Review: Great Music Not Enough to Save BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE at Alexander Bar's Upstairs Theatre

Drugs are bad, yo. And sex? It'll ruin your life. These are just two of the life lessons to be learned in the gauchely naïve BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE, a new pop-rock musical currently on stage at the Alexander Bar Upstairs Theatre. Written and performed by Grant Jacobs and Liam McDermott, this run follows a debut season at the Kalk Bay Theatre earlier this month.

BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE opens with two students, Damon and Chase, on their way from George to university in Cape Town. Damon's father has reportedly bought his place at the institution; Chase has to work hard to support himself through his studies. Damon has unlimited funds to party his way through his studies, searching as he does so for some way to express his creativity. Chase has to balance a part-time job with his coursework, so that he can send money home to his mother. Damon is seduced by the traps of cocaine and inadequacy, Chase by his friend's lackadaisical view of life, although he is frustrated by it at first.

Any thoughts entertaining the idea that these two divergent personalities would make for a play filled with conflict, the life blood of narrative theatre, should be quickly dismissed. BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE pulls out every cliché from the college life handbook: "the college road trip", "the brilliant, but lazy student", "the scholarship student", "the drunken master", "the functional addict", "the falling out of best friends", "the pregnant girlfriend". Alone or in combination, these tropes form the basis of the predictable book of this small-scale musical, with no attempt at subverting the audience's expectations or even, quite frankly, a real sense of play.

Though the songs that dot the plot of BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE show promise, there is nothing that pushes these characters to break out into song. The mundane context of the narrative rarely allows for the emotions on stage to swell beyond the spoken word, with the dialogue itself consisting of little more than a series of punchlines about student life (shared toothbrushes and shaved pubic hair), descriptions of "hot chicks" at "rad parties", and infuriatingly basic moralising about drugs, pregnancy, abortion and personal responsibility.

There is also a bizarre disconnect between the generic manner in Jacobs and McDermott represent student life in this musical and the specific realities faced by South African students at this precise moment in time. Were BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE successful as an amusing entertainment, its lack of concern for the socio-political background against which it plays out, might slip by unnoticed. As it is, the show's irrelevance only adds insult to injury.

Performing their own material without the aid of any credited director, Jacobs and McDermott deliver performances are unevenly matched in both style and ability. Jacobs has a real sense of theatricality, managing to play over the weaknesses in the writing so that some sense of character emerges. The less experienced McDermott's performance is often too small in the book scenes, even for the tiny stage space at the Alexander Bar. He cuts loose when the narrative mode switches to song, but his lack of vocal technique makes one worried for the longevity of his voice. His obvious neck muscle tension and laryngeal strain are uncomfortable to watch at times.

The scenic design of BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE is an uneasy marriage of poor theatre techniques (multi-purpose set pieces and props) and computer-age technology (projections onto an upstage screen). Overall, the concrete objects better than the projected backdrops, which were developed in collaboration with Jacobs and McDermott by Mark Edwards. While the opening projection of traffic flying past the characters as they speed into a car accident works effectively, other projections like the clip art styled image used as a background for the apartment add very little to the proceedings.

The sound design, on the other hand, features some excellent production work from Jonathan Simons (once again, in collaboration with Jacobs and McDermott). Although the sound levels needed adjustment, with the recorded tracks overpowering the vocals onstage at times, the tracks themselves were excellently produced with a sense of nuance in translating the music into a recorded instrumental format.

If there is anything one can take away from BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE, it is the music, which shows an ability to marry storytelling with song. For the musical itself to transition into a meaningful theatrical presentation, a full-scale rewrite is required.

BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE runs at the Alexander Upstairs until 26 February. Tickets for the remainder of the run range in price from R80 - R90 and can be booked online at the Alexander Bar's website or at the bar, which is situated at 76 Strand Street in Cape Town's city centre, anytime during its regular opening hours. Under 18s must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Keep up to date with events at Alexander Bar on Facebook and Twitter.

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