PPAC’s ‘Margaritaville’ might leave you with a hangover
Special to The Call/The Times
PROVIDENCE – Every Jimmy Buffett song tells a story, and that’s appealing. Unfortunately, stringing together a bunch of those songs does not create a musical.
Jimmy Buffett’s “Escape to Margaritaville,” which is launching a national tour from the Providence Performing Arts Center, is a showcase for Buffett’s many hits, and the two writers for the show, Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, manage to work the songs fairly seamlessly into a story. But that story is achingly predictable.
Predictability could be offset by music that makes you want to dance in the aisles or that strikes an emotional chord, but that happens too infrequently in this production. The songs have a sameness, with the up-tempo selections only marginally livelier than the ballads. Instead of responding enthusiastically to the first notes of favorite songs, Thursday’s audience was oddly quiet.
The wistful, familiar hit from which the show takes its title, maintains its poignancy, and Chris Clark, who appears as the Buffett-like Tully, gives a convincing guitar-playing performance. “We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About” has the energy missing elsewhere, thanks to actors Shelly Lynn Walsh as Tammy and Peter Michael Jordan as Brick, principals in sub-plot.
The main story centers on Tully, the laid-back singer at a Caribbean resort, and the serious-minded Rachel, who arrives on a girls’ trip with her best friend, Tammy, who is about to be married. Rachel is an environmental scientist and a workaholic more interested in collecting soil samples than relaxing with a margarita.
Opposites, of course, attract. The message: each is good for the other.
More fun is the relationship that develops between the engaged Tammy and the goofy but sweet Brick, which is played for laughs with a dash of sentiment. The relationship between J.D., a bearded islander who is a bit foggy in the head, played by Patrick Cogan, and Marley, a sassy and bossy Rachel Lyn Fobbs, is fun if shallow.
These stories play out on colorful set with a thatched-roof stage housing the on-stage band. Bright lighting helps create the tropical atmosphere, and there are some sight gags; one involving a bed is pretty funny.
All the parts are in place for fluffy but entertaining musical theater, and the show already is booked in 35cities. In these early performances, however, the production just misses the target.
Because this show originates at PPAC, reviewers got a look only on Thursday, and the show’s last performances are tonight. Tickets are available at the box office in the theater, 220 Weybosset St.; by phone at (401) 421-ARTS (2787) or online at ppacri. org.