OK, Boomer – listen up: “Edges,” that song cycle (not a traditional musical, mind you) crafted by two Millennials when they were both 19 years old, is not just for Millennials. Its 17 songs about navigating the crossroads of life will appeal to all generations, say the cast and director of the City Repertory Theatre production that opens Friday Jan. 19 at the troupe’s Palm Coast venue.
But damn if director Beau Wade and the four-person cast of Phillipa Rose, Eric Barnum, Savanna Dacosta and Andre Maybin Jr, didn’t bring some Millennial ’tude to their production, whether intentionally or inadvertently, whether through insouciance or some sort of I’don’t-give-a-flying-freak-how-you-Boomers-did-theater attitude.
Chief among City Rep’s bad-assery: They cut the play’s most famous song! That’s akin to exorcising “Memory” from “Cats,” or having Hamlet fondle a coconut instead of poor Yorick’s skull. (Well, kinda-sorta, but you get the idea – with the exception of reimagining Shakespeare, most Boomer-steered productions would never dare to alter the sacred text or setting of a creator’s work.)
So, venture to City Rep’s “Edges” and you won’t hear its most famous song, “Be My Friend,” which became colloquially known as “that Facebook song” soon after University of Michigan students Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, frustrated by their school’s musical theater offerings, penned and debuted their work in 2005. (Not to be confused with the 1970 song by the classic rock band Free, you can hear Pasek and Paul’s “Be My Friend” here.)
“It just seemed like when we were constructing the song list, there wasn’t a good spot to put ‘Be My Friend’ in there,” Wade says.
“I’m not going to lie – I didn’t like the song from the beginning,” Barnum chimes in. “I was like, ‘If you want to, we can do it, but . . . .’ ”
“It was one of the only songs in ‘Edges’ that maybe felt like it dated the show or made it Millennial,” Dacosta says. “Facebook is like MySpace to us,” she adds, citing the passe, Neanderthal-like granddaddy of social networking platforms.
But don’t pity Pasek and Paul too much. The duo have won acclaim for their work on stage productions of “A Christmas Story,” “James and the Giant Peach” and the 1991 film “Dogfight,” and their original musical “Dear Evan Hansen” won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Original Score. Their song “City of Stars” in the film “La La Land” earned them both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Wade’s “constructing the song list” comment is yet more evidence of Millennial nonchalance about how traditional, ne Boomer, theater is supposed to work: True to Pasek and Paul’s intent, Wade and company were free to shuffle and-or discard the songs of “Edges” to create whatever running order they desired.
This ain’t your grandmother’s production of “Carousel” or “The Music Man.”
“ ‘Edges’ is not a musical, although it can still fall under the classification of a musical in that it’s live theater and there’s music in it,” Wade says. “There is some dialog interspersed in some of the songs, but there’s no book. There isn’t an overarching narrative – maybe that’s the wrong word. There might be somewhat of a narrative but there isn’t a plot. There is no protagonist or antagonist. You’re not following anyone’s journey. It’s more a quick glimpse into these 17 songs with 17 different realities and people inhabiting those realities.”
“When we were looking up the show, there were a hundred different renditions with songs arranged in different orders,” Maybin says. “That’s actually what’s really good about this show: They (Pasek and Paul) gave the individual artists the freedom to develop their own narrative. So it’s like ‘All right, here’s the story – how do you want to tell it?’ And this is the way that Beau has led us to be able to tell it.”
“Each song highlights a specific decision point that’s right on the edge of ‘What could come next?’ ” Wade says. “So many of the songs are very relatable even though the situation of a song can be very hyper-specific. Everybody can look at that moment and be like ‘I lived that moment.’ ”
The musical styles of “Edges,” Barnum says, include Disney-ish songs, classical music-inspired pieces and “several references to old Broadway like ‘Oklahoma’ and stuff like that. It kind of just covers it all.”
“It’s a show that can speak to multiple generations,” Maybin says. To illustrate, he cites the song “Along the Way,” a favorite of both his and Barnum’s.
“It’s a universal story of a male figuring out his life,” Maybin says. “Like ‘When I was younger, I made some really great mistakes and now you want me to grow up and raise children and I’m not ready for that.’ Every generation of male can speak to that.”
“It’s such an interestingly written piece,” Barnum says. “I was like ‘Oh, this is the comedic song – next.’ Then I took the time to listen to it and there’s such a dramatic shift just because of the way it’s written – you get to the end and it’s this beautiful moment of humanity.”
Dacosta cites the song “Pretty Sweet Day,” about the changes that come to a trio of friends when one of them enters a romantic relationship and the old gang is altered forever.
“It’s where you kind of lose your friend and if you run into them you’re like ‘Where have you been?’ and you talk about all these memories,” Dacosta says. “The song talks about something that can be so hurtful in a way, but yet the song is so playful and so lighthearted. I enjoy that juxtaposition in the storytelling of it.”
“The themes of the stories are just so universal,” Wade says. “A lot of songs are funny and have lighthearted moments, but there’s a hefty amount of reality going on too. There are so many earworms, so many very pertinent and prescient lines. People are going to hear not just a specific song but a line and be like ‘Wow, that line really spoke to me.’ ”
– Rick de Yampert for FlaglerLive
“Edges,” at City Repertory Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19-20 and Jan. 26-27, and at 3 p.m. Jan. 21 and Jan. 28. Performances will be in CRT’s black box theater at City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B207, Palm Coast. Tickets are $30 adults and $15 students, available online at crtpalmcoast.com or by calling 386-585-9415. Tickets also will be available at the venue just before curtain time.
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