Margin Notes: Honeyland

Honeyland

Abby Goldberg and Anika Buchanan, front, as Fran and
Helen. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.

Seen on: Sunday, 10/20/24.

A young man in military uniform strides through the jungle in Vietnam. By the next scene, he is gone. Mike's three best friends--Helen, Fran, and Tom--all gather to spread his ashes, reconnect, and remember their time together: through political protests, theater troupes, road trips, drug use, and other iconoclastic moments of the 1960s, the four of them attempt to navigate their early twenties with seemingly endless possibilities but ultimately disappointing realities.

Or at least, that's how the show starts out. Most of the songs are flashbacks to these remembered times, and the connecting "present-day" dialogue, stilted from the first, quickly peters out until Fran is tasked with introducing the context for each song ahead of its performance. The result is that one feels that not only is the show only half-written, but also that the writers changed their mind about what kind of show they were writing midstream, and didn't bother to revise the earlier parts. Unfortunately that underwritten nature extends to the characters within the show as well. It can feel silly to call out male writers in musical theater, since they already comprise ninety percent of musical theater writers, but these two fully failed their female characters here: Helen's character notes are that she was in relationships with both men, had a child (whom we don't meet), and sings a song about being a 60s girl with Fran. Fran has even less, becoming instead the de facto narrator and introducing each song, but with no story of her own. It's a real disservice to her portrayer, Abby Goldberg, whose soulful eyes and clear singing voice deserve material worthy of her instrument. When she laments in the final scene that she feels "like [her] life is incomplete," I wrote in my notes, "because the writers gave you nothing."

For all my criticism above, these are things that could be improved and fleshed out further, particularly if we decide to treat this show, not as a full production, but as a semi-staged workshop. But even then, the writers need to answer a few key questions: who is this show for, and why is this the story they need to tell? The fact that both male characters are writers (oh yes, the men get to have career aspirations)--one a songwriter, the other a novelist--tells me that there's a chance this show is a bit of a roman à clef, perhaps a tribute to a fallen friend. But even if that's true, the show as is has nothing new to tell me, either as a time capsule of the 1960s, or as a commentary on the state of our world today. My philosophy as a writer is that you should try to tell a new story; if you're not telling a new story, find a new way to tell it.

Also, if you're going to set your show in Boston in the 1960s, at least one of your characters needs to have a Boston accent. As the grandchild of two Bostonians, I can tell you it's a hard accent to kick.

***

Running: Now playing at The Triad Theater (Theatreroo Productions) - Opening: October 13, 2024. Closing: November 2, 2024.
Category: musical
Length: 1 hour, 20 minutes (no intermission).

Creative Team

Book: Denny Lawrence
Music: Clarry Evans
Lyrics: Clarry Evans and Denny Lawrence
Director: Denny Lawrence
Designers: Michelle Lemon (Choreography), Molly Goldberg (Costume), Ben Hostetler (Lighting and Sound), Bobbie Zlotnik (Wig),  Clare Cooper (Music Direction), Jackie Mates (Stage Manager), Jamibeth Margolis and Meredith Hoddeson (Casting), 22Q Entertainment LLC (General Management), Katie Rosin/Kampfire PR (Publicity), Clarry Evans (Producer), Tweiss Productions LLC (Additional Production Consulting).
Cast: Anika Buchanan, Abby Goldberg, Jacob Higdon, Ben James Tyrrell, Kelsey Marshall, Noah Marcus.

Ben James Tyrrell, Anika Buchanan, Abby Goldberg, and Jacob Higdon as
Mike, Helen, Fran, and Tom. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.