Travelin’ Blues

Don’t show up for See Rock City and Other Destinations, a collection of musical vignettes, until the last possible moment. Any foolish audience members who arrive before 8:02 will be subjected to a theater sans seats, while they must stand behind a taped line and wonder why lawn chairs are piled precariously in a corner. Turns out, those are the theater’s seats, and the audience must await the secret signal for the actors to spread them around the periphery of the space. What follows is a mad game of musical chairs.

Perhaps director Jack Cummings III, who made a big splash with his fabulous revival of The Boys in the Band last season, simply wanted to revisit the notion of including the actors in the action. Frankly, the show doesn’t benefit in any way, and the cast must work twice as hard to win us over. Nor is his decision to have actors narrating the action really organic. Nothing is added by the spoken stage directions, except another chance for the cast to earn paychecks. So when I say that See Rock City turns out to be a surprisingly engrossing new musical, despite my initial rage at the ridiculous seating arrangements, you should believe me. If the actors and songs can bounce me out of my irritation, they’re worth seeing, even if less than half of the show really succeeds.

The evening wisely starts with a lone traveler convincing a waitress to join him on an impromptu road trip to see Rock City. As the tourist, Bryce Ryness has a hoarseness to his voice that mars his big notes (blame the endlessly pumping smoke machine), while Mamie Parris benefits from playing a wistful Southern waitress, an archetype that somehow never gets old. Parris proves herself a warm and witty actress throughout the piece, one whose presence instantly puts the audience at ease that what we’ll see will be, at the very least, enjoyable.

She is noticeably absent from the show’s most tedious sequences, about a young man (Stanley Bahorek) camped out on the border of Area 51, and a crass tale of two high schoolers (Bahorek and Ryness) who ditch class for a day trip to Coney Island, where they fondle one another awkwardly in the spookhouse. Neither story is funny, amusing or very engrossing.

Sally Wilfert, however, overcomes her annoying character at the Alamo by sheer force of talent. Her Lauren sings a big, heartfelt song about turning her back on love—but Lauren is only 30. Had she been 40, the character might earn some gravitas, but as written, she simply seems like a sad young woman playing at world-weariness. Until, that is, she meets an awkward lawyer (Jonathan Hammond, working again with his Boys in the Band director Cummings).

The highlight of the evening is set on an Alaskan cruise ship, where three sisters (Wilfert, Parris and Donna Lynne Champlin) have come together to scatter their father’s ashes. Singing an old family song, the brief interlude is an almost perfect evocation of family ties, sisterly rivalry and childhood nostalgia.

The show ends oddly, with a runaway bride (Champlin) touring Niagara with a mysterious guide (Hammond) who has an unhealthy obsession with convincing her to clamber to the top of Lovers Leap. The story is dull and oblique, with the bride vacillating over taking the leap. But whether she’s talking about off the edge of the cliff or into matrimony remains unclear, and relatively moot. She’s hardly the most sympathetic of brides.

In fact, few of the characters are sympathetic, which makes See Rock City an oddly listless night. But when the actors connect with their material, the effect is similar to driving on a road trip with the windows down, miles of highway stretching in front of you while the radio blares.

See Rock City and Other Destinations

Through Aug. 8, The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 646-223-3010; $48.