Striking 12: Striking Out

It must be terribly difficult to come up with original holiday stories. Most of the plotlines follow a predictable pattern (person feels jaded and misanthropic in December, gets infected with the Christmas Spirit—or Sprits, in Dickens' case—and learns to love humanity), and there really isn't much room for creativity in the genre. So if the rock/jazz/theatre fusion band Groovelily's new cabaret/performance art piece Striking 12 is somewhat predictable, it's easily forgiven.

And to be fair, the creators do manage to bring some new twists into the traditional sentimentality. Rather than focusing on Christmas, Striking 12 takes place a week later, on New Year's Eve. So far, so good: how many holiday stories completely eschew both religion and Santa Claus?  But even by moving the central holiday back a week, the story still falls into the timeworn pattern: a jaded man whose fiancée has just left him wants to sit alone and sulk on New Year's Eve, rather than go out and socialize with friends. Fortuitously, a young woman shows up on his doorstep and, with the help of Hans Christian Anderson's tale of The Little Match Girl, draws him out of his shell and back into the world. As the year changes, the man, like Janus himself, looks both backwards over his own unhappy year and, with more optimism, towards the future.

He also reads Anderson's fable, the "hip" dramatization of which takes up the bulk of the show. And that dramatization becomes the huge black hole that drags what could be a lightweight but interesting story down into treacle. Earnest to the point of maudlin, the re-enactment of the fable beats the audience over the head with its metaphors of hope in the face of despair, and seems an excuse for singer Valerie Vigoda to belt and over-emote.  The non-Anderson inspired songs don't fare much better, similarly glossing over genuine emotion with banality. The singer/actors frequently break character (and the fourth wall) to assure us that they don't agree with their characters, or don't like this story, or would rather be doing something else— constantly breaking whatever dramatic tension might have been built by the weak script. Meta may be hip nowadays, but as in all other spices and devices, it should be used in moderation.

The members of Groovelily are more musicians than actors, so if their "improvised" banter amongst themselves sounds forced, and if their performances seem somewhat wooden, it's understandable. They're trying, and their singing is much stronger than their acting. Brendan Milburn, playing both keyboard and "The Man Who Has Had Enough," tries to be lovably angsty, and Gene Lewin, playing drums and all of the other men (and several of the women), aims for cutely curmudgeonly. Playing violin, the Little Match Girl and her modern variation, Valerie Vigoda conjures Alyson Hannigan with her sweet quirkiness. They do sing well, and, Doyle-like, play their own instruments while singing and acting, which can't be easy. With such a weak book (courtesy of Vigoda, Milburn and Rachel Sheinkin) and score, however, the stiff performances by non-actors just weigh the show down further and make the ninety minutes feel like much more.

Striking 12 is an experiment, and has a good heart, but ultimately, the story and the performances prevent the show from being what it might have been. Groovelily has a unique sound, and quite a large number of fans who are eager to hear new music from these adept and innovative musicians. Next year, if they wish to do a holiday show, they might do well to avoid acting and a storyline altogether and just sing original holiday songs or new arrangements of the classics. Their strength is in their music, and that should be the focus of any performance.

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