Picture shows Elise Byrne and Amelia Segler.
I rarely leap to my feet for standing ovations, but Twilight Theater Company’s opening night performance of The Mad Ones was an exception – I happily joined the large and enthusiastic audience in granting “Standing O” honors to this marvelous musical and dynamite cast. Playwright/composers Bree Lowdermilk and Kait Kerrigan have captured that magical moment in late adolescence when so many of us have chafed against parental, societal, and self-imposed bonds of conventionality, dreamed of, and then chased freedom. As I was going home from the theater, the lure of the unknown, exemplified by a destination-free road trip, lingered and I found a part of me wanting to just follow the 5 where it would take me. However, I wasn’t driving and my sensible chauffeur opted for the 5 to 217 to 10 to my house – just as well, as the dogs would have been very confused and no route, no matter how spontaneous, would have taken me back to my freedom-loving 1967 self.
The production’s antecedents are complex – while The Mad Ones debuted in late 2017, licensing for general production was not available until shortly before the pandemic hit, and live performances were shut down. Undaunted, the authors found a creative stopgap - as director Chris Byrne explains it, “Kerrigan and Lowdermilk responded by creating The Mad Ones Lab, a community-driven experience that allowed a select group of innovative creators to collaborate and experiment with what digital theater can become.” Byrne was selected as one of 21 directors in the collaboration, and she assembled a cast that created a video segment of part of the show. Finally in 2022 she has been able to bring the full production to the Twilight stage, including three of the four original cast members.
Largely through its 21 songs, The Mad Ones tells the story of Samantha Brown, a young woman on the verge of graduating from high school who is confronting a literal and figurative crossroads in her life. Sitting in a hand-me-down car, keys clutched in her hand, she wavers between her mother’s determination to send her off to Harvard and a Jack Kerouac-inspired longing to chuck it all and hit the road. She takes the audience back to a time when her best friend Kelly was pushing her to take her foot off the brakes and fly, and her steady, sweet, but a bit unimaginative boyfriend Adam offered love, security, but not much excitement. Sam’s world had fallen apart when Kelly was killed by an errant driver (there are a LOT of car themes), and for 90+ minutes we relive her sometimes joyous, sometimes painful journey.
Samantha’s mom Bev (played by Dorinda Toner) is a statistician who reels off numbers (some of them highly questionable, imho) at every turn. Toner gives the role a comically didactic edge that makes it clear we are viewing Bev through Samantha’s eyes – beginning with the droll“My Mom is a Statistician” (“Two to one, you'll hit a red light, Fifty to one, you hit a bear”) and continuing through a series of demanding vocals that blithely interweave singing and speaking. I especially related (as Sam, not Bev) to Toner’s marvelous delivery of “I Know My Girl” (no, Mom, you do not!).
Blaine Vincent III creates perhaps my favorite character with his nuanced portrayal of Adam – part horndog adolescent, part caring (and almost too good to be true) young adult who really sees Sam for who she is. When he sang “Run Away With Me” I was almost ready to start packing, and his beautifully played sincerity was an interesting contrast to Toner’s overt parody.
It’s tempting to view Kelly (Amelia Segler) as the star of the show – her wild enthusiasm is impossible to resist, her voice is spectacular, and she frequently carries the score with challenging vocals that she delivers with utter precision even when the ensemble arrangements verge on chaos. Segler’s blazing heat sets off the fire in Samantha – plus she’s hilarious as the guidance counselor who goes toe to toe with Bev in a battle over Sam’s future. However, the real star is, of course, Samantha (Elise Byrne) – it is her story, her life, her changes as seen through her lens. Byrne gives the role just the right mixture of intellectualism, reticence, grief, passion and intensity as she transforms herself into her version of a mad one, and it’s a pleasure to watch. Her vocals, like her acting, are engagingly relatable but not flashy – ultimately, she is the character I most wanted to be.
The minimalist set makes no attempt at realism, which is perfect for a story completely projected from the mind of one character (not to mention that it eliminate any awkward time wasted on scene changes). In lieu of elaborate set, Twilight has allowed lighting designers by Leslie Inmon, Jeremy Ollis, and Ward Ramsdell to go over the top. Carefully timed bursts of color interspersed with monochromatic moments provide as much support as the soundtrack, pulling the audience into some of the show’s most intense moments with amazing precision. Speaking of precision, kudos to vocal arranger Lindsey Lefler – her deft touch was essential in weaving the actors’ voices into a unit despite the complexity of the score.
The Mad Ones is one of those gems that may not be available on local stages for a long time, so I strongly urge everyone who has ever survived adolescence (or is secretly trying to survive it right now) to hasten themselves to North Portland for the show before it disappears.
The Mad Ones is playing at Twilight’s Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland, through September 18th with performances at 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday. There is an additional 8 pm performance on Thursday, September 15th.
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