‘CHILL’ NOT A THRILL
We’ve seen a lot of this be-yourself teen drama before
The new high-school musical “Be More Chill” needed to take its own advice: Chill out, kids. And fear not your own truth!
If all of its overplayed, overwrought freneticism could have been avoided, we’d actually have an interesting Broadway show that not only reveals just how terrified we all are about the encroachments of digitized technology on our human bodies — and of teenage addiction to medication — but also how difficult it is to pull off weird “Little Shop of Horrors”-style satire in this moralistic moment when every show has the same thing to teach.
Be your nerdy yourself and let your freak flag fly! They won’t love you till you love yourself.
Here’s the deal with this “Next to Normal” for teenagers, which comes with a book by Joe Tracz and music and lyrics by Joe Iconis: Jeremy (Will Roland) is sick of being a loser so he snags a rendezvous with a pusher and hooks himself up a “chill pill.”
Once swallowed with Mountain Dew, you get The Squip (Jeremy Tam), a kind of personal Siri inside your noggin teaching you how to be cooler. He comes from Japan and he’s fun for a while.
Alas, The Squip doesn’t necessarily have your best interests at heart, telling you to cancel your nerdy but loving best pal Michael (George Salazar) and pay less attention to the quirky gal of your affections, Christine (Stephanie Hsu). And, you know, strive to become part of the elitist, popular crowd. Which on today’s Broadway means you’re pretty much going straight to hell.
You will be shocked — shocked — to learn that Jeremy realizes The Squip dude does not represent his best self. And thus much of “Be More Chill” is made up of his attempts to rid himself of this digital pest — not easy, since The Squip wants to take over the entire school.
You might imagine a show that arrives on Broadway with a score already well known to a teen audience would be a high-tech affair, all Instagram and Snapchat screens. And “Be More Chill,” directed by Steven Brackett and choreographed by Chase Brock, does have some modest, day-glo theatrical excitement.
But despite all of scenic designer Beowulf Borritt’s visual tricks, the message is as Luddite as they come: Don’t let anyone or anything medicate you, the show seems to be saying to its audience. And don’t let Alexa in your bedroom, either.
All of that, arguably, is good advice. But “Be More Chill” has a very Millennial male filter on teen life; the girls in the show seem always to be seen through the eyes of the guys. Some of the R-rated content will raise parental eyebrows. And there is a discomforting picture of a depressed dad (Jason Sweettooth Williams), who doesn’t like to wear pants, which is played for the strangest laughs.
Perhaps weirdest of all, it always feels like you’re watching a cast that is l-o-n-g past high-school, all playing, like, sophomores. That’s a standard conceit of shows like this, but it’s especially bizarre here, perhaps because “Be More Chill,” at the Lyceum Theatre on W. 45th St., was around so long before opening on Broadway.
The show is at its best when either Roland’s Jeremy or Salazar’s Michael are alone on stage singing terrific Iconis songs like “Michael in the Bathroom,” a very moving ballad about being a bereft second banana that gets the audience screaming in response, or “Loser Geek Whatever,” which probably comes the closest to depicting a genuine teen truth.
Those are the well-performed moments when you start to feel something for these kids, and when they finally feel authentic. It would be great to see “Be More Chill” in a different production with a director who had just one big note: Be more real.