A scrappy little Irish movie written and directed by John Carney is transformed into an intimate musical at New York Theatre Workshop, smartly adapted by playwright Enda Walsh and airily designed by Bob Crowley, where the actors are indistinguishable from the orchestra. We know—you’ve heard this song (Once) before. This time, it’s Sing Street, an underrated 2016 coming-of-age film set in economically depressed 1980s Dublin.
As far as the shows’ screen predecessors, I’ll admit I’m more partial to Sing Street. (Go on. Chuck your pints of Guinness at me.) Maybe it’s the goofball plot: A high school boy, Conor, played onstage by Brenock O’Connor, starts a band simply to impress a girl, a wannabe model named Raphina (Zara Devlin). And strictly based on the scores alone, Sing Street is the superior film: Carney and Gary Clark wrote a bunch of supercool nostalgia-soaked songs that could have been lifted straight out of a 1980s jukebox. There’s not a clunker among them—even the synth-heavy purposely simplistic “The Riddle of the Model” is a toe-tapper—but you’ll be singing the defiant anthem “Drive It Like You Stole It” for days. (“This is your life/ You can go anywhere/ You gotta grab the wheel and own it/ And drive it like you stole it.”) Then they filled in the gaps with hits from the likes of Duran Duran, the Cure, the Jam, and Spandau Ballet—bands that Conor’s music-geek brother, Brendan (Gus Halper, rocking an awesome Simon Le Bon–esque ’do), uses for inspiration and education.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★ review here.]
Conor’s band, Sing Street—a motley crew that includes the shy Eamon (Sam Poon) and the manager/videographer Darren (Max William Bartos)—also provides Conor with an escape from his warring parents and his new school, Synge Street, where he’s bullied by both sneering student Barry (Johnny Newcomb) and by the Christian Brother–in-chief, Brother Baxter (Martin Moran). “Act manfully,” Brother Baxter tells Conor. Later he’ll confiscate the boy’s brown shoes— “We’ve a black shoe policy” (nevermind that his family can’t afford another pair)—and shove his face into a sink, sneering “Now let’s get ya clean, ya little girly!” Apparently the Brother has never seen rock stars wearing guyliner.
Brother Baxter’s role has been beefed up—listen for him chanting the Nicene Creed under the lovely Act 2 ballad “Dream for You,” a number that’s beautifully staged by Tony-winning director Rebecca Taichman (Indecent)—as have a few other parts. Eamon’s mom, Sandra (Once alum Anne L. Nathan), is now, conveniently, a piano teacher. And aspiring model Raphina is no longer just the girl in the band’s videos and Conor’s pseudo-sophisticated love interest; she actually gets a few musical moments of her own—which, frankly, don’t entirely work. Nearly everything else is a performance number, so a character suddenly bursting into song—the hallmark of any standard musical, of course—actually seems strange.
One thing that could use beefing up: the atmosphere. Crowley’s seaside backdrop is lovely but woefully generic. Were it not for the accents, we’d never know we’re in Dublin. Fortunately, the hair, makeup, and costumes are totally ’80s.
Sing Street opened Dec. 16, 2019, and runs through Jan. 26, 2020. Tickets and information: nytw.org
