Meta-Musical

The act of acting ironically, self-consciously self-aware has suddenly become the American musical's raison d'etre. Cleverly done, the wink-at-the-audience-because-the-audience-knows-you're-winking thing can be fun. If Urinetown fathered the trend, [title of show] is its spunky spawn.

For [title of show] is a musical about writing a musical. Except, that is, when the show lunges, as if dopamine-deprived, into the mad realm of being a musical about writing a musical about a musical about writing a musical-like a long day's journey into Sartre.

But neither composer/lyricist Jeff Bowen nor book writer Hunter Bell have nihilism in mind. Smartly directed by Michael Berresse, [title of show] simply traces how Bowen and Bell wrote [title of show], and how two terrific actresses, Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, assisted them. As the characters' names are Jeff, Hunter, Susan and Heidi, it is all a merry meta-theatrical mélange.

Note, for example, all the references to, and gossip about, New York's innumerable musical theatre mavens, from how Beauty and the Beast veteran Mary Stout got hit by a hot dog cart to the playing between scenes of actual voicemail messages left by Broadway stars turning down roles in the show.

Liberally dipping into pools of the self-reflexive does pose risks, however, and when the show's giddy tone turns serious-that is, turns sincere-things begin to wane. The writing is always pithy and the cast is always delightful, but when Bell, citing his script, notes how a scene is too long, he makes his point-and ours, too.