Inge(new) - In Search of a Musical: can we exist without the traditions of musical theatre?
26 May 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Inge(new) - In search of a musical begins with Bridget (Mairi Babb) attempting to audition for the ingenue role in a new musical. She tries to be polite but "There's been a mistake. I'm usually offer only. Can I speak to the director?" Bridget has played all the great ingenue roles, even created one in the hit Fields of May, and her futile attempts to avoid coming off as a Karen are hilarious. More bittersweet are her frequent attempts to start the musical number she is there to perform, offering multiple flimsy excuses as to why she won't vocalize. We the audience sit in for the possibly non-existent director, there is ominous electronic music enveloping the theatre, and the stage light flickers a disturbing blood red at appropriate and inappropriate times. When Bridget is joined by the much younger and peppier Joy (Elora Joy Sarmiento) who is auditioning for the same role, it begins to dawn on us that this is not A Chorus Line, but possibly No Exit.

 
Perhaps Bridget is actually meant to audition for the role of the mother? An idea she finds insulting and humiliating. Besides, the grand diva of a certain age, Gertrude, seems to have that role already sewn up. Gertrude is utterly fabulous in the Bea Arthur or Elaine Stritch well-earned imperiousness manner, and Astrid Van Wieren (The Way Back to Thursday, Sucker), swanning and dispensing quips, seems to be having as much fun as the audience is. Initially. There is one more character to add, Max (Cory O'Brien), who picks up on the vibes and keeps asking if he is dead or dying. The musical theatre satire shifts into melodrama. All of the characters are auditioning for roles, all of the characters have played roles in Fields of May (or have seen it as a child in Joy's case), and all of the characters may or may not have personal relationships that may be or may not be based on the above, or which may just be roles assigned by society. Sartre and Bennett's hell by way of the MCU metaverse.

Writer/director Evan Tsitsias (Sunday in the Park with George, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) has a lot to say and as Gertrude notes, it is becoming more "George and Martha" than song and dance. Before we reach the 11 o'clock number, Inge(new) indulges in heated debates about ageism, agency, male privilege, mentorship vs gaslighting, improv as a dubious art form, musical theatre clichés, and just how much power an actor has over what is written in the script. Some of it works wittily, most of the last half just goes on too long. When the themes are woven into the fabric, Inge(new) soars. Sarmiento sings an ingenue ballad of desire and longing. Her voice is stunning and she cleverly milks every ounce of emotion out of the lyrics and melody while pointing out just how vapid and meaningless the words are. It is subtle and subversive and is echoed, from different angles, a few more times. But by the time we get to the 11 o'clock number, Babb delivers a song that is just as meaningless and vapid. Is this catharsis? Nihilism? It is certainly disturbing and a complete subversion of how a musical usually works. That is a compliment.

As the auditioners struggle against the strictures of their assigned roles, in the script and in life, scenes are replayed from different angles, giving insight and revealing characterization. It is often clever, frequently confusing, and creates expectations only to shatter them. The actors have to work hard and in the intimate confines of Red Sandcastle Theatre, there is no room for error. Fortunately they are all stellar and as capable of inhabiting a musical theatre cliché as they are at being believably tortured. Babb is the centre around which all spins and Bridget's rampant egotism masking sheer terror is exquisitely balanced. Sarmiento and O'Brien both have crack comic timing and golden voices. One longs, which is one of Inge(new)'s points, to see and hear them in a classic musical where they could rip the roof off. Wieren is a force of nature and even manages to sell the comic relief song which she, and her character(s), admit is a drivelly dud. As another cliché states, Wieren could sing the phone book, set to a dissonant scale, and keep an audience riveted.

For a musical, though Inge(new) is billed as "in search of a musical," Inge(new) is light on musical numbers and heavy on sturm und drang. The music and lyrics (credited to Tsitsias, Rosalind Mills, Alexis Diamond and Julia Appleton) are pastiches and exist to illustrate the themes, not to become ohrwurms. Yet any of them could settle unobtrusively into an aspiring Broadway production. Which again is one of the points of Inge(new). As Gertrude says when Bridgit tries to reject her assigned song and role, "You have to sing something." These characters do not know how to exist without the roles they have been given. Or the roles they want. Bridget laments that "I've been playing her for so long I don't even know where she ends and I begin." All of the themes and conflicts spiral out of control, at great length, leaving no choice but for a deus ex machina to clear way for the 11 o'clock number. Unfortunately the solution is not a compelling one and it too drags on past its shock value attempt to finally wrap things up. Inge(new) begins as an effervescent satire on musical theatre and the tortured souls who are compelled to create it, before taking a dark turn and becoming a poison pill homage to the very art and tradition of musical theatre. A little more sugar and the pill would go down as sweet as a razor blade wallop.