Georgie Lovatt and Lizzie Emery in Bare: A Pop Opera at The Vaults, London. Picture: Tom Grace
Bare: A Pop Opera continues at The Vaults, London until 4 August 2019.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
There are two lasting impressions one gets during the first ten minutes of this revival of Bare, a cult musical following two gay teenagers in a Catholic boarding school somewhere in America.
The first is that the stage – a thin raised platform along one of the Vault’s railway tunnel walls, with a thrust element forming an elongated ’T’ shape – guarantees poor sightlines for pretty much the entire audience. Principal characters have their backs to swathes of the crowd for whole segments, and even when they can be seen, the staging is such that elements of the ensemble elsewhere within the tunnel may draw the attention away from what should be the focal point of a scene.
The second is that, while Damon Intrabartolo’s music, performed by a five-piece band under musical director Alasdair Brown, is perfectly audible, much of Jon Hartmere’s lyrics are not. For a musical that’s largely sung through, that’s a big problem, especially when it comes to identifying the key players. While Daniel Mack Shand’s Peter is name checked early on, it is not until Act II that we really grasp the names of the other main characters; until then, they are identifiable only as Peter’s roommate and closeted boyfriend; Peter’s boyfriend’s sassy but insecure twin sister; Peter’s boyfriend’s sister’s sexually precocious roommate; and Peter’s boyfriend’s sister’s roommate’s wannabe boyfriend.
Part of the sound problems may be down to sound engineering and amplification balances in the Vaults’ notoriosuly tricky spaces, but there are also individual performances at fault, too. Certainly when Stacy Francis’ Sister Chantelle, a sassy nun who is doing her best to corral the students into giving a musical interpretation of Romeo & Juliet, her delivery cuts through with a clarity missing elsewhere.
And that is a shame, for there are performances within this musical that deserve to shine more. Darragh Cowley’s Jason – Peter’s boyfriend – is especially strong, even if his character (a jock who surprises everyone by getting the lead in the school musical, and who wants to keep his relationship secret even as Peter wants to come out) is one of Bare’s most hackneyed characters.
Similarly, Georgie Lovatt as his sister Nadia deserves a better showcase for this, her professional debut. Lovatt is afforded some of the book’s wittiest and most cutting barbs, which she delivers with gusto: how much better they would be if it were possible to hear all of them.
Matters clear up substantially in Act II, as the drama intensifies, and Intrabartolo and Hartmere forego Act I’s freneticism in favour of more introspective numbers, dominated by solos and duets that are easier in terms of audibility and actor performance.
But although this allows Lizzie Emery’s Ivy – Nadia’s roommate, and rival for Jason’s affections – a space to demonstrate her impressive belt, there’s often too much distraction elsewhere on stage still.
Elsewhere in Act II are two numbers that have the potential to resonate with the struggles of gay teens. ‘See Me’, as Peter attempts to come out over the phone to his mother (Jo Napthine) while she does everything she can to change the subject, is given a charged performance by Shand and Napthine. But it is Francis again who dominates, as her Sister Chantelle consoles Peter over his crisis between faith and sexuality with ‘God Don’t Make No Trash’. It’s a moving and uplifting number that defies the traditional portrayal of religion with respect to LGBT issues, just as Bare reinforces those same stereotypes elsewhere.
Indeed, just what message Bare is trying to say about LGBT youth appears confused and muddled. The story itself feels outdated; the world has moved on in many ways since the show debuted in 2000, and it feels like a musical that touches on the same topics two decades later needs a little more sophistication.
And the conclusion, where the school’s graduating students recite a list of American teens who committed suicide due to bullying because of their perceived sexuality, does not feel earned by the production preceding it.
Bare’s score, though, does in several places make up for this production’s deficiencies elsewhere. And while one cannot in any fairness describe director Julie Atherton’s translation of the musical to The Vaults as a success, there are still enough nuggets of interest within to reward those who see it.
Scott Matthewman
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