Scotland, PA – Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, New York

Taylor Iman Jones and Ryan McCartan in Roundabout Theater Company’s Scotland, PA. Picture: Nine Goodheart

Scotland, PA continues at Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, New York until 8 December 2019.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

McDonald’s (that’s the omnipresent hamburger dispenser) and Macbeth (that’s the bloody Shakespeare tragedy) make for an uneasy mashup in the new Off-Broadway musical Scotland, PA.

The show is based on the 2001 movie of the same title, written and directed by Billy Morrissette. The film was little-seen but it captured the young heart of playwright Michael Mitnick. As he told a talkback following the performance reviewed, he thought it would make a “fantastic musical”, a feeling he transmitted to collaborator lyricist-composer Adam Gwon. They were able to develop the show working together under a commission from the prestigious Roundabout Theater Company, one of New York’s major non-profit theatre producers.

What they have wrought is a workmanlike if not very captivating frivolity turning Shakespeare’s hero into an easygoing guy (at least at the start) named Mac (a likeable Ryan McCartan). Mac has toiled for 10 years at Duncan’s hamburger joint, a rundown eatery in the fictional worn-out working-class town of the title.

The time is 1975, and apparently McDonald’s hasn’t yet come near the town, as Mac keeps coming up with a lot of McDonald’s type suggestions to make Duncan’s better, such as chicken nuggets. Proprietor Duncan (Jeb Brown) derides and misstates them as “chicken balls”. (That’s one of the sharper exchanges in the fairly wan series of laugh lines.)

Good-natured Mac takes Duncan’s sour temper and lack of appreciation in his stride. But eventually, egged on by his complaining wife and co-worker Pat (Taylor Iman Jones), and a relentless trio of town stoners (Alysha Umphress, Wonu Ogunfowora and Kaleb Wells), who tell Mac they are the voices in his head, his ambition is fired up.

Mac and Pat decide to stage a nighttime robbery at the place, take the money and skedaddle out of town. But things go wrong, In the midst of the robbery, Duncan stumbles into the restaurant’s frying machine, and fries his face.

Pretty gruesome, huh? But don’t worry, it’s played for laughs, heightening the show’s uneven tone meandering from formulaic sitcom to an attempted pitch late in the proceedings into darkness.

At any rate, Mac and Pat wind up using their proceeds to buy Duncan’s. They transform the place into a sleek fast-food emporium, with its McBeth name looking a lot like McDonald’s signage. Anna Louizos’ set design switch, along with Tracy Christensen’s costumes here provide one of the show’s most satisfying moments.

Complete with a new-fangled drive-up order window, it’s the pride of the town and the future looks bright, until homicide detective Peg McDuff (Megan Lawrence) shows up, convinced something’s not right. She’s also a vegetarian.

With McDuff on the case, Mac is compelled to murder his chum and sweet co-worker Banko ((Jay Armstrong Johnson) and fakes a suicide note in which Banko claims responsibility for Duncan’s murder.

But with their consciences nagging at them and McDuff still pursuing, things go further downhill for Mac and Pat. If you know your Macbeth, you might guess what happens, sort of. And the Stoners keep singing about ‘Destiny’.

Nevertheless, the show has an upbeat ending with the company singing ‘Everybody’s hungry’, including McDuff who has eaten her first hamburger and loved it.

By this time, you’ve sat through a lot of not terribly funny jokes, mangled parallels with The Bard (and McDonald’s), and a panoply of Gwon’s bubblegum tunes (reflecting the show’s time period) with the occasional attempt to deliver something a little richer.

One of the more notable numbers is the soulful ballad sung by Malcolm (Will Meyers), who is Duncan’s rebellious teenage son who wants no part of the restaurant business. He only loves football, even though he never leaves the bench. In the number aptly titled ‘Why I Love Football’, Gwon finally relaxes tempo, the accompaniment by the five-person band takes on a soothing gentleness, and Malcolm explains why: It has a lot to do with his teammate Russell.

Still, with all of the show’s spottiness, the enthusiasm of the entire 11-person cast is lofty and palpable, and Lonny Price’s direction, filled out with Josh Rhodes’s choreography, manages to keep things moving along without too much sense of plodding.

What the show is missing is the secret sauce that might have somehow made it delicious.

Ron Cohen