Leslie Danko (Meg McLynn) has a problem, well, a number of them actually. She's pregnant, and the father could either be her hunky sort-of boyfriend Marcus (Brandon O'Neill) or her mother Chelsea's (Whitney James) creepy musician/junkie boyfriend David (John Farrage). Mom is so strung out on smack that she's pretty much abdicated all parental responsibility, leaving Leslie to fend for herself in the dark underbelly of L.A.'s grunge music scene. She's emotionally confused about her relationship with Marcus, disgusted with her mother's heroin addiction, and just wants to get the hell away from David. Oh, yes. She also has a limp, the result of a childhood accident that has left her with a permanent spinal injury. With all that going against her, what's a poor, young, knocked up teen to do? Why, drive 1,000 miles up the I-5 to Portland in order to see her favorite band, of course.
That pretty much describes the plot of "Diana Moves" a new rock musical having its world premiere at Consolidated Works, under the aegis of Exitheatre. Penned by Seattle-based composer Rob Knop and New York playwright Sheila Callaghan ("Kate Crackernuts", "The Hunger Waltz"), with music by Knop, Steve Hazai, Mark Volpe, Tim Castellani, and Jerrod Kaplan, "Diana Moves" is an ambitious contemporary book musical combining the styles of "grunge" rock and rap with a dark, urban sensibility focusing on the problems of today's youth. Given the production's nearly four years of development process (beginning at Seattle's On The Boards, with additional workshopping done at Seattle Repertory Theatre and Village Theatre), there's a certain polish to the final product, but at the same time it shows obvious flaws, not the least of which being that its promising premise has been over processed into a dramatically bland concoction. The result is that "Diana Moves" feels like it wants to be "Tommy", but comes across more as an updated version of a 1950's teen exploitation flick.
Told through a series of flashbacks, "Diana Moves" suffers primarily from lack of a compelling storyline. Knop and Callaghan pad out the dramatically thin first half with a series of vignettes (Leslie teased by a group of punk wannabes, several domestic episodes highlighting her mother's drug addiction), all of which are intended to drill home the point that she's got things pretty rough. Instead of dramatic action, however, what we get are lots of arguments -- Leslie argues with just about everyone she meets ñ but this is all ersatz drama, distracting us from the central story of her growing romance with the sensitive outcast Marcus. It's not until well into Act II, when Leslie discovers she's pregnant, that the script begins to deliver any sense of a dramatic arc. But it comes so late in the proceedings that when events reach their predictable conclusion there's little in the way of emotional release, as the audience has been several steps ahead of the story for most of its 2-hour plus length. Nevertheless, director Michael Lindgren generally maintains a brisk physical pace, keeping scene shifts down to a minimum and making good use of the wide ConWorks stage to place action, but even this isn't enough to relieve the sense that the story is just treading water for most of its ponderous first act.
Knop and his fellow musicians have crafted dark, crunchy guitar driven numbers in the vein of early '90's "grunge" bands such as Soundgarden, Nirvana and Mudhoney, but in general the songs tend toward a stylistic sameness that renders them nearly indistinguishable from each other. With the exception of the somewhat rousing "Loud Enuf", and the emotionally charged "You Are Gone To Me", the rest are almost instantly forgettable, despite the efforts of singers quite capable of wrapping their voices around the close harmonies and screeching lyrics. To their credit, they invest energy and intensity into the show's 21 numbers, although occasionally they feel under miked in the cavernous space.
In addition to their obvious musical talents, the cast also manages for the most part to overcome the inherent deficiencies of the script, rounding out sketchily drawn characters with a gritty sense of realism. As the troubled teens, McLynn and O'Neill develop a natural progression through the ups-and-downs of their burgeoning relationship, delivering performances that ground the play with a much-needed emotional center. As Chelsea, Leslie's self-destructive mother, James manages to breath life into her role as a stereotyped "aspiring rockstar junkie mom", giving her character a sense of tragic poignancy that she might not otherwise deserve. Seattle Fringe veteran Farrage seems physically miscast as a chronic heroin addict, but deftly handles David's smarmy, opportunistic personality. Derrick Atkinson also does nice work as the play's omniscient narrator (reminiscent of Cleavon Little's seer-like radio DJ from the 1971 cult film classic "Vanishing Point"), but the device is never used to its full potential, and ultimately the character proves almost completely extraneous to the action.
L.B. Morse gets kudos for a simple, yet effectively rendered scenic design consisting of platforms, lighting racks, and three rear projection screens upon which video montages of Leslie's drive, scene backgrounds, and several vividly realized animations by Jordan Christiansen are projected. Lighting by Ben Zamora helps to establish location on the sparsely furnished stage, while also supplying the requisite "rock-and-roll" effects for musical numbers and the climactic concert scene. Heidi Ganser's costumes give a nice sense of bohemian dishabille, although given the specific place and time period, one would have hoped for something a bit less generic-looking.
But, then again there's a sort of generic quality that runs throughout "Diana Moves", from its time-worn themes of teen angst and alienation, to its use of predictably stereotyped characterizations and emblandished alternative rock musical stylings. There's obviously a lot of heart and soul underlying this effort, and given more sharply honed focus, there may still be the seeds of a more articulate work hidden amidst the chaff. But, it's going to require further refinement and inspiration to give this show the kind of legs to which its creators aspire.