Theatre in Review: Almost Famous (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre)

	Casey Likes, Solea Pfeiffer. Photo: Matthew Murphy

There comes a point in Almost Famous when all the elements align, and the promise of a supercharged musical entertainment is fulfilled: The number "Fever Dog" is a note-perfect pastiche of a swamp rock rager circa 1973. The band is cooking, the singers are belting with brio, and the atmosphere is alive with electricity. Suddenly, the new show at the Jacobs looks like what everyone intended: a high-energy celebration of a golden moment in rock-and-roll history. There's just one catch: It happens at the curtain call.

Before then, Almost Famous is yet another conscientious, inspiration-free film adaptation, dedicated to recreating the original's key moments without ever acquiring an identity of its own. Its account of a notably seamy milieu is so anodyne that you could schedule it on the Disney Channel, and nobody would push back. Among its sanitized features is the tamest orgy you've ever seen.

This tidied-up account of an adolescent journalist's sentimental education has a book by Cameron Crowe, taken from his 2000 film, itself based on his experiences as an underage reporter for Creem and Rolling Stone. Muscling his way into a gig for the latter publication, fifteen-year-old William Miller gloms onto Stillwater, a Creedence Clearwater Revival-style act threatening to implode from internal conflicts and the grind of nonstop touring. Adopted as a kind of mascot, William joins Stillwater on its travels, getting a fly-on-the-wall view of the group's dramas, especially the on-and-off fling between Russell Hammond, the in-house dreamboat, and Penny Lane, a kind of super-groupie with plenty of star notches on her belt. ("She's had fourteen songs written about her and all of them are good," says a fellow "Band-Aid," alluding to Penny's semi-legendary status.) Meanwhile, back in Southern California, Elaine, William's tough-minded, Puritanical mother is fulminating over her son's errant ways, worrying that he won't get home in time for his high-school graduation. And Rolling Stone keeps calling, demanding copy that William has yet to write.

It's a highly promising situation: The legendary rock critic Lester Bangs warns William about getting too friendly with the artists he covers, but the boy, whose father is dead, gets a hero-worship crush on Russell while yearning, romantically, for Penny. There's plenty of comic potential in the idea of an innocent, barely pubescent, teen trying to run with the wild bunch; it's a trip that can only end in disillusionment as Stillwater begins to fall apart and Russell's sordid dealings with Penny come to light. (Among other things, he deals her away in a poker game with a roadie from Humble Pie.) Most of the time, however, Almost Famous looks back on the era with rose-colored granny glasses; life on the road -- typically portrayed in the memoirs and documentaries of the era as a drug-fueled, sexual free-for-all -- is here given all the spice of a sophomore class field trip. (The show leans hard on the idea of Stillwater and company forming an alternative family.) Aside from a misadventure with LSD-laced beer, which causes Russell to take a dive off the roof of a fan's house, there's little evidence of addiction or drunken running around. And when three of Penny's fellow Band-Aids decide to bed down with William, it looks more like a middle-school sleepover than statutory rape.

The songs -- music by Tom Kitt, lyrics by Kitt and Crowe -- get the job done but only just; the melodies are pleasant, with flashes of wit, but they never convey the ecstatic thrills of the rock/pop music of the period. This is glaringly evident in the scene, taken from the film, in which the band members and their entourage, hungover and soured by bickering, cheer themselves up with an impromptu rendition of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," the first few chords alone of which are more engaging than anything else in the show. The same is true of Joni Mitchell's "River," which gets quoted, briefly, in Act II.

Jeremy Herrin's sedate direction does little to convey the chaos of touring show business, and he gets mostly workmanlike performances from his cast, with two exceptions: The role of William, a largely passive observer, offers few opportunities, but Casey Likes at least has some charm, and, near the end, he shows off a voice that is soulful and power-packed. Even more striking is Solea Pfeiffer as Penny, who dreams of fleeing the music scene without ever quite going. Pfeiffer gives her character a faintly mysterious authority that is her best defense against the men who sleep with her, then return to their wives or girlfriends. Her essential lostness is conveyed in the score's best song, "Morocco," in which Penny muses about restarting her life far away from Russell and his ilk.

The rest of the company struggles to enliven their roles. Chris Wood has a lazily seductive smile, but not much rock-star oomph, as Russell; the same is true of Drew Gehling as his dim bandmate and rival. Elaine is supposed to be a real terror -- as William sings, "She's what you'd get if Socrates and Kojak were combined" -- but the briskly efficient Anika Larsen doesn't have the peppery temperament of Frances McDormand in the film. Rob Colletti is fun as Bangs, handing out no-nonsense professional advice to William and forever mourning the imminent death of his beloved art form.

Otherwise, it's a rambling road trip, lacking in emotional pull and spiked with too many easy then-and-now gags. William, calling his mother after weeks of neglect, says, defensively, "It's not like you can just carry a phone around with you." A sharklike agent, urging the members of Stillwater to seize the day, comments, "If you think Mick Jagger will still be out there trying to be a rock star at age fifty, you're sadly, sadly mistaken." Groaners like these caused barely a ripple of laughter at the performance I attended.

Anyway, Derek McLane's clever set design creates multiple locations -- suburban houses, arenas, motels -- inside a framework of truss, also producing evocative signage for the likes of Max's Kansas City and the famed Cleveland hotel Swingos. The physical scenery, including a giant map of America that tracks the progress of Stillwater's tour, is supported by attractive video renderings of California city skylines, desert vistas, and an image of Central Park mall that switches from black and white to color during a duet for Penny and William. Natasha Katz's lighting is restrained and sensible when called for and bursting with blinder cues, spinning patterns, and torrents of saturated color when the occasion demands. Similarly, Peter Hylenski's sound design is clear and transparent in the book scenes, bumping up to rock-concert levels for Stillwater's numbers. Costume designer David Zinn unrolls bolts of embroidered denim along with jeans and T-shirt combinations for Russell and his bandmates, some appropriately kooky outfits for the Band-Aids, and a really smashing "stewardess" uniform for Anita, William's caustic sister.

Despite the talent involved, Almost Famous never gets that all-important kiss of life. Crowe's book is long on life lessons and short on wit, and his songs with Kitt are so dedicated to taking care of business that they never generate any heat. A good example is "The Night-Time Sky's Got Nothing on You," a duet that renders Penny and Russell's contentious relationship in the dullest possible terms. After a while, you start to wonder if Lester Bangs isn't onto something, when he says, "They took the mud and the guts out of rock and roll." (This is a show that comes with its own internal criticism.) If you go, hang on for the curtain call. --David Barbour