REVIEW: ‘Lysistrata Jones’ scores big

Bouncy new musical presents a sex jihad in a gym

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Good luck grabbing tickets this summer to the gleeful new musical “Lysistrata Jones,” a great big hit that opened Sunday in a 99-seat venue and seems destined for larger circumstances.

In the meantime, Transport Group Theatre Company’s typically site-specific production works perfectly well inside a gym at the Judson Memorial Church down on Washington Square.

Writer Douglas Carter Beane (“Xanadu”) and songwriter Lewis Flinn (“The Divine Sister”) have cleverly tuned up and transplanted Aristophanes’ 2,400 year-old sex comedy to a university campus today where the basketball team always loses.

That because the guys simply aren’t trying, discovers Lysistrata Jones, who dates the team captain Mick and inspires her fellow cheerleaders to boycott hooking up with the players until they buckle down and win. The boys resist the girls’ “sex jihad” but the way of all flesh eventually triumphs.

That’s all you need to know about the story, which Beane treats neatly and brightly, peppered with gags about sex-ting and bloggers and white boy gangstas. For all of its giddy ways, the musical’s emotional core proves to be surprisingly solid and viewers are likely to find themselves rooting for the kids as they tussle towards a happy ending. All those hot hormones notwithstanding, the humor is bawdy, not dirty.

Composed in contemporary pop styles ranging from Nickelodeon musicals to club music, Flinn’s lively songs often develop into extended sequences that advance the narrative and reflect the characters. If the power ballads are merely okay, the swift ensemble numbers cheerfully bounce along. Flinn’s craft is considerable but here his energetic music sounds disarmingly casual. A hot five-member band and sharp sound design by Tony Meola enhances the score.

Trimly directed and exuberantly choreographed by Dan Knechtges, the two-hour show flies by, peopled by a cutie-pie company led by Patti Murin’s perky Lysistrata and Josh Segarra’s hunky Mick. Liz Mikel wryly portrays an earthy goddess (and part-time bordello operator) with Aretha Franklin-like gusto.

Designer Allen Moyer’s scenic bits are fluent, Michael Gottlieb’s lighting sizzles and the production packs plenty of entertainment into that little space. Whether this out-of-the-way charmer translates later into a commercial run is academic; for now concentrate just on getting a date with “Lysistrata Jones.”

“Lysistrata Jones” continues through June 19 (with a probable extension) at Judson Memorial Church, 243 Thompson St. at Washington Square South, New York. Call (866) 811-4111 or visit www.transportgroup.org.