Those wacky Christians!

Conservative Christians do the craziest things, don’t they? The High School kids in Saved!, a musical based on the cult film of the same title, try to pray and sing their way through the pearly gates. Along the way, they deal with teen pregnancy, coming out, pot smoking and sex (and my favorite show euphemism - oral fornication - of which, I know a thing or two - don’t ask). The authors have also updated the story to include current trends like texting and facebook pages to firmly set the action in the present (it’s so f*cked up how fast technology develops, I mean, the movie was only released in 2004).

Full disclosure - I didn’t pay to see the show, so I didn’t have any kind of monetary expectation of quality. Trish and I signed up to usher, so we ended up front row center, literally inches from the actors on the tiny Playwrights Horizons’ stage. Trish was even lucky (?) enough to get spit on by hunky Aaron Tveit, who plays Dean, the lead character’s gay baby daddy. It’s really amazing that by just devoting an extra hour of your time before the show you can save seventy bucks. The only real requirement is that you know the alphabet and can count to eighteen.

Well, I was a little concerned through the first act. The performances were uniformly excellent and the book scenes were great. But the music was - eh - not terrible, but not particularly good. Mind you, not as boring as Cry Baby’s monotonous five chord score, but way too subtle for a pop-inflected score - in other words, no pop hooks. It definitely needed an Altar Boyz-ish musical sensibility. To its benefit, although still firmly satirical, the musical adaptation doesn’t stray too far into camp territory. It successfully streamlines the story, emphasizing the dramatic and emotional qualities of the situation rather than exploiting the obvious opportunities to pound us over the head with anti-fundamentalist rhetoric. It was actually refreshing to see a new show that doesn’t “wink” at itself or tells us how “smart” it is by inflating the book with self-referential asides. In fact, this particularly dramatic adaptation, to me, didn’t even particularly scream, “Musicalize me!” By intermission, I was almost wishing it was a play.

Either my cold medicine kicked in and I was totally high or there was a major improvement musically in the second act. Starting with the psychedelic Hilary Fay fantasy dream sequence “Heaven,” act two got off to a trippy Partridge Family vibe. Closely followed by an honest-to-goodness rock-driven quartet by the men of the cast “I’m Not the Man I Thought I’d Be.” The first and only true “love” duet also came in the second act, between Mary and her mother, Lillian - played by the amahzing, yet underused, Julia Murney - get this biyatch a Broadway show already!

I did leave the theatre feeling a little dirty, because Jesus (well, the actor playing Jesus, Daniel Zaitchik) was totally hot. But I guess I’ll have to work those issues out with my therapist. And although I’m fine with suspension of disbelief re: the actors’ ages (none were anywhere near high school age), I wish I had sat a little further back. Celia Keenan-Bolger was near perfect casting for the role of young Mary, but I couldn’t help but stare at her “adult” hands flailing only a foot or two away from me. There is definitely great potential here and since the show’s still in previews, a lot could change for the better. I may even try to catch it once it opens and see if they were able "fix" the first act.

On a side note, I ended up seating Nick and Jessica. No, not that Nick and Jessica, but Nicholas Rolfing, one of my Danny Zucko's from the Grease! tour in - gasp - 1996(!) and his wife. He totally gave me the "I know I know you" look but couldn't quite place my face as it is now attached to my now middle-aged round body. Oh well, things start to spread when you get older. For those of you who care, also on that Grease! tour with me were Gaelen Gilliland (Legally Blond, Wicked) and Kendra Kassebaum (Wicked, Assassins).