Habitual list maker Rob Gordon would probably never include High Fidelity on his “Top 5 All-Time Well-Written Musicals,” but that does not mean it lacks entertainment value. Or that it deserved to be panned so dismissively by the New York critics when it opened on Broadway in 2006 and closed 14 performances later.
Because it was so negatively received there, High Fidelity attracted the curiosity of Slow Burn Theatre, which mines the material — based on a Nick Hornby novel and a subsequent cult favorite 2000 movie — for its energetic, witty retro rock score and its bits of wisdom on matters of the heart.
Director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater likes to lighten up for the summer after several darker musicals in season, putting his young cast through their athletic paces and never letting on that the show may not be top-drawer.
Its main character, Rob, owns what the opening number describes as “The Last Real Record Store (on Earth),” a woefully unprofitable basement repository of classic vinyl albums. Lousy at business, he is no more successful with relationships as we quickly see when his live-in girl friend Laura walks out on him. That puts Rob in an emotional tailspin that leads him to rewind hs life and consider what went wrong with all his exes.
Rob’s shabby treatment of Laura should be enough to turn off the audience, but book writer David Lindsay-Abaire gets us on his side by having him narrate the show and address the audience directly. It also helps that Robert Johnston has an easygoing charisma in the role, immature but hard to hate.
The score by Tom Kitt is less ambitious than his Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal a few years later, but its pastiche of rock styles fits the show and is well tailored to Amanda Green’s brash lyrics. (When Rob sings about being one degree separated from a celebrity, you get the feeling that Green chose Lyle Lovett mainly because he rhymes with “shove it.”)
Willowy blonde Nicole Piro, a Slow Burn veteran, is sufficiently alluring as Laura and she rocks out a hard-driving “Number Five with a Bullet.” Things must have really been bad with Rob if she would leave him for a creepy, pretentious guru wannabe like Ian (played with sly glee by Noah Levine). Fitzwater’s discovery for this production is Sandi M. Stock as Liz, Rob’s platonic friend who comes on strong with “She Goes.”
Bruno Vida (Gabe in Slow Burn’s Next to Normal) makes a vivid impression as a nerdy store employee who attracts Courtney Poston as a musically tone-deaf customer. Larry Buzzeo amuses as a fantasy Bruce Springsteen, on-target both visually and vocally, and Kaitlyn O’Neill has fun as a morose folkie singing the downbeat “Ready to Settle.”
Set designer Sean McClelland solves the problem of the frequent quick changes from the record store to Rob’s apartment with a few sliding counter units and a pair of rotating stage-high boxes that look suspiciously like stereo speakers. Look around the store’s clutter and chances are you will spy a few album covers from your past. Lance Blank remains a reliable asset with his computerized lighting and Rick Pena must have dug through many a closet for the show’s period-perfect ’90s costumes.
The show’s chief failing is its surface-deep, too glib writing, but High Fidelity was never very profound. It is, however, easy to identify with these characters and become involved with their dilemmas, and that’s not bad for a musical comedy.
HIGH FIDELITY, Slow Burn Theatre Co., West Boca Community High School, 12811 West Glades Rd., Boca Raton. Through Sunday, June 29. Tickets: $40. Call: (866) 811-4111.