"Party Come Here"
Book by Daniel Goldfarb, music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, directed by Christopher Ashley, choreography by Dan Knechtges, musical direction by Vadim Feichtner, sets by G.W. Mercier, costumes by David C. Woolard, lights by Howell Binkley, sound by Jim van Bergen, orchestrations by Lynne Shankel, vocal arrangements by Carmel Dean
Cast
Jack, Hunter Foster
Orlando, Malcolm Gets
Wood, Adam Heller
Liberty, Kaitlin Hopkins
Kate, Kate Reinders
Volere, Chaunteé Schuler
Ensemble, Jordan Barbour, Clifton Alphonzo Duncan, Kate Roberts, Sarah Turner
"Party Come Here," Daniel Goldfarb and David Kirshenbaum's new musical which recently received its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, tries awfully hard to be hip, fun and poignant all at the same time. Unfortunately, it's that very effort that makes this jarringly self-conscious tale of a soul-searching young Jewish man caught in the swirl of conflicting cultures fail to rise like the helium filled balloon it clearly wants to be.
Goldfarb's contrived book is the major culprit in weighing down this fanciful fable, although Kirshenbaum's nondescript score and Christopher Ashley's uninspired direction don't give the show much lift, either. Despite flashes of depth hiding beneath an all too slick exterior, "Party Come Here" is basically a superficial parade of one-dimensional – and often unlikable – characters trying desperately to be meaningful symbols of contemporary urban alienation.
At the center is the milquetoast hero Jack (Hunter Foster), a bewildered straight arrow of a guy whose spoiled fiancée, Kate (Kate Reinders), dumps him at the altar because she decides that marriage isn't what she wants. What she wants instead (cue the '60s style pop song "That's What I Want") is to meet Jack's ne'er-do-well father, Wood (Adam Heller), a gold lamé sweat suit wearing middle aged cliché of a boor that Kate thinks sounds fascinating. Why? Because a) he's rich and b) he's living a hedonistically blissful life in Rio de Janeiro with his new 20-something Brazilian wife, Volere (Chaunteé Schuler), an English language challenged beauty for whom Wood divorced Jack's acerbic mother, Liberty (Kaitlin Hopkins). Liberty, it seems, can do it all, and she's not afraid to say so. She is a self-professed world class caterer and a former Olympic skiing champion. She is also someone you could quite easily picture eating her young.
So, wimp that Jack is, he promptly whisks Kate off to Rio, and in no time at all he assumes his usual place in the family – the outsider looking in. This rejection prompts one of the few true and touching moments of the musical. Foster caresses Jack's loneliness like an old friend as he sadly sings the lovely ballad, "The Boy Who Could Always Disappear."
Whenever "Party Come Here" focuses on Jack's story, the musical shows promise. He is a likable Average Joe who is trying to find his way in an emotionally unsatisfying world. His chance encounter with a 500-year-old cave-dwelling Jewish recluse named Orlando (Malcolm Gets) – whose own religious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition prompted him to choose an eternity of self-imposed exile that has grown over the centuries into full-blown paranoia – inadvertently puts Jack on the road to self discovery and spiritual redemption. Mix Orlando's strangely comic musical history lessons called "You're a Jew" and "Everybody Hates" with the looming presence of Rio's mythic Christ the Redeemer statue, and you see distinct possibilities for truth being revealed through absurdity.
