For Scott Sinclair's production, the Calderwood's Deane Hall has been configured as a combination cabaret and theater, with the show set up like an intimate concert, its three casually costumed performers deployed on a small stage with headsets and their instruments. Lighting is flashy; visual effects are of the computer-generated variety. The plot centers on Grumpy Guy (keyboardist and musical director José Delgado), who decides to bag New Year's Eve despite the admonitions of a party-throwing friend (drummer Zachary Hardy) and stay home "in my stocking feet with an ice-cold beer." There he is visited by a salesperson of full-spectrum holiday lights intended to combat seasonal affective disorder (electric-violinist Erikka Walsh). This brings to mind Hans Christian Andersen's bleak fairy tale "The Little Match Girl," which Grumpy Guy just happens to have at hand. Enraged by his re-reading of the story, in which prosperous celebrants hustle toward their warm hearths while its heroine goes to her cold reward, he vows to turn over a new leaf.
GrooveLily's Valerie Vigoda and Brendan Milburn collaborated on Striking 12 with Rachel Sheinkin, who won a Tony for the book of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. So you can expect some cleverness, especially on "Screwed Up People," a funky ditty explaining that Andersen was not the best-adjusted human being in 19th-century Denmark. Less anticipated but welcome is a Gilbert-and-Sullivan-worthy recitative by the lightbulb saleswoman in support of her product. And the electric violin gives the score a Celtic-tinged, otherworldly feel that sometimes lifts it out of the generic. But the material is so slight that the performers have to push it. Despite their efforts and the presence of all those matches, Striking 12 does not catch fire.
Related:
Of myth and men, Endgame at the ART, Tough neighborhoods, More 
- Of myth and men
There is more pageantry than either Stalinism or Stoker in The Communist Dracula Pageant , Anne Washburn’s ambitious jumble of a Romanian-history play now in its world premiere from the American Repertory Theatre.
- Endgame at the ART
"They give mirth astride of a grave," Beckett might just as well have written of Mankind. He did opine, in Endgame , that "nothing is funnier than unhappiness."
- Tough neighborhoods
From Helen of Troy to Barbie of the plastic hourglass, men and girls have been inspired by impossible ideals of female physical perfection. Helen, of course, will always have Paris, whereas Mattel's muse gets stuck with Trojan Barbie.
- Bard in the USA
"You know," Paulus observes, "we are the American Repertory Theatre, and we haven't spent a lot of time in the repertoire on American drama."
- Cracking the wise
I don’t know that David Mamet’s is a fine Romance , and it certainly doesn’t conjure love at first scene.
- Looking back, going forward
Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire.
- After Eden
One of the heroines of Stick Fly , a post-doctoral student of etymology, likes to smear honey on the table and then scrutinize the flies that get stuck in it.
- Symphony 8 Restaurant & Bar
Everyone wants to have a gastro-pub with comfort food, but you have to be able to cook a little bit to sustain one. It also helps to draw a clean draught beer, maintain a quality wine list, and sweep the floor.
- Zero at the bone
A bleak expressionist fable centered on a murderous bookkeeper symbolically named Zero. Even when you throw in sexual repression, religious zealotry, a trip to Heaven, and enough dissonance to sate Stephen Sondheim, that doesn’t sound like the stuff of song and dance.
- Soundsessioning; plus, Lighting Bolt and Allysen Callery
Last call for a good one going down at AS220 (401.831.9327) on THURSDAY (the 22nd) with makeupbreakup headlining (debuting new stuff from the forthcoming Scents LP) with THE BROTHER KITE , THE PRESS , and CELLAR DOVES ($6).
- Get me remix
The Brothers Grimm generally managed to live up to their name.
- Less
Topics:
Theater
, American Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, calderwood pavilion, More
, American Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, calderwood pavilion, SpeakEasy, Striking 12, The Blue Flower, Less
