Natalie Lander (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
Reviewed by Katie Buenneke
Village Green Productions at the Skylight Theatre
Through February 15
Happy Murphy (center) (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
There are many individually good elements in the world premiere musical Kid Gloves, now playing at the Skylight Theater, but unfortunately, they are parts of a whole that is somewhat unremarkable. That’s not to say that Kid Gloves is a bad show, yet to suggest that it’s not a particularly great one, that it’s just fine, feels almost more damning than if it were bad.
The show follows four adult contestants/pairs who are competing on a children’s streaming service for the opportunity to host their own show. Each contestant vies for their shot by performing songs in front of three judges, who are all jaded children’s TV personalities, and the program’s host, a former Mouseketeer (Will Collyer). But each of the contestants is sabotaged in some way, and the competition increasingly focuses on personal success and retribution, rather than “modeling good behavior for children,” as one of the adult contestants puts it. This leads to a sort of crisis of faith for some of the contestants, who genuinely want to do good and help children, rather than be sucked into a vortex of vanity that reality TV makes all too appealing.
Each of the four contestants has something different to offer. Juaquin (Chris Kerrigan) has an intensity that he claims comes out of his desire to keep children from the darkness that plagued his childhood. Jackson (Joey Richter) is a star in the world of “kindie rock,” and is as dedicated to environmentalism as he is to his own ego, often shutting out his assistant/girlfriend, Vicki (Lauren Lorati). Darla (Natalie Lander)’s onstage persona with her doll, Dolly, is saccharine, in direct opposition to her foulmouthed personality backstage.
And the final, perhaps most normal contestants, are married couple Meredith (Heather Marie Marsden) and Eddie (Adam J. Smith). Over the course of two episodes and a finale, we see them compete in front of the show’s judges, Edmund the Elephant (Jonathan Slavin), Penelope (Suzy Nakamura) and her rabbit puppet Bonita, and Professor Penguinpants (Harry Murphy), but what happens backstage between songs and in “on-camera” interviews informs the competition as much as what actually happens in the show-within-a-show.
Kid Gloves’s biggest struggle is that it doesn’t feel like it wants to be a stage show. The plot is comprised of dozens of scenes that switch locations regularly, so the show gets bogged down in scene changes, as we switch from onstage to backstage and back. The scene changes themselves are efficiently done by the cast and crew, but the sheer volume of them really hampers the narrative’s momentum. It seems like the show wants to be filmed as a documentary or mockumentary, with quick cuts, not just from location to location, but also from the performers to the judges.
The book, by Matthew Leavitt, keeps things moving along, though it would likely benefit from an intermission between the show-within-a-show’s first and second episodes. The lyrics, also by Leavitt, however, could use some refinement; I found much of the scansion at odds with Nathan Wang’s music. The songs themselves are bright and fun, even if both of Jackson’s songs are ‘70s grooves without a trace of the indie rock implied in “kindie rock.”
Still, there’s plenty to appreciate in this show. Slavin’s Edmund the Elephant is a joy to watch, a juxtaposition of forced cheer and a haunting thousand-yard stare. Music director Anthony Lucca leads the on-stage band quite capably, and Mark Mendelson’s set is a delight of 90s shapes and neon primary colors.
But despite the best efforts of the cast and crew under Richard Israel’s direction, much like the contestants on the show, Kid Gloves doesn’t feel ready for primetime yet.
Village Green Productions at Skylight Theatre, 1816 ½ N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz; Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; thru Feb. 15. https://kidgloves.ludus.com. Running time: two hours with no intermission.
