Ben Fankhauser, Bryonha Marie Parham, and Alex Wyse in A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet. Photo: Matthew MurphyIt’s often said that songwriters are the best interpreters of their songs. A currently handy case in point are songwriters Ben Fankhauser and Alex Wyse, who not only wrote A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet but appear in the musical as—you guessed it—songwriters with especially potent voices. Theirs may rank among the best songwriters’ voices in some good time. (That’s not including singer-songwriters).
The two, playing Man 2 (Fankhauser), who’s straight, and Other Man (Wyse), who’s gay, show off prodigious vocal power as they take on what they hope will be a career-making assignment. The task is composing a jingle for Comet, a new fragrance named after actress Regina Comet (Bryonha Marie Parham, no slouch in the wall-rippling department herself). Poor Regina happens to be in a decline and hopes to reestablish herself by way of a product appealing to the 14-18 category(!).
So yes, along with Parham’s roof-shaking pipes, Fankhauser and Wyse make some of those timbers quiver. The drawback is that the songs they conjure when scratching their heads on Wilson Chin’s cluttered workspace set are not particularly convincing. They don’t approach matching or surpassing the Fankhauser-Wyse performances.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
It isn’t that the songs are bad. It’s that they just aren’t good enough. Too many impress as familiar-sounding power ballads, some almost but not quite reminiscent of the Barry Manilow songbook—Manilow being the chart-topping god to whom Man 2 and Other Man bow low and whose image appears more than once along the way. (Man 2 and Other Man even refer to frequent Manilow collaborators Bruss Sussman and Jack Feldman. Those three came up with the rousing, highly danceable “Copacabana.“ Now there’s a hit song for ya.)
Making matters slightly worse is that several of the ditties dwell on the same subject: “Song on Spec,” “One Hit Song,” “Before Connecting the Dots,” “Connecting the Dots,” “One Good Line.” Prominent among them are too many predictable rhymes, although one set of matched words does catch, if not assault, the ear. That would be “comet/vomit.” (In songwriting annals, there may be another rhymed “vomit,” but undoubtedly not in the Cole Porter or Noel Coward canons.)
The above mentions do not include a samba Regina gets to sing about going corporate. Why a samba? Supposedly a samba revival is occurring at the time the fellows are writing “Regina Comet, Inc.” for the gal. And indeed, what other incentive might be needed?
Then there’s the Fankhauser-Wyse storyline, which doesn’t end up making a great deal of sense. Since this is the kind of plot it is, any audience member who has ever seen a show will know that Man 2 and Other Man (no spoiler alert follows) will succeed in writing that Top 40 phenomenon.
The getting there is the thing, and it involves 80 intermissionless minutes of barely logical details and developments. Among them are Man 2’s and Other Man’s Jewish background and their earlier writing of Succot, Mama, Succot. Add to that Regina Comet’s status as an honorary astrophysicist and Man 2’s crush on Regina, which leads to a rift between him and Other Man. The last serves as the work’s dramatic highpoint.
Marshall Pailet directs A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet and does his level best to dress up the enterprise. Two or three times at the ends of numbers he has lighting designer Aja M. Jackson flash streaming proscenium lights. He wants to let ticket buyers know here’s an occasion for heavy applause and for the occasional patron or two who feels like hooting to do so.
At the finale number—a rousing version of the Man 2’s and Other Man’s hit (on which charts isn’t specified)—Pailet pulls out all stops, He hardly holds off on choreographer Stephanie Klemons’s finale routine. He doesn’t stint on designer Sarita Fellows’s facility at creating attention-getting pull-away costumes. A few magic tricks are incorporated. Just about anything to achieve a reaction the piece itself doesn’t support
To end on a positive note: Perhaps two-thirds of the way through the proceedings, Fankhauser forcefully intones “Conflict of Interest” and is so passionate about what he’s declaring that he comes close to convincing viewers the words he’s singing make total sense. Wyse is next up and proves as strong on “Walk Away.” These spotlighted solos are something for them both to point to with pride.
A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet opened September 27, 2021 at the DR2 Theatre and runs through November 21. Tickets and information: reginacomet.com
