The possibility of time travel is the tantalizing element that fuels Safety Not Guaranteed, a new musical fashioned from a same-named 2012 indie film. Opening in its world premiere on Thursday at the BAM Harvey Theater, the musical promises to whisk its characters — and presumably the audience — into amazing times, but ultimately Safety Not Guaranteed goes nowhere wonderful.
Adapted from Derek Connolly’s screenplay by Nick Blaemire (Glory Days) and merged more or less with songs by Ryan Miller, who provided the soundtrack for the film (which this reviewer has never seen), the musical is set nowadays in the Pacific Northwest. A fledgling journalist, Darius (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe) spots a peculiar classified ad seeking a partner for time travel and she lands a magazine gig to nose out the news. Joining Darius for the trip to a seaside village on the assignment as her assistant is Arnau (Rohan Kymal), a nice if nerdy gamer, and their editor Jeff (Pomme Koch), a dude in his disillusioned later 30s who hopes to get in touch with his younger self and possibly an old flame.
Indeed, as the subplots proceed, Jeff hooks up not altogether blissfully with his former girlfriend Liz (Ashley Pérez Flanagan), while Arnau is unexpectedly wooed amid the book stacks by Tristan (John-Michael Lyles), a perky librarian. Meanwhile back at the main story, following several bungled attempts to make contact, Darius manages to finally encounter Kenneth (Taylor Trensch), the placer of the classified ad who appears merely to be an oddball clerk in a grocery store.
Or might this paranoid little fellow really own a working time machine? Darius finds herself intrigued. Whether the audience feels likewise is debatable.
A surprisingly dull event, Safety Not Guaranteed turns out to be a disappointing realization of an intriguing premise for a sci-fi musical romance. The director, Lee Sunday Evans, who has neatly handled quirky musicals such as In the Green and Riddle of the Trilobites in the past, can do little with this unimaginative effort that lacks wonder and magic and above all, a sense of adventure. Few laughs and even fewer thrills arise in Blaemire’s increasingly doleful script during which Kenneth and Darius reveal their not entirely believable sad reasons for going back a dozen years in time.
Miller’s grungy score presents a bunch of alt-rock songs usually driven hard by repetitive lyrics, metallic basslines and heavy percussion that scarcely illuminate the characters or their emotions. An exception is “Are You Good?” a pleasantly easygoing, old-fashioned musical theater number shared by the two secondary couples. Creative and extensive underscoring possibly would help to heighten the story, especially in fostering a mysterious atmosphere and bolstering the musical’s so-what ending.
The unprepossessing climactic special effect at the show’s abrupt conclusion likely would make illusionist David Copperfield giggle. The sparse settings designed by Krit Robinson and the occasionally harsh lighting by Reza Behjat insufficiently fill out the Harvey space with the cool sci-fi atmospherics necessary to support the improbable storyline. Evans’ staging suffers from an inconsistency of tone during the show’s nearly two hour span; its moods veering from serious to cartoony to the simply hapless, as when the furtive character of Kenneth runs mad circles around the stage or when he and Darius engage in an extended, supposedly humorous, martial arts training session.
The performers sing and act credibly enough, but Safety Not Guaranteed proves a waste of their talents as much as it’s mostly a waste of the audience’s time.
Safety Not Guaranteed opened October 3, 2024, at the BAM Harvey Theater and runs through October 20. Tickets and information: bam.org
