Self-Aggrandizing “tick, tick…BOOM!” Fails to Detonate

Elevator pitch for a musical: During the days leading up to his 30-something birthday, a New Yorker reflects on his past and frets about where he’s heading. Friends throw him a party. Blackout as he blows out the candles.

There’s a good reason you can’t tell whether that’s a description of Stephen Sondheim’s Company or Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…BOOM! Larson openly idolized Sondheim and apparently really, really agreed that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

But unlike Company, Larson’s tick, tick…BOOM! is explicitly and heavily autobiographical (right down to the Sondheim idolization). It’s 1990, and 29-year-old Jon (Ernesto Figueroa) thought that by now he’d be further along in his career as a musical composer. He’s trying to defy the conventional wisdom that you can’t put “real rock music” on stage. Why he thinks he’s at the cutting edge is unclear — he’s familiar with Hair, which predates him by two decades — but okay, roll with it: he’s going against the grain. Should he give up the arts and embrace the 9-to-5 life like his best friend Michael (Phillip J. Lewis) and the bourgeois comforts that come with it? With his girlfriend Susan (Samantha M. Lawrence) asking him to consider moving out of New York, he’s at a fork in the road — and his choice may depend on the success of his new musical.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be so put off by the self-congratulatory nature of tick, tick…BOOM! — this is a musical that not only glorifies its composer’s character but ends with Sondheim’s leaving a phone message extolling his talent — if so much of the music weren’t just blah. Listening to songs like “Green Green Dress” (‘50s rock ‘n’ roll given the Pat Boone treatment) and “Sugar” (a saccharine paean to the numminess of Twinkies shamelessly based on “La Bamba”) makes you marvel at the balls and lack of self-awareness it took to have Jon complain about the “warmed-over easy listening” stuff that plays on Broadway.

ICT’s rendering of these numbers only highlights their shortcomings. Although the four-piece band is competent, bare-bones orchestration gives the singers nowhere to hide, which means their occasional pitchiness is on full display. (Curiously, Lawrence is strongest when belting out her most challenging notes.)

But they do reasonably well with Larson’s best songs. Figueroa evokes real emotion in “Real Life” and “Why”, the two most affecting numbers; and he and Lawrence have proper fun with “Therapy”, a reasonably clever staccato deconstruction of I-said/you-said miscommunication.

But “Therapy” also highlights the sort of missed opportunity that haunts the proceedings. Sure, tick, tick…BOOM! isn’t trying to be Fosse, but the production is so blocky that this is where I’d be calling out the choreographer . . . except that there’s no choreographer, which probably explains a lot. Even when there are modest attempts at moving to the music (I’m not sure dance is the right word), the results are unfailingly stilted. “Therapy” is the one number where director Kari Hayter gets something going between her actors (stand up, sit down, lean, lean) but can’t carry it to the next logical step.

To be fair, ICT wasn’t going to be able to do anything with tick, tick…BOOM! that I would love. Hell, I don’t especially like Rent — and tick, tick…BOOM! is no Rent. But even if you walk into the theater just itching for some Jonathan Larson, you’re likely to walk out still needing a scratch.

tick, tick…BOOM! at International City Theatre
Times: Thurs-Sat 8:00 p.m. and Sun 2:00 p.m.
The show runs through March 5
Cost: $49-$52
Details: (562) 436-4610, ICTLongBeach.org
Venue: Beverly O’Neill Theatre, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach