Bottoms up! “The Life of the Party” is a bubbly little cocktail of a show.
A valentine to the musicals of Andrew Lippa, it’s more of a revue than a play, bouncing from one tune to another like the drunken flappers in his “Wild Party.”
Whether or not you find the piece intoxicating or merely pleasant largely depends on whether you are a huge Lippa fan. Those who adored “The Addams Family,” “Big Fish” and “A Little Princess” will be tickled by this loving tribute, brightly staged by David Babani in its American premiere at TheatreWorks, where Lippa has long been a beloved presence. Others, who find a blandness to many of the tunes, may wonder what all the fuss is about. In that case, this “Party,” which was conceived by Lippa and Babani, lacks fizz and pop as well as a tonal unity.
The Tony-nominated Broadway composer stars here alongside veteran Broadway and West End talents Teal Wicks, Damian Humbley and Sally Ann Triplett. Together Lippa and friends slide though a glossy mashup of tunes from the whimsical to the debauched, accompanied by a small onstage band.
Indeed, it’s easy to imagine being one of Lippa’s friends. The composer has a boyish charm and a dry self-deprecating wit that helps hold this evening together. If too many of the songs feel removed from the context of the musicals they come from, Lippa is a consistently warm and jaunty presence and his affability goes a long way here. He may not be able to sing and dance as well as the rest of the cast but he’s still a hoot.
Of course, devotees of his songbook, who happily snapped along to the theme song from “Addams Family,” may not need a narrative to give the tunes texture. But only rarely do the songs seem to stand on their own. The poignant breakup song “Love Somebody Now,” powerfully delivered by Triplett, was a notable exception. Simply staged but deeply felt, the song of a love squandered emerges as a universe unto itself, capturing a universal theme in a memorable interlude. Humbley also transcends the limitations of the revue with a rousing “Let Me Down” from “The Wild Party.”
The production falters when it overreaches its grasp by dipping into the raunchy and the macabre. A “Cinderella” joke quickly wears thin in a tune about a good girl gone badass dominatrix. The funnery with nunnery from “Asphalt Beach,” in which a disturbing sister admits she likes “the feel of ethnic cleansing,” also never lands.
For her part, Wicks (“Wicked”) brings fire to Queenie, the roaring ’20s diva on a bender in “The Wild Party,” but the desperation of those songs just doesn’t quite fit in this upbeat medley, alongside a song about baseball and summer camp (“John & Jen”) and a prayer to the musical theater gods (“The Man in the Ceiling”). The jarring tonal shifts keep this revue from coherence.
Indeed, this “Party” works best when it wears its heart on its sleeve in the intimate cabaret moments. When Lippa sings of his awakening to Stephen Sondheim, among other things, in “Marshall Levin,” the sweetness of the memory is infectious.
When he belts out “I Do What I Do” from his new musical “The Man in the Ceiling,” about a cartoonist who does what he does because he loves it, the truth of the sentiment feels clear. This is a man blissfully in love with the theater and that’s hard to resist.
Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772. Read her at www.mercurynews.com/karen-dsouza, and follow her at Twitter.com/karendsouza4.
‘THE LIFE OF THE PARTY’
Music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa; presented by TheatreWorks
Through: Sept. 18
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro. St.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: $19-$80; 650-463-1960. www.theatreworks.org
