Five Years,’ a one-act, two character musical. The production garnered Penfold, and Michael McKelvey, the show’s director, rave reviews and several nominations from the Austin Critics’ Table.
Now, McKelvey and Penfold bring us ‘John & Jen’ another modern chamber musical at the Hideout Theatre.
With music by Andrew Lippa and lyrics Tom Greenwald ‘John & Jen’ charts the story of two siblings growing up against the shifting American political landscape as the conservative 1950s gives way to the liberal, volatile 1960s.
Backed by a trio of piano, cello and percussion (in the tiny Hideout the musicians were shoehorned backstage revealed only partially through a gap in the stage set wall), Andrew Cannata and Sarah Gay had enormous tasks in shouldering the entire two-act sung-through musical. They also had to convincingly play their characters as children, teens and adults which they did with composure.
Jen leaves her younger brother along to survive in their stifling, repressive household when heads to college and the hippy lifestyle. John later heads to Vietnam. In Act Two, Jen is single mother struggling to raise a son, not uncoincendentally named for her brother.
If the plot of this two-actor three-character rapidly moving show is rather sentimental and predictable, McKelvey’s production nevertheless remains sharp and compelling.
Perhaps that’s because McKelvey know what makes the intimate chamber musical mode work to its best: a combination of energy and straightforwardness.
Simple staging and lighting enhanced but didn’t interfere with the rapidly changing moods of a story that veritably rockets through the years.
Cannata’s fairly relaxed tenor has good tone and when he hit the open phrases, he unleashed a Broadway-style boom - impressive, but almost overwhelming for this small-scaled show. Gay has the more emotionally complex and challenging role to sing which she mostly handled with grace.
Small is good when it comes to musicals, despite the typical penchant for the spectacle. And in the hands of a good director, small proves surprising and convincing.
‘John & Jen’
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 21
The Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave.
$10-$20
www.penfoldtheatre.org
Comments
When commenting, we ask that you keep things civil and abide by our Visitor Agreement. To report comment abuse, click here.