SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED Sticks Safely to its Source — Review

Off-Broadway

Taylor Trensch and Nkeki Obi-Melekwe | Photo: Julieta Cervantes

By
Juan A. Ramirez
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October 4, 2024 1:20 PM
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Reviews

For it to live successfully beyond this presentation, the musical adaptation of the 2012 film Safety Not Guaranteed, which opened last night as part of BAM’s Next Wave festival, must distance itself from its source material. A mumblecore dramedy starring Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass, about a young journalist investigating an unconventional newspaper ad, it has the proper ingredients for an equally idiosyncratic stage show: kooky characters, tender motivations, and a clear, linear plot. But its aggressive Millennial indie-ness is a major stumbling block on its way to becoming a musical worth rooting for. 

Ryan Miller, from the band Guster, has written an agreeable rock score that often reaches towards enthusiasm and comprises individually satisfying songs, but lacks a cohesive drive. This creates a problem made worse by Nick Blaemire’s book, which insists on replicating the film’s muted Sundance vibe. I’ve never seen the film, but I could practically hear some of these lines as they might have come out of Plaza and Duplass’ mouths. Not that the delightfully voiced Nkeki Obi-Melekwe, in Plaza’s writer role, or the magnetic Taylor Trensch, as Duplass’ zany inquirer, are in any way creating impersonations. But their originators' distinctive deadpan does not translate to the stage, and most jokes land not with charmingly awkward silences, but with dead air.

Lee Sunday Evans’ direction goes similarly inward in a way that reigns in nearly all of the production’s possible theatrical allure. When Pomme Koch, as the journalist’s boss, rounds out the stage while wrapping up his rousing rock number, the rest of the staging – including its overarching monotonous tone, and Krit Robinson’s too-bare scenic design – denies him any chance for lively applause. 

Pomme Koch and Taylor Trensch | Photo: Julieta Cervantes

The obvious north star from which the creative team could work backward is Trensch’s irrepressibly energetic performance, which breaks free from the drabness of the direction while retaining his character’s deep sadness. Trensch is almost unrecognizable as a crunchy Pacific Northwesterner attempting to build a time machine yet, as always, cuts an instantly appealing stage presence. His castmates, including Rohan Kamal, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, and John-Michael Lyles (whose physical comedy matches Trench’s adeptness), make the most of their less developed tracks.

There is a tweeness from the film’s era that the culture must simply discard, the way Urban Outfitters graphic tees featuring puns about bacon have evaporated from sight. It was fine then, it is cringe now. So it goes. Safety Not Guaranteed has the makings of a delightful, offbeat musical – including a bright beam from Trensch – but until it can find its 2024 theatrical legs, its adherence to the then-true is anything but safe.

Safety Not Guaranteed is in performance through October 20, 2024 at BAM’s Harvey Theatre on Fulton St in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

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Juan A. Ramirez

Juan A. Ramirez writes arts and culture reviews, features, and interviews for publications in New York and Boston, and will continue to do so until every last person is annoyed. Thanks to his MA in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University, he has suddenly found himself the expert on Queer Melodrama in Venezuelan Cinema, and is figuring out ways to apply that.

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Off-Broadway
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