Found

Reviewed by Katie Buenneke
IAMA Theatre Company
Through March 23 [NOTE: Closed early due to COVID-19]

If you’ve ever wondered if a talented musical theater composer could take literally anything and turn it into music, Found, now playing at The Los Angeles Theatre Center, is proof that that’s possible. Composer Eli Bolin, who wrote a number of winning songs for the Netflix special John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch, works with book writers Hunter Bell and Lee Overtree to take the notes that people misplace and turn them into a musical.

If this sounds like an endeavor that might be light on plot, it is. There is a facile attempt at a structure, wherein Davy (Jonah Platt), who possibly has feelings for his surly friend Denise (Jordan Kai Burnett), finds a note meant for someone else on his windshield. When he reads it out loud to Denise and his best friend Mikey D (Mike Millan), he realizes he’s discovered more than just an errant scrap of paper — he’s found the impetus for a zine, publishing various notes from strangers, and perhaps a cultural phenomenon.

At times, the show is outright hilarious, especially when the cast, under Moritz von Steulpnagel’s direction, underline the absurdity of some of the notes. You can’t help but wonder what the people who wrote these notes are like, and it’s great fun to watch the cast hypothesize with you. But the production’s strengths are undercut by two huge, structural issues with the book.

When the focus is on Davy and the other main characters, I was left wanting. The dramatic thrust of the piece has little impact because the character beats are so cliché and generic that the next plot point can be seen from a mile away. In these moments, it’s easy to yearn to return to the notes, which are funny in a completely unpredictable way. But there can be too much of a good thing, and as the show wears through note after note after note set to music, it’s easy to wish for a more consequential story, rather than sequences of segments that have little narrative impact. Triteness aside, the issue is primarily one of balance — the text feels like distinct chunks of story, then notes, then story, etc, rather than notes gracefully interwoven with story.

The show is sung quite well, and as a composer, Bolin shows great aptitude for both fresh sounds and mimicry of established musical styles, in a way that’s reminiscent of Alan Menken. His musical prowess, however, is occasionally at odds with the text he’s required to use as lyrics. Take “Looking for Love,” a would-be ballad sung by Becka (Karla Mosley), Davy’s other love interest. Ballads tend to be laconic, but the sheer number of words in the note Bolin is setting to music throws off the song’s scansion, frustrating the overall experience. But songs like “Shit That Has to Be Done” are so joyous and innovative that they absolve the rest of score of most of its sins.

Besides the songs, the stars of the show are Millan’s delightfully vivid Mikey D and the ensemble, each of whom is given an opportunity to shine. Sheila Carrasco and Parvesh Cheena stand out especially, crafting memorable moments each time they’re on stage. Platt and Mosley, as Davy and Becka, however, feel very generic, though the script doesn’t give them much to work with. Burnett is perplexing, as she seems to grapple with her character Denise. Burnett simmers, creating the sense that there’s more to the actress than what we’re allowed to see on stage. She comes into her own towards the end of the second act, but for most of the show, it feels like Burnett’s vivacity is being dampened by Denise.

Von Steulpnagel’s staging makes interesting use of the small space at LATC, though frustratingly, a few scenes are blocked with two actors in conversation on opposite sides of the theater, requiring the audience to either miss half of the performance of the dialogue or flip their heads back and forth, like they’re watching a tennis match. The intent of Sibyl Wickersheimer’s set design is good, creating distinct spaces with a hipster aesthetic and layers of notes pinned to the walls, but those same walls don’t pair well with Yee Eun Nam’s projection design, rendering the text of blown up and projected notes nearly illegible. Still, I often found myself squinting to try and read the notes, since between the loud drums and Cricket S. Myers’ sound design, it was difficult at times to understand the lyrics as sung.

In a number of ways, though it’s a new work, Found doesn’t feel like a musical of this time. The premise — that someone would find and publish other people’s notes — hearkens back to a different age of the internet, when blogs like PostSecret were tremendously popular, paving the way eventually for Brandon Stanton to pair pictures of people with their confessions in Humans of New York (indeed, the actual Found Magazine was first published in 2001, four years before PostSecret). Text is more ephemeral now, captured on phones and computers, even erasing after 24 hours via Snapchat and similar apps. You can tell that the musical senses this, as Davy rails against digital technology like an octogenarian telling kids to get off his porch. But when people write and read everything from grocery lists to declarations of love to this very review on screens, the act of putting pen to paper feels like a relic of a distant era.

The Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m.; through Mar. 23 [NOTE: Closed early due to COVID-19]. Iamatheatre.com. Running time: two hours and 25 minutes with a 20-minute intermission.