Pictured From Electronic Baby.
Playwright: music by John Austin, book and lyrics by Kathleen Lombardo
At: Bobkat Productions at American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron
Phone: 773-253-4792; $22
Runs through: July 30
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
The traditional coming-of-age arc for 20th-century American girls is dolls-to-horses-to-boys, but this musical proposes another stepping-stone on the road to maturity: Baby has been enamored of cars since the tender age of 13, when feisty Aunt Lena introduced her to the thrills of Turbo Trans Ams. Now 17, Baby's hormonal fantasies are still of fenders and grills, to the dismay of her mother and stepdad. Cosmetologists, nutritionists and shrinks offer advice, but nothing works until the slick Red-Hair-Cool-Man woos her with automotive poetry.
Premiering at Chicago's Latin School in 1969, Kathleen Lombardo's script seems rather quaint in 2006: Parents ENCOURAGING their teenage daughter to be more sexually aware? A marital dynamic based on daddy ranting and mommy crying? Nobody so much as CONSIDERING the possibility that Aunt Lena might be a contented lesbian, and not a neurotic misandrist? And how about the values reflected in a 'happy' ending comprised of Baby's conversion to lipstick, Harleys and hots for the handsome hunk who earlier murdered her beloved Pontiac GTO at the altar?
None of this would matter if Bobkat Productions' revival had been developed farther beyond its roots as a high-school project. 'Expanded' from 40 to 90 minutes, too many of the songs are little more than orchestrated-recitative filler, with those featuring traces of engaging melodies ( e.g., the age-of-Aquarius 'Beautiful Thing On Wheels' ) finishing before they get started. And while Sara Hoyer endows Baby with pitch-perfect vocals, assisted by a nimble four-piece band, the garagelike acoustics of the American Theater Company space further muddy composer John Austin's already-baroque harmonies.
Austin and Lombardo are not the first to claim the 'rock-and-roll' sobriquet for their pageant, nor will they be the last. But granting that gearhead repartee ( 'Let's have a look at your chassis,' etc. ) uttered in treble voices makes for novelty, the relentlessly wholesome Cowsills-era ambiance ultimately emerges as too cutesy for adult audiences, even as the double entendres belie its PG suitability. Whatever Electronic Baby may have been—or hoped to be—36 years ago, it's a museum piece now.