http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/theater/reviews/11kid.html?hpwTHEATER REVIEW | 'THE KID'
Just Like Other Dads (Well, Almost)
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: May 11, 2010Christopher Sieber, one-half of a
gay couple (with errant sex toys)
going through the throes of
adopting a child, in the musical
“The Kid.”
Jeannine Frumess, left, and Brooke Sunny Moriber, with Lucas Steele and Christopher Sieber, who are refreshingly
honest when a social worker comes to visit.
Vibrators, leather bars and good old-fashioned sodomy have never looked more wholesome than they do in “The Kid,” the easygoing, sentimental new musical about a gay couple trying to adopt a baby. The homosexual partners at the center of this surprisingly unsurprising production, which opened Monday night on
Theater Row, feel like truly ordinary people, folks you’ve met many times before in depictions of American spouses in pursuit of parenthood.
Their worries about being prepared enough, mature enough, loving enough to bring a new life into their home; the anticipatory jitters that lead to sniping, yelling and romantic reconciliation; the warm, wise grandma-to-be who steps in to calm their fears: all these needlepoint-sampler elements are set to gently effervescent song in “The Kid,” based on a memoir by
Dan Savage and directed by
Scott Elliott.
So what if Dan (
Christopher Sieber) and Terry (
Lucas Steele) shared their first passionate clinch (on their first meeting) in a men’s room stall and now leave sex toys lying around the house? Compared with the anguished and deluded suburban family in “Next to Normal,” this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, these guys are as reassuringly average as the Brady Bunch.
Such an accepting attitude befits a work adapted from a book by Mr. Savage, a wry syndicated sex-advice columnist who provides a commonsensical approach to all things erotic. Mr. Savage is also known for his mordant wit and polemical anger. But these traits, while occasionally in evidence, are also secondary in this production from the New Group.
In its book (by
Michael Zam), songs (by
Jack Lechner and
Andy Monroe) and even its direction (by Mr. Elliott, with musical staging by
Josh Prince), the primary objective of “The Kid” is to make the potentially confrontational seem all-embracing and prosaic. From the moment the show begins, with Mr. Sieber walking across and straight off the stage (returning with a cup of coffee), its rhythms are disarmingly those of life as usual. Even more than a sitcom like “Will & Grace,” whose homosexual characters are more epigrammatic and better dressed than most people, “The Kid” keeps telling its audience, “Gays, they’re just like us!”
This message is transmitted with a consistency and a thoroughness that are rare in contemporary musicals. In following the not-so-winding road of the adoption process for Dan and Terry — who are brought together with the 16-year-old pregnant (and homeless) Melissa (
Jeannine Frumess) — “The Kid” moves at a gentle, uninterrupted canter. Mr. Monroe’s score feels like one sustained, simmering vamp, threatening to break out into different full-fledged pastiche styles (from disco revelry to torch ballads), but always pulling back at the last minute.
And while the plot has a certain guaranteed suspense factor — will our heroes be allowed to end up with a baby safely in their arms? — it also deliberately keeps defusing tension. Dan and Terry go to an adoption counseling group expecting to be rejected as the only gay couple there. But guess what? Their fears are for naught, and they are almost instantly approved, though they are told that adoption isn’t easy for anyone. (“Man or woman, gay or straight,” the counselor sings, “What you’re facing is a long, long wait.”)
Similarly, when a social worker comes to their Seattle apartment to see if it’s a suitable environment for child-rearing, Dan and Terry just can’t stick to the cosmetic lies about themselves that they had invented for the occasion. Not to worry. The social worker finds their honesty refreshing.
Of course, there is the possibility that Melissa, who is reunited with the father of her baby (
Michael Wartella), might renege on her promises. But “The Kid” is not in the business of making its audience anxious, though it might be more compelling if it were.
This is not to say that Dan and Terry aren’t nervous themselves, particularly Dan, who feels the best insurance against disaster is to imagine the worst that could happen. (He and Terry develop a sardonic defensive mantra: “Babies are born dead. Birth mothers can change their minds.”) But as Dan’s mother (an appealing
Jill Eikenberry) tells him: “If you think this is scary, wait. Do you know how terrified I was when you first had measles?” Then she sings a ballad of comfort about how, in being a parent, “sometimes just showing up is enough.”
Mr. Sieber — who delivered exaggerated, Tony-nominated comic performances in the Broadway musicals “Spamalot” and “Shrek” — is equally at home with the low-key style demanded here. Stocky and slovenly as Dan, he develops a charming, self-deprecating rapport with the audience early on. And he never oversells Dan’s stand-up-style comic lines, some of which are very funny. (He remembers telling Terry, when he first meets him, that he has a pretty mouth, then thinking, “I sound like the rapist from ‘Deliverance.’ ”)
Nor does Mr. Steele overdo the histrionics as the more emotional — and naturally parental — half of the couple. The supporting ensemble members, many of whom play an assortment of parts, are engagingly relaxed and on-key. Their best moments come in video sequences in which they appear as sexually perplexed correspondents writing to Dan for advice, with problems that touch on bestiality and, especially, uh, special forms of fetishism. (
Aron Deyo’s video and
Jeff Scher’s animated sequences work perfectly with
Derek McLane’s comfortable, mutable set.)
But the only character who fully captured my imagination was Melissa, a “stinky, acid trippin’, liquor guzzlin’ pregnant teenage mom” (in Dan’s words), who has been living on the streets of Portland, Ore. As Ms. Frumess plays her, Melissa is affectingly affectless, her numbness a sort of prophylaxis against a toxic world. When she describes her daily life in “Spare Changin’,” the show’s best song, we realize how genuinely conventional Dan and Terry are.
Their haunted, baffled expressions as Melissa sings mirror our own responses to this young woman, whose presence offers a passage to a world most of us don’t know at all. As for the rest of “The Kid,” you’ve been there before.
THE KIDBook by Michael Zam; lyrics by Jack Lechner; music by Andy Monroe; based on the book “The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant,” by Dan Savage; musical staging by Josh Prince; directed by Scott Elliott; sets by Derek McLane; costumes by Jeff Mahshie; lighting by Howell Binkley; sound by Ken Travis; animation by Jeff Scher; video by Aron Deyo; musical supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Dominick Amendum; musical direction, orchestrations and additional arrangements by Boko Suzuki; associate artistic director, Ian Morgan. Presented by the New Group, Mr. Elliott, artistic director; Geoff Rich, executive director. At the New Group@Theater Row, 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 279-4200. Through May 29. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
WITH: Kevin Anthony (Reg/Others), Susan Blackwell (Anne/Others), Jill Eikenberry (Dan’s Mother), Jeannine Frumess (Melissa), Ann Harada (Ruth/Others), Tyler Maynard (Chad/Others), Brooke Sunny Moriber (Susan/Others), Justin Patterson (Josh/Others), Christopher Sieber (Dan), Lucas Steele (Terry) and Michael Wartella (Bacchus).