Theatre in Review: Music City (BEDLAM/West End Theatre)For so many years, jukebox musicals have merely been a trial that must be borne, leaving one devoutly praying each season that this too might pass. I won't hear a word against Mamma Mia!, although its creators will surely face a reckoning in the afterlife for establishing this regrettable Broadway trend. Nor is Off Broadway immune: Announcing Music City, Eric Tucker, artistic director of BEDLAM, said, "In a Bedlam-y way, this script takes a genre that's become very popular, which is the jukebox musical, and upends it. Often, they can be excuses to string hit songs together, with a thin story and scant character development where the book is an afterthought." To which I thought, prove it, buster. That crunching sound you hear denotes words being eaten: Music City succeeds pretty much as advertised, injecting new life into a format that has always struggled to justify itself. Peter Zinn's book is a potent music-industry melodrama -- an enjoyably pulpy and sharply observant tale of strivers, schemers, and seducers -- set to a score by Nashville's JT Harding that blends, to seamless effect, original numbers plus hits written for Blake Shelton and Darius Rucker, among others. It's the rare -- maybe the only -- jukebox tuner that feels like an original work. Zinn focuses on a trio of showbiz dreamers all living one paycheck away from disaster, reaching after a constantly receding brass ring. (Funnily enough, Music City zeroes in on the heartland working stiffs that the Democratic Party has belatedly begun to realize it has lost.) We're at The Wicked Tickle, a rattletrap Nashville night spot where the slots on open-mic nights are always available thanks to a general lack of demand. Hanging out or passing through are brothers TJ and Drew, the joint's clean-up crew, who frequently take the stage armed with Drew's arsenal of party anthems; Leanne, the A&R executive who dangles possible opportunities with country legend Stucky Stiles; the eccentrically named 23, a writer-singer with a knack for truthful ballads who captures TJ's eye; and Tammy, 23's mother, a meth addict who gets her fixes from...TJ. Along with Drew, he has reluctantly been making deliveries for the local dealer to finance a demo recording, and it's a gig he finds increasingly hard to escape. After that, things get really involved: Leanne wants TJ's songs for Stucky's next album -- his previous disc, a collection of ballads, underperformed, and he's under orders to go upbeat or else -- but TJ and Drew want to launch themselves as an act. TJ and 23 start collaborating on songs, and she soon joins the brothers in a new trio, unaware that TJ secretly feeds Tammy's habit. (There's also the nagging question of who provides the cash that keeps Tammy high.) Then Stucky mixes in, eyeing 23 as a collaborator in music and the bedroom. It's a compelling tangle of secrets, deceptions, side deals, and criminal behavior -- all standard in a town where anything is for sale if it leads to a fix or a record deal. Utilizing Clifton Chadick's environmental set design, which turns the West End Theatre into The Wicked Tickle, Tucker deploys his gifted cast all around the room. Stephen Michael Spencer has a great crooked smile and an electric vocal style as TJ, coming on strong with Jonathan Judge-Russo as Drew in the bangers "Y'allsome" and "Party People." He enjoys vital chemistry with Casey Shuler, a Rubenesque, baby-faced heartbreaker as 23, who instantly wins us over with the rueful "Something More." ("The devil's at my door/And who am I to want something more?") Spencer also makes us feel TJ's gnawing ethical dilemma as he gets caught between 23 and her mother. Executing a nifty double act, Leenya Rideout is almost trustworthy as Leanne -- who deftly plays off TJ and Drew against Stucky -- and wounding as Tammy, skidding toward an overdose without looking back. She confidently stops the show with "For This Town," a brutal inventory of Tammy's failed music career. Providing villainy in two keys is Andrew Rothenberg as the smiling, satanic drug kingpin Bakerman, and Stucky, whose entitlement knows no bounds. (Stucky figures in a revelation that causes a devastating break between 23 and Tammy.) Julianne B. Merrill presides over all the intrigue as Wyn, proprietor of The Wicked Tickle, doing full justice to "Alone with You," about a too-hot-to-handle love connection. (Merrill also serves as musical director.) Unlike most shows of this type, which rely on overexposed pop classics, the songs, most of which are used diegetically, fit seamlessly into Zinn's book. For once, you're not wrenched out of the play by the opening notes of a too-familiar tune. Chadick's scenic concept -- all wood paneling and twinkle lights, with room for an expansive stage and bar -- is pure Nashville honky-tonk. Eric Southern's lighting infallibly directs the audience's eyes to the right location, rolling out plenty of saturated colors and concert effects when needed. The costumes by Daniele Tyler Mathews -- heavy on denim, trucker caps, and sleeveless T-shirts -- feel thoroughly authentic. One doesn't associate the sound designer Jane Shaw with musicals, but she does just fine here, wrangling the voices to ensure everything is intelligible. Choreographer John Heginbotham keeps the dancers Corry J. Ethridge and Holly Wilder moving in and out of the musical numbers. The book takes a dip in the second act when both Bakerman and Stucky drop out. (TJ fights back against Bakerman, his employer, in a way that cries out for a follow-up report, and one yearns for a reckoning between 23 and Stucky.) Instead, Zinn opts for a twist that puts the action on hold at the exact moment when it should be ramping up. Nevertheless, he engineers a satisfying ending, excitingly staged by Tucker as a Grand Ole Opry performance interrupted by an unexpected reunion. If this gritty tale of music industry strivers turns out, at the last moment, to be a bit of a fairy tale, I don't think anyone is likely to complain. Music City provides plenty of drama and the right songs to go with it. --David Barbour 
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