Theatre in Review: Found (Atlantic Theater Company)For two thirds of its running time, Found is a real find, hunting down laughter and surprising warmth in the unlikeliest of places before landing in the trap of formulaic plotting and musical theatre clichés. The show is based on the magazine, founded by Davy Rothbart, that collects and curates all sorts of found-in-the-street letters, memos, notes to self, photos, notices, and other ephemera. As used here, they transform everyday reality into a bizarre alternative universe of comic non sequiturs and quiet heartbreak: A kid's letter to his parents announces, "Summer camp is not fun; people are dying." A Valentine heart reads, "You're like Klonopin to me." And there's this cri de cœur: "You have to make up your mind, Mr. Dickens. It was either the best of times or the worst of times." The show starts off on the right note of cheerful, magpie skepticism with the number "Weird Day," in which Davy, the hero, loses his job, gets mugged, and has car trouble and a traffic ticket. He also finds a note, erroneously left on his vehicle; it is written by a woman to her lover, informing him, in the most profane terms imaginable, that he should die at the earliest possible opportunity. The note ends with the instruction, "Text me later." Intrigued, Davy starts to wonder: What if someone put together an entire publication consisting of such found literature? So he and his roommates, Mikey D and Denise, scour the streets of Chicago for enough material to fill a publication; their first issue, promoted by a live reading at a bar, sells out. Soon, the magazine is actually paying the bills, and Denise, who signs on as manager, has put together a promotional tour for Davy. Up to this point, the show finds a remarkable amount of fun in the magazine's content -- all of which, we are informed at the top of the show, is one hundred percent authentic. You have to treasure comments like, "I have too much testicular velocity for this job," or "We all need an enemy to define who we are; thank you for being mine." (My favorite is a personal from a guy looking for a girl who is combination of Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, and Susan Boyle.) The members of the company deliver them with glee, finding a universe of eccentric feelings in such terse statements. Davy begins speculating about the realities behind the messages, leading to an uproarious sketch featuring a pair of actors bravely soldiering on through a performance of the Revolutionary War tearjerker Johnny Tremain, held in front of an obstreperous -- and noisy -- student audience, complete with a vengeful teacher prowling through the auditorium staring daggers at her charges. The messages cited above, and many more, are woven into the action, providing a kind of running commentary on the show's action from an unknown, unseen peanut gallery. At these moments, Found is so fresh and funny that it's all the more deflating when the libretto, by Hunter Bell and Lee Overtree, gets mired in a romantic-triangle plot cloned from a hundred other musicals. Davy and Denise secretly yearn for each other but can't get past that first kiss; instead, Davy takes up with Kate, a budding television producer who wants to turn Found into a series. Davy and Denise squabble, tediously, and a clichéd encounter with broadly cartooned Hollywood types who want to convert the magazine into a slightly hipper version of America's Funniest Home Videos. This stale situation -- Will Davy stay with Kate and sell his soul to Hollywood, or will he find the gumption to go home and tell Denise just how he feels? -- is the sort of thing Found, the musical, should be snickering at. Even worse, the writers saddle Denise with Patrick, an egotistical, fat-headed yoga instructor, as her rebound boyfriend, a choice that undermines our respect for her intelligence. The number "Patrick, King of the Ladies" represents the score's facetious low point. That the show remains enjoyable nonetheless has a lot to do with a cast filled with charmers. As Davy, Nick Blaemire, heretofore a solid utility performer in musicals, shows he has what it takes to be a first-class leading man: stage presence, a big voice, and enough likability to keep us on his side, even when acting like an idiot. (He gets plenty of help from the number "Something That I Love," which strongly establishes Davy's desire to follow his bliss into a meaningful career.) Blaemire also has a strong chemistry with Barrett Wilbert Weed as the tart-tongued, yet surprisingly vulnerable, Denise. It's not easy being the show's voice of morality, but Weed, a whiz at off-the-cuff line readings, pulls it off; she also deftly handles the distinctive mix of oddball comedy and heartache in her ballad, "Barf Bag Breakup." The role of Kate is almost totally thankless, but Betsy Morgan redeems her with her sly smile and affable manner; you can see why Davy would be totally taken with her. Daniel Everidge is amusing throughout as Mikey D, the plus-size gay best friend who finds a new world of romantic possibilities in a group known as Great Lakes Bears. Eli Bolin's score combines songs that are verbatim transcriptions of notes from Found with more conventional character numbers. Some of the former are little more than throwaways, although one, "Pi Shop," in which a couple of adolescent math nerds make like gangsta rappers about their favorite irrational number, is pretty delectable. The latter are frequently funny and buoyant, running on nervous energy and some clever rhymes. (Bolin is part of Story Pirates, an organization "designed to celebrate the words and ideas of young people." The group has an "additional material by" credit, although it's not clear what that consists of.) Overtree, who also directed, keeps the tone light and bright throughout, even managing to find some real feeling in some of the plot's more tedious romantic machinations. The choreography, by Monica Bill Barnes, blends moves from a variety of sources -- including the disco era, and, God help us, the Macarena -- into an eccentric series of dances. David Korins' clever set surrounds the action in a massive collage of notes, notices, drawings, and photos, all of which are lit with easy fluency by Justin Townsend. Many of the notes read during the show are also seen in Darrel Maloney's projections, which sometimes threaten to steal focus from the cast; however, he also makes some fine contributions in images of maps, postcards, a sentimental mural for the Johnny Tremain sketch, and pulsing abstract visual content for a scene set in a club. Theresa Squire's costumes show a real eye for the way young adults dress these days. Ken Travis' sound design sounds a little tinny and artificial at first, which may be a result of staging a musical in a house that is so acoustically reflective, but it gets better as it goes along, and it allows one to hear every single lyric. At its best, Found is a nutty original, using its peculiar source material to say something amusing, and sometimes touching, about modern manners. It represents a fine calling card for some fresh musical theatre faces; I'm betting that, the next time out, they'll find they don't need to fall back on shopworn formulas.--David Barbour 
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