Good Vibrations: Better Luck at Toys In Babeland

I would like to take a moment to personally thank the cast of Good Vibrations. Absolutely. Each and every one of you did a terrific job last night. I know you're all acutely aware of the negative buzz that's been surrounding your show during the six-and-a-half week preview period, and I assume for the past month and a half you've been overworked with making additions and revisions while maintaining an eight show a week schedule, but none of that showed. Your enthusiasm and show-biz spirit seemed genuine and was truly infectious.

Kate Reinders, you're a gifted comic ingenue. Loved you in Gypsy and I'm looking forward to seeing you in more starring roles.

David Larsen, you nailed that falsetto sound beautifully.

Jessica-Snow Wilson, I always enjoy your goofy antics and your "Warmth of the Sun" was very touching.

Tituss Burgess, awesome pipes and dynamic stage presence.

Sebastian Arcelus, you've got a sweet singing voice and a smile that I bet hits the back rows of the balcony.

Tom Deckman, Milena Govich, Brandon Wardell... Congratulation to all of 'em. When the cast of Good Vibrations sinks their talented teeth into a classic Brian Wilson tune, the giddy hip shaking and nostalgic vocals inspire waves of fun throughout the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

And if any of you readers are tired of all the negative reviews that the new Broadway musicals have been collecting this season, I suggest you stop reading this one now.

Yeah... mondo bummer, dude. For sure.

When he found out I'd be reviewing a new beach-movie inspired musical with a score made up of over thirty Brian Wilson hits ("I Get Around", "California Girls", "Surfin' USA", among others), my buddy Fred, an expert on all things Beach Boys, invited me to his place for a screening of The Girls on the Beach, a 1965 flick that Brian Wilson and the boys actually starred in.

Indulge me for a moment and let me explain to you the plot of The Girls on the Beach. You see, it's all about these girls on the beach, and one day the sweet old house mother of their sorority confesses that she took the money that was supposed to be the final lump payment on their mortgage and used it to help poor people in need. So now these young, sexy, bikini-clad co-eds have less than a week to try and raise $10,000. (Sounds a little like Debbie Does Dallas, doesn't it?) Being an industrious group of liberated women, they search out honest ways a good girl can make a fast buck. The pretty one enters a beauty contest with a cash prize. The one who's into chemistry tries her hand at a cooking contest. The sexy one seduces the beach geek so that he'll help her win a newspaper quiz. But soon a group of boys with lovin' on their minds trick the girls into thinking they hang out with The Beatles and tell them they can get the Liverpool lads to play a benefit concert at the local hangout. Naturally the Fab Four don't show up, so the gals put on mop top wigs and mod suits and try and fool the crowd. They sound pretty good, but nobody's fooled. (Maybe someone noticed that "Paul" was right-handed.) But hey, they're young, fit and surfing the California waves, so why bother with negative vibes.

This type of plot is rather typical of the beach party movies of the 60's. See, they weren't just light-hearted pieces of fluff... they were stupid. Really stupid. That's what made them so much fun! And the only time they stopped being stupid was when the rock 'n roll artists (In this case it was The Beach Boys, Leslie Gore and The Crickets) interrupted the plot for two and a half minutes to sing and play their latest hits. Nobody had the absurd notion that the songs could actually be integrated into the plot.

Now, I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to tell book writer Richard Dresser what his artistic vision for this piece should have been, but the way I see it the biggest problem with Good Vibrations is that it just isn't stupid enough. Dumb? Yeah. Inept? Definitely. But stupid? Rarely.

Dresser opens with a handsome young Bobby (David Larsen) telling us how he and his high school buddies (Tituss Burgess and Brandon Wardell) always wanted to road-trip to California. The author then spends the entire first act creating conflicts and complications that get in the way of their attempts to go west. Dude! This is a Beach Boys musical about bikini girls and buff boys on the California beach. We know walking into the theatre that they're going to get there!. It turns out the only way to secure wheels for the cross-country trek is to fool the brainy geek Caroline (Kate Reinders, in a role conveniently named for a song. Oh, by the way, there's a helpful character named Rhonda, too.), whose had a crush on Bobby since 4th grade, into thinking he likes her so she'll take them in her car. In a fascinatingly creative dramatic twist, Caroline overhears the boys talking about their plot somewhere in the middle of the desert, and although she's furious at Bobby, she keeps her promise to drive them to the Pacific shore.

Good for her. Because once in California they find out that people there don't judge you by who you know or what car you drive. They judge you by how good you look in a bikini. And since Caroline looks swell in a two-piece, she suddenly become the hit of the beach and Bobby starts thinking maybe he's misjudged her.

I don't know about you, but I'll take a plot about sorority girls pretending to be The Beatles over that one any day.

Then of course, there's the problem with the songs. A ninety minute revue with this cast singing and dancing to thirty creatively staged Brian Wilson numbers would have been a blast. But instead the creators of Good Vibrations have crow-barred the score into the plot with little regard for how much sense the combination makes. "Fun, Fun, Fun" is a lively and catchy tune, but its lyric about a girl tricking her dad into letting her use the family T-Bird has nothing to do with anything that's happening on stage at the time. Bobby sings "Where did your long hair go?" in the song "Caroline, No" even though the girl in question sports shoulder-length locks of it. In the final scene the two sing "God only knows what I'd be without you", even though they hadn't seen each other in more than ten years. More often than not, songs are introduced for no apparent reason at all and then halted for a few lines of "plot advancing" dialogue.

Sometimes a show can get away with weak writing if the visual pictures and choreography can create a decent amount of excitement. No luck here. Director/choreographer John Carrafa, who has shown himself to be capable of some clever musical staging when he has interesting characters to work with, pulls off a couple of cute moments, but mostly delivers two hours of repetitious steps that weren't exactly impressive the first time. Still the cast executes them with such verve and gusto you'd think they'd choreographed some of it themselves.

Heidi Ettinger's set is an ugly mess of clutter for Act I, but she and lighting designers Brian MacDevitt and Jason Lyons create some fun and colorful seaside visuals once the gang arrives at the coast. For some reason or another, it was decided to never specify the year where the story takes place, so costume designer Jess Goldstein gives us the most attractive mish-mosh of period styles possible. It ain't pretty, but its a tough assignment.

Tom Morse's overblown and muddy sound design made it impossible to comment on Susan Draus' musical direction of her nine piece band. I lost count of the crackles and re-verbs.

David Yazbek... Jeffrey Lane... Jack O'Brien... How are things going at the Imperial? Is there any hope for us this season?

Photos by Carol Rosegg; Top: (l-r) Jessica-Snow Wilson and Tituss Burgess, Center: David Larsen, Bottom: Company