Mouth Bone Theatre’s revival of Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere’s Bare: A Pop Opera works better as a talent showcase for its cast of young musical theater performers than it does as a professional production of a show that’s beginning to show its age.

It’s been twenty-five years since Bare first impacted Los Angeles theatergoers with its tragic take on two Catholic High School boys in love, subject matter that now seems a tad dated in a musical that has since its debut been overshadowed by a similarly themed but far better show called Spring Awakening.

Much of Bare takes place during rehearsals for the St. Cecilia High production of Romeo And Juliet starring shy boy Peter (Donnie Riddle) as Mercutio, popular jock (and Peter’s deeply closeted secret lover) Jason (Shon Gale) as Romeo, and school bad girl Ivy (Jaya Mapleton) as Juliet.

That Ivy has feelings for Jason paralleling Juliet’s for Romeo makes for quite a love triangle, particularly when Jason feels tempted to dip his toes into heterosexual waters with his lovestruck onstage love interest.

 Further complicating this already highly combustible mix is the unrequited love that classmate Matt (Jack Morris) feels for Ivy, and the bitter resentment that Jason’s overweight sister Nadia (Stella Mulroney) harbors for the slimmer, more popular Ivy.

Completing the principal cast are Peter’s mother Claire (Alyssa Weir), who doesn’t want to be told a truth she’s probably already figured out on her own, a priest (Boony Reingold) who uses Catholic doctrine to condemn, and a sassy black nun named Sister Chantelle (Garielle Farley), who already has enough on her plate directing Romeo And Juliet to worry about anything else.

With so much going against them, it seems highly unlikely that boy and boy can fare any better than boy and girl did in the hostile world that surrounded Romeo and Juliet.

The very best reason to check out the Mouth Bone Theatre revival now playing at the Eastwood are its five leading players, performing under Jude Rossotto’s and Mulroney’s co-direction.

Riddle’s Peter is as electrifying as he is deeply moving, and the chemistry he shares with lanky hunk Gale’s outwardly confident, inwardly conflicted Jason is palpable.

Not only that, but both romantic leads have the requisite power pipes to sell Intrabartolo’s and Hartmere’s songs, and the same can be said about Mapleton (a sexy but sensitive Ivy), Mulroney (a Nadia whose sarcasm hides deep insecurities), and Morris (chiseled good looks and more as the jealousy-tormented Matt), all five of whose voices bring down the house in the Act One-closing “One.”

 Terrific too are ensemble members Kylie Buckles-Hall (Tanya), Riayn Christina (Tanya), Max Nzone (Zack), Olivia Lopes (Rory), Wayne Remington (Alan), Leo Tamez (a raptastic Lucas), and Shantilly Tuazon (Kyra) as assorted students and ravers, and Reingold does well in his brief scenes as Priest.

Less successful are the musical’s two main adult characters, roles that call for not only talent but life experience as well.

Farley gives Sister Chantelle plenty of sass and powerhouse vocals and Weir brings down the house with Claire’s scorching “Warning,” but only in a school production should these roles be cast with performers no older than the students, which is why Chantelle’s and especially Claire’s big moments lack the authenticity you’d expect in a professional Bare.

There’s not much for choreographer Eva Schroeder to do other than the show’s “Wonderland” rave sequence, a revival meeting-esque “Wedding Bells,” and some Dreamgirls-ready moves for “911! Emergency,” and though these are all fine, the “dancing” at Romeo and Juliet’s ball had me scratching my head. (Were these high school Shakespeareans supposed to look foolish?)

Weir’s music direction is spot-on (the cast vocalizes to prerecorded tracks with Kensington Watts acing his assignment as sound designer and mixer) and Celinia Surniak’s fight choreography is dynamically executed.

Local pro Hayden Kirschbaum’s dramatic lighting is by far the production’s most effective design element. Rossotto’s costumes are just fine in scenes featuring students in uniform but far less so for Romeo and Juliet’s Opening Night. (Were the student actors intentionally dressed in what seem to be their own street clothes?)

In addition, the Eastwood’s cavernous stage is the last thing a show as intimate as Bare needs, and since Rossotto and Tamez’s set design consists almost entirely of a widescreen upstage backdrop, this leaves a whole lot of unused playing area in a show that cries out for an almost claustrophobic intimacy

Not only that, but a whole lot of time gets wasted moving furniture on and offstage when simply leaving the two beds on opposite sides of the stage and lighting them only when in use would easily trim the show’s hefty running time. (The same is true for benches that could easily stay put even in a number of scenes in which they aren’t needed.)

Jordi Kligman is assistant director. Georgia Caines is assistant music director. Mercedes Stafford is stage manager.

All of the above adds up to a production that diehard Bare fans might want to take a chance on providing they temper their expectations. I give Mouth Bone Theatre an A for effort, but it’s probably only friends and family who will give this Bare a wow.

Mouth Bone Theatre, Eastwood Performing Arts Center, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Hollywood. Through April 26. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 8:00. Also Thursday April 17 at 8:00
www.mouthbone.com

–Steven Stanley
April 13, 2025
Photos: Iah Bearden-Vrai

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Damon Intrabartolo, Jon Hartmere, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mouth Bone Theatre, the Eastwood