At Hobby Center Thursday

On the road to New York, Kissless updates West Side Story with teenage angst &energy

Kissless re-imagines the universal story of Romeo and Juliet via West SideStory, morphis the Jets and the Sharks into the goths, nerds, rednecks andjocks.
Cease the day as tomorrow may never come. That's the lesson behind Kissless, anew musical by Chance McClain scheduled to make its debut off-Broadway at theNew York Musical Theatre Festival.
En route to the New York Musical Theatre Festival, the cast is made up ofteenagers and emergist artists looking for their big break.

Remember the Jets and the Sharks? Though the music of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story has its rightful spot in American musical theater history, the dueling-dancing gangs have lost some efficacy with younger audiences. The stylized mobs have become archetypal symbols removed from the realism musical theater lovers are accustomed to nowadays.

The Bernstein setting of the universal Romeo and Juliet tale still edifies, but from afar. Love found, love lost, love forbidden — these themes will forever connect with our ceaseless yearning for romance, companionship and acceptance. Chance McClain's Kissless attempts, successfully, to update the story.

It's impossible not to to make connections between these works and Kissless. The brand-new musical scheduled to make its off-Broadway debut via the New York Musical Theatre Festival is offering preview performances in Houston prior to traveling to the Big Apple, providing a rare opportunity to witness what is considered artistically worthy of the eight-year old, three-week event.

McClain strategically chose students to make his message more believable. The archaic Bernstein gangs — he wants listeners to make that association by quoting directly from "Cool" and echoing Jerome Robbin's original choreography — have been replaced by their modern Texas high school equivalent: Goths, jocks, rednecks and nerds.

Such was the case this weekend at the Richard E. Berry Educational Support Center, with one more performance scheduled at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday.

With a cast of 27 local high school students and emerging artists — a rare occurrence as most shows accepted to the festival will be played by professional New York actors — the pressure is on for these young stars to deliver, though one of the performances is already sold out. The musical bacchanal has served as an incubator to propel shows forward. Works like The Great American Trailer Park Musical and [title of show] owe their success to the festival, finding a place on the bills of Houston arts presenters — Stages Repertory Theatre and Theater LaB Houston respectively.

There's a lot at stake, financially — the group needs $100,000 to subsidize production costs — individually and professionally. Many dream of a big New York break. Most don't get it.

The characters' quest for their first kiss is undoubtedly a metaphor for a much more all-inclusive message. Seize the day as tomorrow may never come. The tenet is best embodied by the unfulfilled love of the two main characters: Top-jock Derek West (Tyler Galindo) and goth-in-training Summer Stokely (Teresa Zimmermann). Forced to live under the same roof, an unlikely friendship and attraction develops in the absence of external pressures and expectations.

But alas, their separate associations' code of conduct — parental coercion included — forces them in a downward spiral of betrayal and isolation.

Zimmermann had the goods to interpret the misguided head-strong and complicated misfit. Her commanding presence and robust vocals rocked "Fading," the angst-filled song that carried her to final rest. Appearing in contrast, Galindo, who was less theatrical and more matter-of-fact, chose a subdued approach to let the words speak for themselves.

Adding a healthy dose of comic relief were twins Austin and Ryan Jacobs as swing characters. Their likeness was exploited for many trompe l'oeil on-stage effects and hilariously exaggerated yet appropriate quirks, wise beyond their years. They were joined by Megan Blackmon as the delightful Betsy West (Derek's mother) bringing a bouncy caricature-like portrayal of a loony suburban mom with a few loose screws.

As heads of their respective circles, Julia Green as Elizabeth Oakley (goth) and Matt Buzonas as Clint Maroon (redneck) were immaculate and deliciously stereotypical in their roles. That was also the case with Cameron Worthen as Coach Chet West (Derek's father).

Although the essence of Kissless is serious — a study of how teenagers deal with loss — its delivery is composed of 90 percent pure tuneful hilarity and 10 percent sobering contemplation. The stereotyped cliques give full artistic license for composers Kevin Ryan, Frank Bullington and Bryan Ford to explore with diverse popular genres. With a dash of rock, pop, country and traditional Broadway, numerous memorable melodies sure-to-become hits kept audiences humming during intermission and post-performance.

Though a few minute production details still need to be ironed out, that didn't detract from the work's effectiveness nor the audience from showing their enthusiasm with a roaring, and well deserved, standing ovation, while quoting, "Oh, my, goth."

You had to be there.

Houston Family Arts Center Actors Academy and Chance productions present a preview of Kissless the Hobby Center for the Performance Arts on Thursday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $21.25 - $41.25 and can be purchased online.

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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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