Any time a new work borrows heavily from a familiar classic, the writers had better take care to live up the model.
The good news from New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse is “Starstruck,” a world premiere musical by Beth Malone, Mary Ann Stratton, and Emily Saliers, not only makes charmingly humorous use of Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac,” but goes far beyond the filch of a surefire plot device to be a sharp, refreshing show that marries the intelligence and sensibility of the great 20th century musicals with contemporary techniques and ideas.
Malone and Stratton take several risks and ace every one of them. Saliers’ lyrics address genuine feelings and aspirations in language that shows she knows something about life, love, and relationships, well-managed or not, requited or not. Her folk-based music fits “Starstruck’s” rural Idaho setting and individualistic characters.
Saliers is half of the Indigo Girls duo (with Amy Ray) and captures the band’s knack for getting directly, but poetically, to a point. Most of the “Starstruck’s” songs are original, but right at the top you hear of one of Indigo’s biggest hits, “Galileo,” paired with a new tune, “Points of Light.” The second act begins with another Indigo Girls favorite, “Closer to Fine,” and you can feel the audience’s reaction as guitars sing out its familiar opening chords.
“Starstruck” is essentially a romantic comedy that teasingly makes you wonder whether anyone is going to get her or his girl while introducing you to a gaggle of quirky small-town characters and making strong points about commitment, professional and personal, along the way.
Malone and Stratton’s dialog is chocked with smart comebacks, terse rejoinders, and shrewd questions about logic or motive that create a lot of legitimate laughs. The best part is these zingers blend into the normal conversation at hand and rarely seem like rimshot set-ups.
Character names announce the “Cyrano” reference before thumbs busily compose a love note on a hastily (and mercifully) grabbed mobile phone to show an inarticulate swain how romantic interest is achieved. The phone grabber, fed up with a friend’s fumbling prose, is Cyd DeBerg, an astronomer who returns to her hometown, becomes a forest ranger, and uses her free time to study the vastly visible cosmos in isolated peace. The recipient of the fiber-optic billet doux she crafts is called Roxanne. The verbally challenged mooncalf is a cute but clueless Jethro Bodine type named Chris.
Together they form the triangle that gets the romance going.
Cyd (Beth Malone) is both the clearest and most confused by it all. Brilliant in science, brittle by nature, and about as emotionally distant as the Earth is from Betelgeuse, or Neptune, Cyd cannot understand the warmth in the pit of her stomach or accustomed perspiration she experiences when Roxanne, a podcaster trying to do a story about Cyd, comes near. Roxanne (Krysta Rodriguez), who has the equivalent of a sailor in every port, is attracted by the studly and horny Chris (Sam Gravitte) who constantly wishes upon shooting stars to meet a woman, preferably one with a dog.
It’s a classic romcom set-up, but Malone, Stratton, and Saliers take it further, the first two by creating interesting complications that add to Cyd writing Chris’s love texts and the push-me-pull-you pattern of Cyd and Roxanne’s relationship, Saliers by giving the smitten and other characters sincere and telling ways to reveal what they’re feeling and relating it to their general experience.
“Starstruck” is a winning show. Bucks County Playhouse has been a generous incubator of new musicals since its rebirth 12 years ago. In the past two seasons, it found a diamond in only slight rough with “The Apple Boys,” which would probably do well off-Broadway and now presents what registers as a fully formed piece that is ready for Broadway today.
Delight derived from watching “Starstruck” was constant. Every touch, whether by the authors and composer or by the deft and witty director-choreographer Lorin Lotarro, made the piece more laudable. Words like “smart,” “shrewd,” “witty,” “wry,” and “perfect” swam through my brain like Tchaikovsky sugar plums.
Neither the creators nor Lotarro took an easy route. Malone and Stratton endowed their lead characters, and the supporting cast, with traits that wouldn’t let them be cardboard facsimiles of romcom types. Saliers hit the subliminal, emotional nail on its head with every phrase and lyric. Lotarro kept all lively while blending pure comedy or eccentric character traits with moments of seriousness and genuine confusion or frustration among the lovers.
Cyd is a complex creation. She seems like a pure scientist in being rooted in facts, literal in speech, and singleminded in her pursuit to make Sawtooth, Idaho, a dark space reserve, a designation that would require Sawtooth denizens, all 115 or so of them, to douse all lights at 9 p.m. every night, so the stars and galaxies that make up the Milky Way and the heavens in general could be seen in full display and studied.
Cyd is neither filtered nor pleasant. Her flintiness borders on intolerance, especially for stupidity, interruption, and interference with her dark space objective. While she can muster politeness, she is more apt to be direct and nasty. Unlike other townsfolk, she doesn’t want Sawtooth to become a tourist mecca or call attention to Sawtooth being the first dark space reserve in the United States.
Cyd is also lesbian, a trait I might not point out, except that “Starstruck” is the second piece of total quality that features a Lesbian lead (the other being “Fun Home”), that Beth Malone plays the lead in both, and that the lesbian story line is incidental. Romance is romance, storytelling is storytelling. In “Starstruck,” the characters’ genders and choice are a detail, not the point. Cyd’s inability to face her feelings, and Roxanne thinking Chris is her passionate textpal, is what matters.
Beth Malone created the role and the entire show, in fact, and enlisted Stratton and Saliers to realize a long-germinating idea. She brings Cyd DeBerg to full life, whether Cyd is dismissive or entranced by sensations that have eluded her.
Bucks executive producer Robyn Goodman said she is leery about having authors play in their own works. I could cite justifications for that attitude.
With Malone, as Goodman also said, all worries are moot. She not only understands every nuance of Cyd, including her lightning-quick humor, but can convey them while being a generous co-star to her castmates.
Malone keeps Cyd accessible and likable even when she is rolling her eyes at someone’s ignorance, actively working to avoid having to talk to anyone, dressing down a pest, or taking arms against one sea of trouble regarding her dark space project.
Malone shows you Cyd’s awakening, her various attitudes towards it, and her feelings as things go well or awry.
“Starstruck” is Malone’s baby, and she nurtures it and suits it well.
Krysta Rodriguez does something remarkable as Roxanne. In addition to being as much in touch with her character as Malone is, Rodriguez finds immediate and distinct ways to differentiate Roxanne, who is from New York and travels the U.S. in search of podcast stories, from the people of Sawtooth.
Roxanne’s demeanor is different. Rodriguez endows her with a worldly, urban sheen and attendant style that marks her as being more sophisticated, more experienced, and less parochial than the half dozen on the 115 she meets in Sawtooth.
Rodriguez, like Malone, makes the most in terms of clarity and revelation from Saliers’ songs. Hers is also a varied and complete performance that shows Roxanne as a complete woman.
You can see the fun Sam Gravitte is having playing the dense but lovable punk Chris is.
Chris, while being the most everyday, is the odd arm of “Starstruck’s” romantic triangle. He has been nowhere and studied nothing. Well, maybe carpentry.
Gravitte plays as an easygoing, congenial guy who might not know his intellectual limitation but doesn’t care. Chris just wants to be happy among his neighbors while he waits for a woman with a dog to come his way.
He is as unassuming as easy in his physicality, of which Lotarro makes great comic use. You can see why Roxanne is attracted to Gravitte’s Chris and why she takes a “who needs Albert Schweitzer when the lights are low?” attitude towards him.
Aurelia Williams lives up to her character name as Sunny. Sandra Valls makes the most of being Sawtooth’s raunchy rocker. Sydney Patrick aces her musical numbers and comes through with a dog just in time as Linda. Donald Corren is fun as the cynical sheriff who also bakes great scones. Scott Stangland is a fine adversary to Cyd as the guy who won’t turn off his lights.
The design team for “Starstruck” is stellar. Beowulf Boritt has the cast negotiating ladders and tossing down a few at a bar on a set that serves all purposes and gives a great sense of Sawtooth. Sophia Choi’s costumes, especially for Roxanne, Sunny, and Chris, are right on the mark. Paige Seber’s lighting gives you little treats, especially when Roxanne and Cyd are dancing, and their shadow is seen on a rear stage left wall. S. Katy Tucker’s projections were kaleidoscopic and made you want to get a telescope and skygaze. Tom Kitt’s orchestrations and Lorin Lotarro’s overall work were exceptional.
Starstruck, Bucks County Playhouse, 70 South Main Street, New Hope, Pennsylvania. Through Saturday, March 21. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday, 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, 11 a.m. on Wednesday, March 11, and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18. $37 to $150. www.bcptheater.org or 215-862-2121.
