Ordinary Days (review)

Now in its third season, "Roundabout Underground," the Roundabout Theatre Company's newest artistic initiative, was created to foster new work by emerging writers and directors, allowing artists to premiere their work via a fully realized production. Having previously presented Stephen Karam's Speech & Debate and Steven Levenson's The Language of Trees, Roundabout Underground tackled its first musical offering with Ordinary Days by emerging musical theatre composer Adam Gwon, a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and winner of the 2008 Fred Ebb Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre Songwriting. His work, which has been seen and developed at Primary Stages, York Theatre Company, and the Kennedy Center, includes Ethan Frome, The Boy Detective Fails, and Bernice Bobs Her Hair.

In its Roundabout incarnation (the musical was previously showcased at the National Alliance of Musical Theatre Festival of New Works), Ordinary Days was a seventy-five-minute chamber musical intimately staged in the sixty-two-seat Black Box Theatre. It charts the paths of four New Yorkers, each trying to find him- or herself in the chaos of contemporary New York City. This familiar journey serves as an intriguing metaphor and parallel for the entire production: as the characters struggle to find their purpose, the musical struggles to find its voice. In the first third of the piece, as the characters grapple with happiness, this searching musical grapples with originality; in the second third of the piece, as the characters voice their fears and acknowledge their problems, Gwon gives those characters notably different and increasingly complex compositions through which to do so; and in the final third of the piece, as the characters begin to find fulfillment and an increased sense of maturity, the musical matures as well, using a welcomed sense of patience and nuance to fully explore its characters' journeys. Overall, the musical itself becomes a fifth character, finding itself and its voice just as the characters within that very musical do.

As Ordinary Days begins, a series of solos introduces the four characters to the audience: Warren, a delightfully quirky personal assistant determined to stay positive amidst increasingly negative surroundings; Deb, a transplant to New York City hoping to find herself in her doctoral work on Virginia Woolf; and Claire and Jason, a couple dealing with the trials and tribulations of moving in together and the effects of cohabitation on a relationship. Although

Hunter Foster (Jason) and Lisa Brescia (Claire) in Ordinary Days. (Photo: Joan Marcus.)

Hunter Foster (Jason), Kate Wetherhead (Deb), Jared Gertner (Warren), and Lisa Brescia (Claire) in Ordinary Days. (Photo: Joan Marcus.)

effective in storytelling, this quartet of solos is ultimately a disappointing opening: the melodies often seem interchangeable and, furthermore, they often ring familiar, reminiscent of a previously heard Jason Robert Brown or Maltby and Shire composition. Although rich with exposition and aiding in character development, the melodies fail to ignite a musical spark in the ears of the audience—a perilous issue for a musical that is entirely sung.

After the storylines intersect at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a sequence that was amusing though ultimately forced), the musical began to find its footing in the second third of the piece. In the role of Jason, Hunter Foster sang the touchingly honest ballad "Favorite Places," and with that song, a far more interesting piece of musical theatre commenced. The song is unique, melodious and informative, and was beautifully performed by Foster, quickly redirecting a lackluster piece of musical theatre onto a new, more promising path. In the subsequent musical numbers, both the characters' relationships and the musical compositions take on an increased level of texture and complexity. Warren and Deb begin to discover a greater sense of purpose and friendship in each other, whereas Jason and Claire struggle to demolish the metaphorical walls in their relationship. It is at this point in...