Theatre in Review: My Very Own British Invasion (Paper Mill Playhouse)

	Conor Ryan. Background: Jen Perry, Gemma Baird. Photo: Jerry Dalia.

Baby boomers looking for a rockin' good time will find a cornucopia of mid-sixties chart-toppers in My Very Own British Invasion; they'll also find a musical at war with itself, thanks to a book and score that never manage to get in sync. Never have the limits of the jukebox musical format been so nakedly apparent; rarely have I yearned so much for an original score.

Ironically, this is so because Rick Elice's book, inspired by Peter Noone's memories of his music-business salad days, breaks the pop-star bio-musical mold -- of which he, with Jersey Boys, was a principal creator. The standard version of these tinseled morality plays -- which include Beautiful: The Carole King Musical; Summer: The Donna Summer Musical; and The Cher Show (also by Elice) -- focuses on hungry, talented comers who, too young to handle their overwhelming success, make many bad decisions, leading to disillusionment and a period in the show business wilderness, followed by a big return to reclaim the mantle of fabulousness. (You could say they all share the same plot, and that plot belongs to Dreamgirls.) At their worst, they're harmless; at their best -- which would be Jersey Boys -- they are remarkably clear-eyed about the Faustian bargains struck by their protagonists.

My Very Own British Invasion will have none of such tragedy-and-triumph scenarios; indeed, it is refreshingly upfront about the fact that Noone and his band, Herman's Hermits -- even if they minted money in their heyday -- are rock-and-roll also-rans, manufactured purveyors of such sugary ditties as "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am" ("Second verse same as the first!"); so paltry is the Hermits' output of hits that, to fill out the evening, seemingly the entirety of the 1960s British pop world has been enlisted, pressing into service such evergreens as "For Your Love," "I Saw Her Standing There," "Let's Spend the Night Together," and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," along with random contributions like "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Born to Be Wild." (If you are a fan, you can rest assured that you'll find certified Hermits hits like "A Kind of Hush" and "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter.") Nor does the book focus on the Hermits' rise to fame; none of Noone's bandmates figure in as characters.

Instead, Elice has laid out a fanciful romantic triangle in which the young Noone, fresh off the soap opera Coronation Street (this part is true) and with a hit song under his belt, crashes The Bag O'Nails, a real-life London pub and hangout for future stars of the rock firmament. Peter instantly falls for Pamela, who appears to be Marianne Faithfull by any other name. A free-living and -loving "bird," she is attracted to the barely legal Peter, even though Jonny Amies, who plays him, seems so callow, their fling looks like a major case of cradle robbery. She is also attached to Trip, a preening, transparently selfish scoundrel who suggests Mick Jagger, with perhaps a dash of Donovan. Pamela bounces between her suitors like a tennis ball, driving both men to distraction. (In an audience-baiting speech that gets a hand from the ladies, she tells them both off: "You're both amazing, you're both unique, but you don't get to decide -- I do!") The situation is fraught enough, what with Trip deploying his bodyguard and all-around goon, The Hammer, who threatens to rearrange Peter's face. Then Pamela, on a tour of the US designed to keep her out of romantic harm's way, experiments with better living through chemistry, leading to desperate midnight phone calls and strung-out appearances onstage, like a flower-power Judy Garland.

It would be putting it mildly to say that Elice's book is too light-minded to deal with violence and drug addiction; in any case, the characters seem so clean-cut that it's a wonder they don't form an Up with People tour. The first few scenes, a kind of mini-documentary that recounts how The Beatles laid siege to The Ed Sullivan Show, unleashing mass teenage hysteria, is amusing enough, especially when the director/choreographer, Jerry Mitchell, sends the company -- kickily dressed by Gregg Barnes -- into supersonic variations on the Frug. The book is loaded with local color, with the likes of Brian Epstein and Mary Quant getting name-checked as they bounce down the stairway of David Rockwell's nightclub set. There are also amusingly oddball digressions, as when Peter, Pamela, and Trip take a day excursion to the beach where the film of Oh! What a Lovely War is being shot.

Of course, all musical theatre books are underwritten to leave room for music; most of the time, they can expect the songs to help fill in the plot and character blanks. But the pop tunes culled for My Very Own British Invasion are typically generic expressions of infatuation and heartbreak, and so they function as little more than tuneful placeholders. Peter woos Pamela with Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to be With You," which is nice enough, even if it ends with the characters pretty much where they started. Similarly, Trip fights back with Lennon and McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" -- but we already knew that. And "Time of the Season," the Zombies hit, serves, more or less, to convey Pamela's disillusionment on the road. But none of them does a thing to put some flesh on Elice's stick figures. And when a song does offer words that are specific and evocative -- as when "House of the Rising Sun," the Animals classic, is applied to Pamela's flirtation with LSD -- it seems only vaguely connected to her story.

As the action drives Peter toward disenchantment with show business and the pop sound of the British Invasion gives way to the trippier aesthetic of psychedelic rock, the show falls apart, with book and score on separate tracks, destined never to meet. It doesn't help that Trip's scheme to drive Peter and Pamela apart involves a lie so transparent that she comes off as an idiot for believing it, or that her drug problem js little more than a bald plot device, not a deep-seated personal problem. And Elice never really succeeds in making one care which lover she prefers.

Even at its silliest, My Very Own British Invasion will be at least mildly entertaining to people like me, who grew up on these songs. (Andrew Keister's excellent sound design preserves a remarkable level of clarity even at its most pounding.) And the cast is affable, even when dealing with head-scratchingly ill-defined roles. As noted, Amies is alarmingly youthful -- it's no wonder he has trouble getting a drink at The Bag O'Nails -- but he has a cheeky charm and knockout voice that should lead to more and better musical theatre roles. Because the book never makes up its mind about Pamela, who, at one point, is incorrectly identified as "just about as safe as a razor blade," Erika Olson has her work cut out for her, but at least she makes us understand why the character would turn so many heads. Trip is less a character than an attitude, and Conor Ryan portrays him in a way that is more musical comedy than real rock-and-roll. Stealing focus from them all on a regular basis is Kyle Taylor Parker, as Geno, front man of the Bag O'Nails' house band, who serves as narrator. (I regret that he is made to speak in rhymed couplets, however.) There are also effective turns by John Sanders as a manipulative manager; Bryan Fenkart as an avuncular John Lennon; Jen Perry as Peter's friendly, skeptical mother; and Emma Degerstedt as a California blonde who invites Peter to bounce around on her eight-foot-long bed.

Rockwell's nightclub set, with is retractable stage, works well, aided Andrew Lazarow's projections, which include a hand-tinted view of Brighton Pier, vintage concert posters, and psychedelic kaleidoscope effects. His imagery is deftly matched by the saturated colors of Kenneth Posner's lighting.

Too much of the time, however, My Very Own British Invasion is a musical house divided. This is especially so near the end, when Noone is forced to wonder if all the hubbub was worth a broken heart and a dubious place in rock history. It's a fascinating question. Of course, there's no song in the catalogue for that. -- David Barbour