Tony-winning sensation Lauren Patten returns to SoCal theater as a queer musician trapped in smalltown Kentucky in The Lonely Few, a Geffen Playhouse World Premiere that shifts somewhat jarringly halfway through from a dramatic play interspersed with live rock club performances into a more traditional musical in which songs take the place of dialog.

Patten stars as aspiring singer-songwriter Lila, trapped in a go-nowhere life and saddled with an alcoholic out-of-work older brother whom she supports with what little she makes scanning groceries at the local Save-A-Lot, a dreary day-to-day brightened only after dark when she performs at a local nightspot alongside “The Lonely Few” bandmates Dylan (Damon Daunno), JJ (Helen J Shen), and Paul (Thomas Silcott).

Then comes the night that Paul’s former stepdaughter Amy (Ciara Renée) shows up at the club and Lila’s life will never be the same again.

Though Amy’s been successful enough as a backup singer to be recognized at first sight by Lila and her bandmates, being an out-and-proud queer Black Southerner hasn’t made it easy for her to make her mark as a solo artist in the music biz.

She’s doing her best to do break through the glass ceiling, however, and once she’s heard Lila sing, she is quick to invite The Lonely Few to join her on the last leg of her ongoing tour of “a bunch of hole-in-the-wall places,” an offer that’s too good to refuse, especially when Lila learns that the final stop will be in Nashville.

Not that the decision to leave behind her troubled, jobless, often intoxicated brother is an easy one, but with an offer like this (and the chance to be near a woman she’s clearly attracted to), Lila heads off on the road with scarcely a look in the rearview mirror.

Perhaps not surprisingly, consequences ensue.

Book writer Rachel Bonds and composer-lyricist Zoe Sarnak are well aware that what they’ve written is a theatrical hybrid, commenting in a writers’ note that their songs exist “in two realms,” those “performed in real time, in the world of The Lonely Few’s or Amy’s gigs” and those that “live in a more psychological realm, like those in a traditional book musical.”

The problem, for this reviewer at least, is that it’s not until after intermission that Lila, Amy, Dylan, JJ, Paul, and Adam suddenly realize they’re characters in a musical, and for The Lonely Few to work as a cohesive whole, it’s something they ought to have figured out earlier on.

Fortunately, the story Bonds and Sarnak have to tell is a compelling one, dealing as it does with first love, family strife, broken hearts, addiction, and the struggles faced by LGBT artists, especially in the Deep South.

Not only that, but they’ve written a great big bunch of country-meets-blues-meet-rock songs that demand a second listen.

Under Trip Cullman and Ellenore Scott’s astute direction, Patten (who first journeyed west from Chicago to make an unforgettable Southern California debut as the Rubicon Theatre’s Anne Frank when she was barely into her teens) burns up the stage with raw emotion matched by the powerhouse vocals that helped win her a Best Featured Actress Tony for Jagged Little Pill.

Broadway’s Renée is a stunning force of nature as well, Daunno makes for an ever so appealing Dylan, Shen is a delight as the starstruck JJ, Silcott brings wisdom and gravitas to Paul, and Close is a heartbreakingly lost Adam, not to mention that “The Lonely Few” play their own instruments under Myrna Conn’s expert music direction. (Conn also heads the show’s four-piece, mostly backstage band.)

Scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer has transformed the intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater into a minutely detailed Kentucky night spot, well-stocked bar and all, with a number of audience members seated Cabaret-style at stage-side tables or at the bar.

Adam Honoré’s flashy lighting is particularly dazzling, Samantha C. Jones’s costumes suit each character to a T, and sound designer Nick Kourtides ups the volume to appropriately rock venue decibels. (Earplugs are distributed upon entering the theater for patrons unaccustomed to nights at the Viper Room or the Roxy.)

Melissa Coleman-Reed is assistant director. Casting is by Beth Lipari, CSA and Phyllis Schuringa, CSA. Nyla Sostre takes over the role of Amy after April 9.

Clarice Ordaz is choreography assistant. Bryan Perri is music supervisor, with orchestrations by Perri and Sarnak. Alexandra Kalinowski is music assistant. Tré Cotton is dialect and voice coach. Phaedra Michelle Scott is dramaturg. Sasha Nicolle Smith is intimacy director.

Talia Krispel is production stage manager and Lauren Buangan and Julian Olive are assistant stage managers.

A decided change of pace for the Geffen, The Lonely Few combines an absorbing storyline and a catchy rock score, not to mention a fabulous cast. What’s needed now is for its writers to integrate its two distinct halves into a more cohesive whole.

Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood.
www.geffenplayhouse.com

–Steven Stanley
March 17, 2023
Photos: Jeff Lorch

Tags: Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles Theater Review, Rachel Bonds, Zoe Sarnak