Beanies off to scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer for the immersive look of the new rock musical The Lonely Few, which transforms the MCC Theater into a glorified dive bar complete with onstage bar and table seating, neon lighting, and even thrift-store sofas plopped in front of the second tier of seating. All that’s missing is the sticky flooring and smell of stale, cheap beer. Despite the basket of earplugs offered to patrons as they enter, most theatergoers are unlikely to be deafened by this show — which takes a rollicking, affectionate look at a small-town indie rock band and its shot at the big (or at least bigger) time when they’re tapped as the opening act for a more-famous musician’s tour.
Lauren Patten, a Tony winner for her angsty delivery of “You Oughta Know” in the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill, delivers some powerhouse vocals as Lila, the lead singer of the local-fave bar band The Lonely Few — and it’s easy to see why she catches the eye of the more established singer-songwriter Amy (Taylor Iman Jones). The two performers crackle with a genuine onstage chemistry that bleeds into their full-throated duets, which sometimes start as acoustic strummers before morphing into full-band rockers. It’s easy to see how the outwardly confident Amy is able to coax the more reserved Lila out of her shell and onto the road despite the fact that Lila’s leaving behind her alcoholic, emotionally fragile older brother (Peter Mark Kendall).
There’s a sense of opportunity both in their budding romance and in the prospect of this successful local band getting a crack at something bigger — even bassist and Lila’s longtime bestie Dylan (a winsome Damon Daunno) is willing to leave his pregnant wife behind to join the tour. And Amy is not exactly a superstar — after making her name as a songwriter and performing with a larger group, she’s a Black queer woman embarking on her first solo tour.
The Lonely Few boasts some rockin’ tunes by composer-lyricist Zoe Sarnak, though none seem really ready for a mainstream-label breakout. The lyrics can be pretty pedestrian, as with a song that Lila has been piecing together for months and that emerges with an anodyne chorus that repeats: “Nah, nah, nah life’s for the the living.” Other songs, like the opener “God of Nowhere” and the confessional “Waking Up Thirty,” have an on-the-nose quality that make them feel like placeholders for tunes that might convey the same character-driven ideas but with more nuance or poetry. Still, Patten has a lovely belt and she occasionally adds some vocal fry to give the score some indie-rock edge, while Jones boasts a lovely way of sustaining notes with just a hint of vibrato toward the end. (Both seem more grounded in musical-theater technique than arena-rock howls, the better to perform eight shows a week.)
The book, by Rachel Bonds, galumphs along with workmanlike, modern fairy-tale precision. She leans heavily on improbable coincidences — Paul (Thomas Silcott) is Lila’s drummer, the owner of the local dive bar, and also the ex-husband of Amy’s alcoholic mom — and erects neon-lit billboards to telegraph the major beats of her story. She even introduces a Chekhovian piano that sits unplayed in the corner of Paul’s bar (“You still not letting anyone touch your special piano?”) until, of course, Lila gets permission to play it just before the finale. (I guess Paul has kept it tuned despite all the dust that’s accumulated on the instrument.)
Co-directors Trip Cullman and Ellenore Scott make great use of that immersive set, shifting the players about the stage as it doubles as multiple concert venues as well as various apartments, hotel rooms, and even a grocery store where Lila and Dylan work shifts between gigs. (Credit Adam Honoré’s lighting for assisting in these transitions, as well as giving the numbers the look and feel of an actual concert.) There’s a bracing novelty at the heart of The Lonely Few — a lesbian love affair set to a foot-stomping beat — and Patten and Jones deliver on both the romance and the rebellious rock sound.
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