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Kansas City Repertory Theatre opened its 2010–11 season with the religious musical, Saved. While covering some pretty weighty social issues—teen pregnancy, homosexuality, Christianity (fundamentalism, in particular), adultery—the manner of approach is formulaic and predictable, adding nothing of new to those issues. Good Christian high school girl, “Mary” (Laura Huizenga), finds out her boyfriend, “Dean” (David Hull) is gay and they naïvely attempt to “cure” him by breaking their vow of chastity. “Shockingly,” she ends up pregnant. Upon learning of these events, her “friends,” led by über-fundamentalist “Hilary Faye” (Justis Bolding), go militant and pray for the lost souls of “the gay” and “the slut.” Equally predictable is “Pastor Mike’s” (Graham Rowat) affair with Mary’s mother, “Lillian” (Felicia Finley). Saved shows what we learn almost weekly just by watching the news: militantly religious people are out of touch with the mainstream society to whom they feel superior, but they rarely make any better moral decisions than the so-called heathens they criticize. As a result, Saved yields no new insights into the societal questions that continue to plague us: why is it “wrong” to be sexually active and/or gay but right to viciously persecute people for being sexually active and/or gay?

Over the past few seasons with the popularity of “Glee”—a musical about high school—the bar is perhaps unfairly high for Saved. “Glee” arguably is the secular version of the original 2004 movie version of Saved! and, in fairness, content-wise “Glee” has it a lot easier since it only covers popular songs, whereas Saved must rise or fall on the strength or weakness of an original score. To that end, Saved’s uninspired thematic palette may have been redeemed if only it had been propelled by energetic and ground-breaking music—but this fell woefully short, as well. The songs lacked energy and creative spark. Composer and lyricist Michael Friedman’s overuse of operatic recitative quickly became clumsy and distracting. Lyric repetition was also omnipresent.  Additionally, Friedman’s multipart vocal writing resulted in barely-discernable passages that entangled themselves amid their own cacophony. It was nearly impossible to understand any of the dialogue contained within this structure. When compared to truly innovative writing like that found in Spring Awakening or last year’s stunning Rep debut of Venice, Saved barely deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph.

In fairness to the actors, none of the aforementioned criticism is their fault and, in fact, some strong vocal talent shined through despite the mediocre material. Both Justis Bolding and Laura Huizenga demonstrated solid chops, with acceptable deliveries from Felicia Finley and Patrick Andrews (Hilary Faye’s brother, “Roland”). David Hull’s “Dean” was rather weak (though he was probably one of the better actors), but Graham Rowat’s “Pastor Mike,” whose muddled and pitchy baritone was quite disappointing.

Saved is additionally disappointing when considered in the context of Director Gary Griffin’s “spotlight” interview contained in the program. When asked to describe “the process Saved has gone through since its premiere in New York” he responds that “much work [had been done] on the text over the last two and one-half years. It’s not the same show it was in New York, where it got great reviews, but mixed response.” It is hard to imagine how a re-worked (and, presumably, improved) version of Saved could result in the disappointing version delivered at The Rep. I should like to have had the benefit of comparing it to the New York premiere.

In the end, as much as I remain a huge fan of Eric Rosen and The Rep, and as much as they have proven themselves in the past, Saved is a surprising disappointment. The only thing I can, in good critical conscience, recommend be saved here…is the money you might spend on a ticket.

REVIEW:
Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Saved
Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman
Book and Lyrics by John Dempsey and Rinne Groff
Based on the MGM motion picture by Brian Dannelly and Michael Urban
Directed by Gary Griffin
Runs September 10–October 3 (reviewed Saturday – Matinee – September 25)
UMKC’s Spencer Theatre
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org

By Christopher Guerin

Traditional and New Classical music, and Theatre Contributor (Past writer)
Christopher Guerin holds degrees in Music Education, Music Business, and Music Theory & Composition, the latter from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) College of Music where he co-founded the college's Composers' Guild, and, in 1985, won the Artin Arslanian Composition Award. During college, he also obtained some musical theatre experience as a member of pit orchestras for Threepenny Opera and My Fair Lady. Since 1989, Christopher has been in the very non-artistic corporate sector, where his creative energies have been put to more mundane endeavors 

Christopher credits his musical motivations to his late father, who was concertmaster of the Springfield (MA) Community (pre-cursor to the city's current Symphony) Orchestra and performed popular music on radio in the 1930s. Christopher began his classical training in 1972 at age 10, began teaching at 16 (continuing to take private students throughout college), and traveled extensively with a youth orchestra - including to New Zealand in 1980. After college, and until 1989, Christopher focused on the business end of music as a successful sales manager for one of New England's largest music chains.

Over the past 20 years, Christopher's expertise has focused on medicine as a life risk underwriting officer for a large Midwest insurance group. His past duties included responsibility for risk underwriting in Pacific Rim markets where he traveled extensively to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Burma. Time permitting, he has continued to compose intermittently throughout this period. Christopher is married to Paula, a fellow musician he met during college, and together they have "composed" their magnum opera in three very creative children - an architecture student (go K-State!), an aspiring classical pianist, and a budding writer/journalist. He and his wife relocated from Massachusetts to the Kansas City area in 1997.