Art and About

Kissless in New York: It's darker than Glee and giving Houston actors anoff-Broadway adventure

Photo by Joel Luks

Do you remember the first time you kissed? For real, I mean.

None of this slobber on the cheek business, but the first time you felt what it means to kiss someone you felt tingly about? That's one of those teenage milestones that begins a journey into the social complexities of adulthood.

Kissless — a musical taking shape right here in Houston that will make its debut at the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival off Broadway in six performances from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8 — might seem like it's a work about that specific moment, but it's much more than that.

Kissless may seem like the stereotypical, happy, Glee-esque musical, but its surprise and shocking ending morphs any carefree aura into lifelong lessons.

I found out how much more during a routine Art and About adventure.

Camera and microphone on hand, I went to the Houston Family Arts Center, where rehearsals are now in full swing. I got an opportunity to chat with the cast and learn about the play, the actors' aspirations and what it means to be debuting in New York.

Most shows at the New York Musical Theatre Festival are cast out of New York. This one is Houston based and mainly made up of young actors, from teenagers upwards to mid-twenties. Getting the chance to perform off-Broadway is something many seasoned performers dream of but never achieve.

Whatever the young hopefuls lack in experience, they are certainly making up in rehearsal hours, perfecting their characters' intentions and understanding their inner struggles, experimenting with blocking and improving their vocals.

At their age, they can really relate to the storyline and the themes of cliques — jocks, goths, nerds and rednecks — stereotypes, alienation and loss. On the surface, Kissless may seem like the stereotypical, happy, Glee-esque musical, but its surprise and shocking ending morphs any carefree aura into lifelong lessons that everyone — children, students and adults — need to learn, and relearn.

When Summer, a misfit goth, is forced to live with Derek, a hyper jock, their burgeoning romance causes angst and turmoil at Forest Glen High School. As the characters struggle to come to terms with their self-imposed labels and situations, youth naivete comes to a crashing halt with the discovery of a classmate's death.

Life, sometimes, doesn't go on. Seize today as tomorrow may just not be here. Live life to the fullest. That's the message that writer Chance McClain wanted to put forth in this genre mixer that brings pop, rock, country, traditional Broadway tunes and a dash of jazz hands together.

"I had a story inside that wanted to get out, the regular live life to the fullest story," McClain said. "An underlying theme is the loss of a teen. It's really sad and you never know how to deal with it. I wanted to find away to tell the story of how kids deal with death."

Kissless began as a short story in March 2010 before morphing into a musical last August. After staged readings at the Houston Family Art Center and Texas Repertory Theatre and some tweaks, the audience responded well — laughing when they were meant to laugh and crying during tender moments.

"The community is paying for us to go to New York," McClain said. "We are trying to raise $100,000 to send 27 performers plus the creative and the production team for two weeks. When people hear about our show, they realize there is something special here. That along with Houston pride, has earned us significant support."

To sponsor Kissless, interested donors can support the cast's efforts online or by participating in the musical's upcoming golf tournament at Wildcat Golf Club on Sept. 8.

For McClain, it is a dream come true.

"I feel humble and unworthy. It's happening and I just can't stop smiling."

The cast comments on going to New York:

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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