By Erin Hicks
It would seem this year is the year of the musical. With “In The Heights”, “Alter Boyz”, and “Sweeny Todd” getting major accolades, the gaping hole Rent is soon to leave once it takes off from the theater circuit in June surly won’t have any problems being filled with new musicals trying to establish themselves as not lame.
That said, “Glory Days” isn’t one of them. Written by 20 something’s, Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner and directed by Eric Schaeffer, artistic director of the Signature Theater, the show not only disproved the conceit that musicals might be the new play, but actually made us never want to watch a show, of any kind, ever again.
The over done and predictable tale is that of four best friends who get together a year after high school graduation to talk about college, road trips and (not) scoring with women. Their jargon is hip to the point of hyperbole—though Blaemire and Gardiner began writing the play when they themselves were in high school, not many real teenagers we know actually use phrases like ”what up skillet?” and “tots.”
The characters were barley entertaining and completely predictable. Based off typical high school stereo types—you had the jock, the Michael Cerra-esque narrator, the quiet yet snarky voice of reason, and the recently gay. That’s right, the play is billed as a “coming of age tale” and that means, predictably, one of the main characters was coming to terms with his sexuality, much to the shock (and in some cases horror) of his closest friends.
In a recent interview, Blaemire said he wanted to talk about “a generation of overindulged, privileged young people.” He also wanted to capture the self-centeredness of “generation apathy,” as he calls today’s youth, which he is a part of.
But instead of capturing the era, the play seemed to make fun of it. But not in the irreverent way you’d expect from two play wrights coming to age in Generation Apathy. Rather in a more unintended way by taking itself way too seriously. All we could do was laugh.
