Playwright: book, music and lyrics by Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere Jr. At: Refuge Theatre Project at Epworth United Methodist Church, 5253 N. Kenmore Ave. Tickets: $20. Runs through: Nov. 6
In 1891, Frank Wedekind wrote a play protesting the destructive behavior arising from teenagers suffering under sexual ignorance promulgated by those in authority.
In 2000, Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere Jr. explored the same themes in a song cycle excoriating the Catholic church for its neglect, leading it to be performed widely in regional productions aimed at the youths whose troubles it addressed. Resurrecting lost musicals is the Refuge Theatre Project's stock in trade, however, and the decision to stage its production in the site-specific sanctuary of a fully functioning Protestant house of worship ( permitting language vulgar, but never blasphemous ) offers audiences a rare opportunity to view this long-forgotten milestone in North American theater history,
The story reads like a checklist of teen-angst tropes: Peter is gay. Jason, his boarding school roommate and best friend since childhood, is also gay, but fears parental disapproval should his proclivities become public. The girls at their school, especially the flirtatious Ivy, adore Jason, and the drama club is doing—what else?—Romeo and Juliet. One night the friends sneak off to a Rave, where under the influence of party drugs, Peter and Jason are seen kissing. Later, Jason succumbs to Ivy's advances, things get hot and heavy, and Ivy discovers she is pregnant. Peter, reeling from this betrayal, rejects Jason. You can guess the rest.
What redeems this paint-by-numbers plot, featuring a book borrowing liberally from the source materials referenced therein, is its multigeneric score, encompassing not just the expected choral anthems, but also eminently coverable romantic tenor-range ballads and duets ( "Best Kept Secret" ), poignant soprano soliloquies ( "All Grown Up" ) and even a few Aretha Franklin-riffing Gospel tunes ( "God Don't Make No Trash" ) for the seen-it-all Sister Chantelle. Contributing mightily to the professional ambience is sound designer Chard Schroeder, whose expertise ensures that we hear every word and note in this collection of well-crafted arias, whether emanating from the chancel or the next pew.
None of this would matter without Refuge director Matt Dominguez and music director Michael Evans, under whose guidance an ensemble of uniformly young and vocally adept actors bestow great quantities of uncaricatured compassion upon their formulaic personae. The course of adolescence ne'er did run smooth, but the talent on display in this ecclesiastical setting promising—not without irony—deliverance from temporal turmoil render its spiritual agony as moving and heartbreaking as when Shakespeare first proposed his own crazy-mixed-up star-crossed kids.
