How appropriate that the sought after mystery man in The Lyric Stage Company's current production of Adrift in Macao is named McGuffin, the moniker that Alfred Hitchcock gave to any meaningless plot device that serves merely as an excuse for colorful characters to take the spotlight and become intertwined. On stage in the Boston area right now are three lighter-than-air parodies that, either happily or sadly, live or die by their emphasis on style over substance: the aforementioned Christopher Durang/Peter Melnick musical at the Lyric through February 2; the one-man murder mystery Antoine Feval at the Stoneham Theatre through January 27; and Live Nation/Broadway Across America's national tour of Spamalot at the Opera House in Boston, also through January 27.
Too bad none of these only mildly entertaining trifles are able to fulfill their higher theatrical purposes and find their comic grails. All three lack the sharp concept and madcap energy needed to keep audiences from noticing that their throw-away subject matter doesn't really, well, matter.
Adrift in Macao
Book and lyrics by Christopher Durang; music by Peter Melnick; director and choreographer, Stephen Terrell; musical director, Jonathan Goldberg; scenic designer, J. Michael Griggs; costume designer, David Costa-Cabral; lighting designer, Scott Pinkney
Cast in order of appearance:
Lureena, Aimee Doherty; Rick Shaw, Brendan McNab; Mitch, Ariel Heller; Tempura, Austin Ku; Corrina, Kathy St. George; Trench Coat Chorus, Kerri Jill Garbis, Neal Richard Lee
Performances: Now through February 2, Lyric Stage, 140 Clarendon St., Boston
Box Office: 617-585-5678 or www.lyricstage.com
Spoofing the film noir of Casablanca with a large dollop of Charlie Chan thrown in, Adrift in Macao is a lightweight musical comedy that, an hour after you've seen it, is about as forgettable as one from Column B. Christopher Durang's clever one-liners buoy this 90-minute one-act pastiche while Durang and Peter Melnick's fourteen olio-style songs range from humorous to bland to downright annoying.
A Humphrey Bogart-like American expatriate named Mitch (Ariel Heller), in pursuit of the nefarious Mr. McGuffin who has framed him for a woman's murder, stumbles into the Surf 'n' Turf Nightclub and Gambling Casino (can this café be any more Américain?) owned by another U.S. expatriate, Rick Shaw (Brendan McNab). There he falls in love (sort of) with the enigmatic down-on-her-luck chanteuse Lureena (Aimee Doherty), fends off the advances of the sex-crazed and opium addicted torch singer Corrina (Kathy St. George), and suffers the barely masked contempt of the quintessentially inscrutable Asian Tempura (Austin Ku), whose explanation of how he was named earns one of the show's biggest laughs. Will Mitch track down his nemesis and clear his name? Will Rick, Lureena, and Corrina find happiness? Will Tempura ever reveal his true feelings? Who cares. The point of the show is that there is no point. It's all about having a good time at the expense of a formulaic film genre.
The problem is, the good times don't consistently roll. Insipid songs like "Mambo Malaysian" and "Ticky Ticky Tock" douse rather than heat up the action and only detract from the more clever, moody numbers like Lureena's introductory "In a Foreign City (in a slinky dress)" and smoldering love-hate duet with Mitch called "Sparks." Even in these smarter, more evocative numbers, however, the cast falls short of achieving the degree of sultry cynicism necessary to root us squarely in the 1940s film noir malaise of Bogey, Bergman, Dietrich and Bacall.
As Lureena, Aimee Doherty sings well but is too contemporary in her delivery. Some of her mannerisms are more Valley Girl than City of Angels. Ari Heller more or less captures the unlucky-in-love melancholy of his hard-boiled expatriate Mitch, but at times he misses the comedy of spoofing his own ennui. As the morally bankrupt and self-serving opportunist Rick Shaw, Brendan McNab (filling in for the injured Paul D. Farwell) is too broad, making his deliberately presentational fourth wall breaking "Rick's Song" too similar to the rest of his performance.
