Review: BARE: A POP OPERA at Musical Theatre Southwest

Bare: A Pop Opera made its debut in Albuquerque this past weekend. The completely sung musical features music by Damon Intrabartolo and lyrics by Jon Hartmere. The duo wrote the book together as well. The plot focuses on high school students in a Catholic boarding school navigating coming of age, sexuality and religion – and the conflict these things inevitably bring.

The action revolves around roommates Peter (a very sweet and understated performance by Noah Smith) and Jason (Lennon Vossen, who handles the complexity of Jason with strong vocals and acting chops), who are in a romantic relationship, which is, of course, forbidden at their Catholic school. Peter wants to make their relationship public, while Jason pleads that he keep their feelings private, creating conflict from the beginning. Peter is eager to live out loud, while Jason is more afraid of the consequences both at school and with his conservative parents. Peter encourages Jason to join him at auditions for the school production of Romeo & Juliet, where Jason is cast as the lead, much to the chagrin of Matt (a strong Nick Goodwin), who not only thought he was a shoe-in for the role, but is in love with the girl cast as Juliet, Ivy (Lauren Jehle,who plays Ivy’s insecurity wonderfully). Jason’s twin sister Nadia (Kyra Sprague, who provides the backbone of this show) is cast as the Nurse, proving to herself once more that the big girl never gets the lead.

Matt is determined to have Ivy notice him, so he tries to throw her a surprise birthday party, which devolves into many students going to a rave in the woods, where Matt sees Peter and Jason kiss, a secret he tucks away for later. At Ivy’s birthday celebration, she gets drunk and kisses Jason, who decides to go along with her to save face, breaking Peter’s heart. Peter confesses his love of Jason to Matt.

Enough emotional entanglements for you so far? The teens in the show all seem to have a liberal dose of Catholic guilt to color their teenage escapades, which are demonstrated in several dream sequences featuring Sister Chantelle (an excellent Tasha Booth) as Diana Ross with her backup Supremes (strong vocals from Kristin Mackey and Jessica Ubiera), and another with Peter and Jason getting married, only to be thwarted by Ivy.

Let’s leave the rest of the soap opera for you to see for yourself. Remember, they are putting on a Shakespearian play within the play, a tragedy, so just know that not all’s well that ends well.

Bare is definitely a show of highs and lows, with some standout musical numbers and moments, but the entire show feels dated; maybe this is a good testament to our society becoming more accepting of same-sex relationships, but many of the moments fall flat, either due to a lack of emotion within the lyrics or the datedness of the piece. There’s only so much an ensemble can do with the material they are given to perform, and this ensemble took the content as far as they could.

That said, the performances onstage are all quite strong – standout moments from Peter, Jason, Sister Chantelle and Nadia, along with a mostly cohesive ensemble make this a compelling watch.

On the technical side, there were some problems with sound balance during our performance, making some of the lyrics hard to hear. The set design was a bit clunky – there could have been a better use of space overall. The problem with trying to make this venue a proscenium stage is that it flattens out the action, and it makes it difficult to light – many singers were singing in darkness or dim light when they needed a spot on them.

The live orchestra was exceptionally good, under the music direction of Aaron Howe. It’s refreshing that MTS uses live musicians instead of tracks, which is becoming more dominant in local musical theater.