The core ethos of The Heart of Rock and Roll might be best expressed in an early scene by the musical’s exasperated head of HR, played by Tamika Lawrence, who accedes to its peppy hero’s scheming by shrugging and saying, “Fine! What the hell. It’s the ’80s.†There’s a lot to unpack in that exchange alone. The Heart of Rock and Roll is about a cardboard-box company where the head of HR is a crucial character. And it’s set in the ’80s — like really set in the 1980s, in the same way that the French portion of EPCOT resembles actual Paris: There are tons of prop Walkmen, a profusion of crimped hair, and more shoulder pads than a Margaret Thatcher impersonator convention. The songs are all Huey Lewis and the News. The plot is a baroque fantasia of ’80s movie tropes. And fine! What the hell. I had fun.
It helps that The Heart of Rock and Roll is the funniest new musical of the season — not a high bar to clear, considering the generally dour and/or self-serious competition, but an achievement nonetheless. The book (by Jonathan A. Abrams, who shares a credit on the story with Tyler Mitchell) is just spritely and shameless enough to charm, in the vein of Shucked before it. The gist of it is this: Our hero, Bobby (Corey Cott), used to be an aspiring rock star but has given it up to work at a cardboard-box factory; I’m pretty sure the choice of product is to justify an assembly-line take on “It’s Hip to Be Square.†Bobby’s boss, Mr. Stone (John Dossett), runs the place with his uptight daughter, Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz), but the finances are iffy, so they (Lawrence’s HR woman, Roz, included) all end up going to the 1987 Midwest Packaging Convention in Chicago, where they court business from the magnate of IDEA Home Furnishings named Fjord (Orville Mendoza, whose dialogue may as well be “bork borkâ€) and where Cassandra also runs into her peroxide Wasp ex-boyfriend Tucker (Billy Harrigan Tighe). The proto-Lean In lessons of Working Girl, shenanigans of Risky Business, hedonism of Cocktail, and even the greed of Wall Street have all been jammed into a blender (though all those films’ seediness has been strained out). Tucker pursues Cassandra with the ominous single-mindedness of someone who used to be in an a cappella group. He happens to have recently left a job in Tokyo, because “I finally figured out what’s truly important in life: private equity.†That’s one of many groaners you just have to respect for their audacity.
If it’s as obvious as a neon sign where all this is going, well, there is something to be said for clear illumination and bright primary colors. Director Gordon Greenberg applies a light touch and a bit of wit to the proceedings, inserting sight gags whenever possible. When Bobby declares his love late in the show, Cott asks an audience member to hold a boom box over their head in imitation of Say Anything … When Fjord insists on taking a meeting in the hotel’s sauna, the scene change is effected by having a member of the ensemble with a cheese grater of a six-pack walk across the stage in a towel. (Jen Caprio’s costumes also tend to keep Cott shirtless or, at minimum, sleeveless whenever possible.) Lorin Latarro’s choreography enacts a similar kind of humor. Tucker’s attempts to win back his ex are set to “Give Me the Keys (And I’ll Drive You Crazy),†performed with the backing of his fellow Princeton Undertones, who Transformer themselves into the shape of a car. One dancer acts as the door that Cassandra slams when she gets fed up with Tucker. As Tucker rolls down his window to shout after her, the dancer pliés down toward the ground like he is the glass itself. By Act 2, we get a full-on dream ballet set to “Stuck With You,†in which Cassandra imagines a future with Tucker where they settle down into a quiet suburban life. That leads to alcoholism and, somehow, trying to stab him with her stiletto heel. You can close American Psycho, but you can’t mute the sociopathy lurking inside those Huey Lewis and the News synths.
In the spirit of Reaganomics excess that “Hip to Be Square†embodies, for better or worse, Greenberg seems to have told his actors that, in all cases, more is more. Though Cott and Kurtz are the show’s relative straight men, he’s veered into gleeful himboism, while she, a recent veteran of Wicked, has made her character all prim type-A Galinda. They’re mugging, but compared to the rest of the cast, they’re relatively tame. Lawrence’s Roz has many sassy retorts and too little actual character to play, but she lays into what she’s given with full commitment. Raymond J. Lee, as one of Bobby’s former bandmates, proves once again he’s got a killer deadpan, each line delivered at least 45 degrees askew. But Tighe as that Princetonian ex may be going biggest of all and delivers one of the most maniacally strange performances on Broadway right now (Eddie Redmayne wishes his Emcee were this bonkers). There’s a moment where he twirls down to pick up a ukelele before mincing offstage when Cassandra rejects one of his advances that I can only compare to the actions of a possessed Victorian marionette.
The consequence of all that ’80s excess is that there ends up being little room left in The Heart of Rock and Roll for any emotional weight. Dossett provides the show with what little grounding it has emotionally — there’s a convoluted backstory to his floundering family business that he flecks with human-scale pathos — but there’s little message to latch onto, aside from the ever-generic admonition to follow your heart and, of course, believe in the “Power of Love†(a song also being performed a few blocks over in Back to the Future, where there are more special effects but fewer good jokes). I know drinks and concessions must be sold, but an intermission kills the momentum here, as do the attempts to turn Huey Lewis and the News numbers into heartfelt 11 o’clock ballads. In the moment, it’s easy to laugh along with The Heart of Rock and Roll’s relentless charm offensive. As soon as you have a little distance from it, as with many an ’80s fad like crimped hair or the War on Drugs, the thing looks a lot more questionable. Sure, the show pays lip service to undermining some of the rampant casual racism and sexism of those ’80s movies, but it’s still all about rooting for our squeaky-clean straight white heroes. As much as the jokes about capitalist excess are satire, it’s hard to find anything too subversive in a jukebox enterprise that’s a de facto boomer-bait brand extension.
To its credit, The Heart of Rock and Roll tries to get out before the buzz wears off. The second act lags and then accelerates around the point where Bobby’s choice between rock and cardboard gets obvious. While Abrams delights in adding new complications to the book, he seems to get bored of its circumstances about three quarters of the way through, and the show slams into its denouement at 90 miles per hour. There are a few lines of tossed-off explanation, right before the big finale, about why various threats to our heroes’ well-being are no longer an issue. You can pursue your dreams and also settle down! You can avoid the risk of a hostile takeover if you are … pure of heart and have some investment money from a Swede! The heart of rock and roll is still beating … as long as you don’t think too hard about it.
The Heart of Rock and Roll is at the James Earl Jones Theatre.