Only A Lad: 08/24/2006

For the most part, “jukebox” musicals don’t work. To take a catalogue of songs by an artist or musical group and try to force them into a plot may be a fun exercise but in practice the end result is usually a stupid mess. I love the music of Oingo Boingo, which is the reason I wanted to give Only A Lad a chance, but it only re-enforced my belief that these products will mostly fail artistically, even if they sometimes succeed commercially. Some songs managed to work in the premise (“On the Outside” and “Private Life”) but most seemed a forced fit. Barrett Hall (pictured right) in the lead role of Johnny is a confident, polished performer who we will certainly see in the future. Only A Lad did have some fun 80’s style choreography towards the beginning and the costumes of the leads were appropriately period, otherwise there is little else good to say about the show.

Fringe Rating: 4 (out of 10)

For Info: http://www.onlyaladthemusical.com/ or http://www.fringenyc.org/