The program for Milo Cramer’s new musical revue No Singing in the Navy includes a witty and well-researched note from the playwright suggesting that sailors are “*the* True Subject of the American Musical.” On the Town, Dames at Sea, Anything Goes, even Operation Mincemeat revolve around nautical tropes that Cramer is all too happy to explore in original songs that list between homage, pastiche, and send-up like an inflatable ball careening on a ship’s deck during a heavy storm.
This is a show by and for a certain type of millennial theater nerd, one who’s pored over old musicals and movies but has the offbeat sensibility of DIY comedic artists like Julio Torres. We meet three sailors, with white caps and blue bows, who are about to embark on a 24-hour shore leave before heading off to war. Though we never learn their names, they fall into familiar types. Elliot Sagay, who towers over his castmates by at least a head, is a strapping farm boy who aspires to write a novel one day; Bailey Lee, blessed with a velvety voice that retains its clarity in upper registers, is the sweet ingenue who meets an untimely end; and Ellen Nikbakht, with the spiky energy of a curly-haired Sarah Sherman from SNL, is the would-be lothario who cycles through women while pining for a lost love in a lighthouse back home.
Cramer hits familiar beats from the sailors-in-the-city playbook, including a gruff, pipe-smoking captain (played by Nikbakht) who secretly lusts after his young crew, and a trip to a casino where the shipmates squander all their cash. But they also toss in absurdist elements like a love duet for two ants and a crab (Lee) who escapes from a barrel and then encourages the sailors, like Maria in The Sound of Music, to embrace their love of singing.
No Singing in the Navy brings to mind the sort of revue where mid-20th century composers cut their teeth, like the Kennedy family show that Stephen Sondheim resurfaces toward the end of Merrily We Roll Along (easily one of the weakest numbers in the show, so much so that you wonder how Frank and Charley managed to secure a producer off of it). There’s plenty of talent on display here, and an appealing let’s-put-on-a-show quality that’s straight out of Babes in Arms: a cast of three, performing with an onstage pianist (musical director Kyle Adam Blair), who seamlessly change in and out of Enver Chakartash’s stylized costumes and hurl their bodies and voices into a lot of exaggerated silliness. Aysan Celik’s direction takes its inspiration from old vaudeville, TV variety shows, and even Tex Avery cartoons.
Still, it’s hard to sustain this much twee over an entire show, even one that runs under 90 minutes. Cramer’s score includes some absolute gems, the best of which have next to nothing to do with his sailor theme, like Sagay’s wryly delivered solo “Where Does Self Worth Come From?” But there’s also a good deal of filler — and attempts to raise the emotional stakes with episodes involving death and dementia that don’t really register given how sketchily the characters and situations have been drawn. There were several walkouts at my performance, but also patrons (interestingly, all under 30) who were completely absorbed and tearing up as the show took an elegiac turn toward the end.
Like any night out with theater kids, No Singing in the Navy includes moments of enchantment as well as indulgent rough patches. The final number is a powerful solo that lands with particular relevance as the U.S. prepares to send troops to another foreign war — even if the emotional impact seems blunted by all the zany antics that precede it. “If we go to war / And we get blown to bits / Or god forbid / We blow others to bits,” Sagay sings with wistful simplicity, before returning to a spare chorus that at first seems like a non sequitur. “I love you a lot / I love you a lot a lot” he offers, an apology as much as a declaration. “It’s all that I got / I love you a lot.”
It’s a moment that captures a universal truth about young people going off to war, whether in classic musicals or in real life. In uncertain times, Cramer suggests, all that we’ve got is our love and our passions. ★★★☆☆
NO SINGING IN THE NAVY
Playwrights Horizons, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through April 19 for $54 to $94