The Lonely Few review: Ciara Renée and Lauren Patten lead a modern musical merged with a rock concert

Art is ever evolving, and musical theater is no exception. With roots in operetta and vaudeville, it then became the domain of popular music, before both expanding and shrinking with the eras of rock musicals and mega-blockbusters.

In recent years, the musical has been searching for a new identity, a blend of all these things, or perhaps a self-aware nostalgia for those various eras' peaks. The Lonely Few, now making its world premiere at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse, offers glimmers of what the future of musical theater might hold.

With a book by Rachel Bonds and score by Zoe Sarnak, it's a rock concert with a musical theater heart. It follows Lila (Tony winner Lauren Patten), a queer aspiring singer-songwriter who feels trapped in her Kentucky hometown caring for her alcoholic older brother, Adam (Joshua Close). When successful artist Amy (Ciara Renée) strolls into Lila's local bar, it sends the two of them careening into a sudden romance — and offers Lila and her bandmates, best friend Dylan (Damon Daunno), new high school grad JJ (Helen J Shen), and bar owner Paul (Thomas Silcott), a chance they never dreamed of getting.

But when Lila is torn between the need to care for her brother and a life beyond the only home she's ever known, it tests the limits of her relationships and her dreams.

It's a familiar story — local girl trapped in a suffocating small town whose talent could be her ticket out, if her sense of personal responsibility doesn't hold her back. So familiar, that at times Bonds' script can't help but feel a bit formulaic. When a sudden tragedy pulls Lila off the road, it's a moment we see coming from nearly the opening notes.

Lila and Amy's identities as queer artists bring the freshness here; who they are is both an essential part of their artistry and a potential hindrance to their success because of close-minded producers and audiences. But even then, the storytelling feels rushed, with not enough time given over to the ways in which their identities have shaped their dreams and heartbreaks. Does Lila want out because her hometown is small or because it's small-minded? The answer is unclear.

There is instant chemistry between Amy and Lila from the moment Amy walks into the bar, and both Patten and Renée sell this sudden, electric romantic connection. But they run so constantly hot and cold with each other, it can induce whiplash — misunderstandings become breaking points so quickly that inflection points are trite instead of emotionally resonant.

The deep wells of emotional vulnerability Patten and Renée possess as performers do much to paper over this flaw, but their talents can't obscure it entirely (though intimacy director Sasha Niccolle Smith deserves her due in proving that intimacy coordination can make onstage love scenes incredibly hot when handled thoughtfully).

It is Sarnak's score paired with Ellenore Scott and Trip Cullman's considered direction that makes the whole thing sing. The songs, which bounce from outright rock power ballads to country yarns, fill the small space of the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater with electric energy. They serve their dual purpose as diegetic tracks, numbers these characters are performing as artists, and as narrative tunes, their themes and emotions driving the storytelling forward. Renée's voice is arresting, powerful, but as disciplined and carefully tuned as a stringed instrument. It's the perfect sound for Amy, a woman whose history of heartbreak and abandonment has made her consumed with control.

In contrast, Lila, played by Patten as if she were a naked fuse waiting for the right spark, has a far more untethered sound. Patten's raw, forceful vocals drown us in her emotional turmoil, but that can often come at the cost of the clarity of the lyrics. Still, she produces such an impressive wall of sound from her petite frame, it scarcely matters.

The Lonely Few has a small cast, anchored by Renée's aching road veteran and Patten's grief-filled dreamer. But they all deserve their flowers. Close's portrait of a man whose demons are constantly at war with his love for his sister cuts to the quick, while Silcott lends the proceedings an essential warmth as a man trying to right the wrongs of his past. Shen, fresh out of drama school, is a force to be reckoned with, funny, quirky, and endearing as a girl who fears the lack of tragedy in her life hinders her artistry.

Then, there's Damon Daunno, recently Tony-nominated for his turn as Curly in the notoriously sexy Oklahoma revival. It's abundantly clear watching him that he was a major factor in that revival's explicit nicknames. He's a live wire of sexual energy and yearning; outwardly, the "nice guy" best friend, but when keyed into his guitar and his music, something altogether more primal and stirring. He makes a three-course meal out of a role that is basically an appetizer, as Lila's mixed-up best friend far more trapped by his choices than she ever could be.

Set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer and lighting designer ​​​​Adam Honoré make the experience a truly immersive one. They've transformed the small black box theater into a dive bar, complete with stools and club tables. The lights shimmer with the smoke-filled elegance of these rooms, and help transition us from the siren allure of the stage lights to the harsh glare of stock room reality. Honoré's work particularly shines in creating gorgeous tableaus that offer the characters intimate isolation in a room full of people watching.

This is more headbanging rock show than proscenium-bound musical, a factor created, celebrated, and enforced by Wickersheimer's design. We are club patrons, a part of the action, and Bond's book is adept at never pushing us too hard outside that space. Though there are scenes in convenience stores and hospital rooms, we're never jarringly removed from the performance space that we inhabit alongside the characters.

Musical theater is, and always has been, a risky proposition — Broadway is increasingly the playground of adaptations of hit movies and starry revivals. But the real future of the genre, of pushing boundaries and trying something fresh with the form to varying degrees of success, seems to lie in these smoky back rooms where the lonely few get to tell us the whispers of their hearts. B

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