Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez in First Date at the Longacre Theatre, New York. Picture: Joan Marcus
First Date opened at the Longacre Theatre, New York, and continues until 5 January.
The first new musical of the 2013-14 Broadway season is a slight diversion called First Date. The piece was originally produced in Seattle last year, and its assets include an agreeable pop/light rock score that’s more infectious than deafening, by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner, and some appealing performers. It has its engaging moments, but it’s a small-scale show that seems stretched beyond its limits in a valiant attempt to occupy some 90 intermission-less minutes on a Broadway stage.
The book by Austin Winsberg depicts a blind date at a New York restaurant between Aaron, a mild-mannered financial executive, and Casey, a hard-boiled gal with punk-like attitude. Aaron, we quickly learn, is a newcomer to the blind date scene, or a “BDV – blind date virgin,” as Casey labels him, while she describes herself as a “serial blind dater.”
We also learn, as their rocky conversation stumbles through the night, that Casey is addicted to disastrous romances with “bad boys” and Aaron was recently left standing at the altar when his fiancée bolted. And as the couple moves from cocktails to dinner, friends, past lovers and others crop up in their imaginations and take to the stage for various musical interludes. In the most dynamic bit, Aaron finally tells off his ex-fiancée – at least in his mind – in propulsive rock star style. There’s another spikey number that follows Casey’s revelation to the Jewish Aaron that she is not of his faith. Aaron’s ghostly grandmother and a chorus of folks who look like refugees from Fiddler On the Roof appear to warn Aaron that Casey is definitely not the girl for him. And with some quick costume changes, some of the group transform into high-church clerical garb to mix it up with the Fiddler folk.
Still, much of the show feels like filler, before this blind date reaches its predictable conclusion. For example, there’s a cupid-wannabe waiter who writes songs and sings one about how love is what should be ordered from the menu. And when Aaron further reveals that his career-obsessed mother died when he was a teenager, and she then materialises to sing a death bed letter she wrote to him, expressing her unspoken love, it has all the earmarks of a desperate attempt to add pathos to the jokey rom-com brew.
In the leads, Zachary Levi – who’s known for playing the title role in a TV series called Chuck and is making his Broadway debut – brings persuasive dimension and nice comic timing to the somewhat clueless but likeable Aaron. Krysta Rodriguez – who has Broadway credits and appeared on the second season of TV’s now-cancelled Smash – has a harder row to hoe as the ever-cynical Casey, but she manages eventually to give her a sympathetic persona.
A talented ensemble of four – Sara Chase, Kristoffer Cusick, Kate Loprest and Bryce Ryness – keep busy transforming from restaurant clientele to the various figures in the imaginations of Aaron and Casey, while Blake Hammond adds the requisite fey note as the singing waiter. Bill Berry’s direction keeps thing moving briskly, enlivened by the musical staging of Josh Rhodes. But all their work can’t disguise the fact that First Date is little more than an overly extended sketch.
Ron Cohen
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