Review: FLANNEL: A 90S MUSICAL at Shadowbox Live!

Nostalgia usually paints the 1990s as a simpler time. Shadowbox Live’s latest offer FLANNEL: A 90s MUSICAL argues something different: life was just as messy back then as it is now, only the soundtrack was better.

Through dynamic performances from the band, actors, and dancers, Shadowbox Live! captures a generation caught between ambition and apathy, one searching for happiness but settling for comfort.

Writer Jimmy Mak, who joined the theatre troupe in 1996, called FLANNEL his “most personal work.”

“This show feels like it is just me and my friends hanging out in 1996,” he said afterward. “I wanted to make it right before cell phones were everywhere, a time when you had to still talk to each other.

“(The 1990s) felt like a time when you could just disappear. You could move to New York and no one could find you.”

Produced and directed by Julie Klein, FLANNEL’s name is a nearly perfect title for a musical about the 1990s.

 Flannel shirts, the standard uniform of the grunge movement, are symbols of contradiction. It makes the wearer look tough, but it is as gentle and comfortable as a second skin. Its pattern is a series of lines running horizontally and perpendicularly. Yet those lines often cross paths with each other before returning to their chosen course.

The lives of Chance (Braeden Glenn), a photographer for Rolling Stone, and his former girlfriend Bridgit (Riley Mak) intersect when, years after ghosting her, Chance returns to Ohio to care for his dying father. Chance still pines for his ex, but she is now with Bernie (Andy Ankrom), Chance’s former Best Friend.

FLANNEL would appear to be a callback to the music of just Seattle staples Pearl Jam and Nirvana. This show goes far beyond that. Shadowbox Live!’s house band of guitarists Matthew Hahn and Jack Walbridge, drummer Brandon Smith, keyboardist Spencer Solberg, and bassist Buzz Crisafulli offer up a musical intersection of a diverse generation. Harder alternative artists like Stone Temple Pilots, Jane’s Addiction, and Smashing Pumpkins flow seamlessly with Nirvana.

However, the 90s had more than one style of music. This show incorporates more mainstream artists like Tom Petty, The Wallflowers, Annie Lennox, and even Ozzy Osbourne in a way that adds to the story rather than detracting from it. One of my favorites is a mashup of Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way?" (sung by Ankrom) and Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” (Riley Mak). Those two songs appear to go together like vinegar and peanut butter, yet the two vocalists make it work.

Riley Mak captures Bridgit’s anguish of an unresolved relationship with Chance and the fatigue of an unfulfilling romance with Bernie. As a singer, she takes on a wide range of material from EMF’s “Unbelievable” and Lennox’s “Walking on Broken Glass.” Glenn delivers a solid performance whether Chance is dealing with a complex relationship with his father or singing Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Ankrom always seems to shine playing flawed characters, and his performance as Bernie the lovable degenerate is no exception.

While the play centers around those three, the message would struggle without solid turns dramatically and vocally by Leah Haviland (Bridgit’s mom Meghan), Stacie Boord, Luke Marconi, and Noelle Anderson. Meghan Hohman spices up Jimmy Mak’s script with her comedic take on the often clueless Janene. When Chance says he is having a friend who is a paralegal look over his father’s will, Janene responds with “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Did it happen during the war?”

In her debut as a musical choreographer, Kristina Isabelle leaves a unique thumbprint on the production. Her vision offers an exciting addition to Shadowbox’s stellar dance corps.

Every show has flaws. Certain plot points – Chance’s accident derailing Bernie’s track career and the coin collection solving all the problems – seem a little too convenient.

What I liked best about FLANNEL could be construed as a flaw. The show lacks the tidy resolution of a sitcom finale. Yet that feels appropriate.

FLANNEL argues that for many in the 1990s, happiness was too hard to reach, so they settled for being comfortable and listening to dissident music.

Bernie offers the perfect summary of the show as well as the decade: “I don't care about being happy. I just want to be comfortable, you know, nice and comfortable like this flannel.”

Photo credit: Terry Gilliam

The production will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 4 at Shadowbox Live! (503 S. Front Street in downtown Columbus).

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