You’ve got to hand it to the students at Synge Street parochial high school in Dublin, circa 1982: Nothing keeps them down. Neither bullies, nor parental squabbling, nor the school principal’s bigotry will stand in their way of forming a pickup band destined to rock the house from homemade videos to the end-of-year prom.
Their monicker Sing Street, chosen in wry tribute to alma mater, is also the title of the musical detailing their exploits, which has had to overcome its own share of obstacles, spelled C-O-V-I-D. After a well-received month-long run at New York Theater Workshop, ending in January 2020, it was to have begun previews at Broadway’s Lyceum on March 26 of that year. Well, you know what happened on March 12. As the characters might have put it: Feckin’ hell.
But as I said, nothing keeps them down. The same stellar production team, with a (mostly) new cast of bright performers, has mounted this crowd-pleaser under the aegis of Boston’s Huntington Theater in association with the LLC that was to have sent it to Broadway 2½ years ago. And I do hope they’re not dissuaded in their quest, because this is a daaarlin’ show and a tonic for our times. I cannot imagine anyone sitting through it without broadly smiling, mask or no mask.
Its sheer lack of pretentiousness, a carryover from the charming 2016 film directed and written by John Carney (with Simon Carmody as co-writer), marks it as something special. (Unpretentiousness and specialness being qualities it shares with a previous Carney musicalization, the Tony-winning smash Once.)
Taken at face value, the stakes for Sing Street‘s characters are small. Infinitesimal, even. Lead singer Conor Lawlor (Adam Bregman, an unforced charmer) is simply trying to impress a girl, the fetching though troubled Raphina (Courtnee Carter, stunning), while sidekick Darren (appealing Diego Lucano) has vague dreams of setting up shop as an entrepreneur and videographer (the story takes place at the dawn of the MTV era). Introverted Eamon (Ben Wang, deftly skirting nerdy stereotype) needs a kick-start to write songs, and the other lads (Anthony Genovesi, Elijah Lyons, and Michael Lepore, all delightful) are just in it for a larf.
Yet bubbling beneath the yeh-let’s-make-a-band casualness are strong yearnings for community, purpose, and self-actualization, much of that to the credit of librettist Enda Walsh, who added similar heft to Once. Themes introduced in the Sing Street movie – the anomie of Dublin’s working class; Catholic repressiveness; the heartbreak in the Lawlor household as the parents’ marriage disintegrates – are given even greater prominence here.
And director Rebecca Taichman, a whiz at investing spectacle with character nuance (cf. her Tony-winning work on Indecent) inspires her cast to heartfelt, lump-in-the-throat performances. Armand Schultz as the insufferable headmaster, and Jack DiFalco as a feral bully, bring chilling depth to what might otherwise be stock roles, while the battling Lawlor parents (Billy Carter and Dee Roscioli) add poignancy and edge, and Eamon’s mum Sandra (Anne L. Nathan) adds welcome warmth, as she did to the matriarchal role in Once, once upon a time. As Conor’s bookish sister, Alexa Xioufaridou Moster gets more attention than her movie counterpart; she’s still not central to the story but makes a fine impression with strong pipes.
Of particular note is Brendan Lawlor (Dónal Finn), a college dropout who’s a drain on his family’s finances but an inspiration to doting younger brother Conor. In both film and musical the layabout offers advice and sardonic commentary, but his plight – that of the rebel without a cause, an artist without portfolio – is here placed in starker counterpoint with the younger kids’ can-do spirit. So powerful is Finn’s presence that he earns, and validates, the musical’s final moments, when the older brother must decide whether he, too, will step out of the house and into engagement with life. Great stuff.
Sonya Tayeh, who won a deserved Tony for the extravagant choreography of Moulin Rouge!, splendidly channels her inner Bill T. Jones/f-you/Spring Awakening vibe in bouncing her charges off the walls. As announced during the fire-exit warning, the cast plays all the instruments themselves (further shades of Once) in delivering the wonderful movie songs by Carney and Gary Clark, plus a couple of new ones and hat-tips to ‘80s classics, though I refuse to spoil any surprises as to which tunes pop up. Those peerless designers Bob Crowley (sets) and Natasha Katz (lighting) burst Once‘s barroom with that gorgeous Dublin sunset; here they highlight the beckoning Irish Sea, a source of both promise and peril.
There’s no way that Sing Street will come to an end on Boston’s Tremont Street. I figure it’ll arrive on Manhattan’s 45th Street prior to the Tony deadline. But anyone who takes pains to experience it here in its nascency will have the luck of the Irish.
Sing Street opened September 7, 2022, at the Huntington Theatre Company (Boston) and runs through October 9. Tickets and information: huntingtontheatre.org
