“There is,” as Stephen Sondheim once groaned, “nothing worse than great expectations.” It may seem unfair to evoke a master when reviewing only the second show from a young British musical team, but when their debut was the Tony-winning, Tudors-Got-Talent sensation that is “Six,” expectations are sky high. Sadly, although their follow-up shares the same sassy Gen-Z tone, where “Six” brilliantly found the perfect form for its content, the heartfelt but disappointing “Why Am I So Single?” is fatally slack. What might have energized an intermission-free 90 minutes flounders long before its two-and-a-half hours are up.
Part of the problem is that its creators, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, are so self-conscious. After an arch prologue with masks and voice-over, best friend protagonists Oliver (sparky Jo Foster) and Nancy (Leesa Tulley) knock down the fourth wall to let us in on the act that they reflect Marlow and Moss who are trying to write “a big fancy musical.” And, guess what, the musical they write – and we watch – turns out to be about them and their singledom, bolstered, they inform us, by musical theater references.
In the end, that translates to an awful lot of sometimes-boisterous navel-gazing on the sofa with highly performative, queer, non-binary Oliver and more one-note, supportive Nancy, plus one-liners at the expense of “Mamma Mia!” and quotes from other show’s lyrics, principally, yes, “Oliver!” It’s noticeable that among the shows they don’t reference are those that trod a similarly self-reflexive path from the Pulitzer-winning “A Strange Loop” and the zesty, taut “title of show,” all the way back to “Say, Darling,” Comden & Green and Jule Styne’s musical play about putting on the musical of “The Pajama Game.”
The writers aim for an examination of contemporary sexual politics and sex (or the lack thereof) in the age of apps and gender identity crises. At its best, they pull that off with zest. Although the songs are better at fitting smart-mouthed lyrics to catchy rhythms than achieving memorable melodies, the best ones have punch. Sharply choreographed by Ellen Kane, Oliver’s witty and speedy song “8 Dates” is a gleeful company number running through a litany of dating disasters.
But beneath the comic observations of this generation’s sexual and social (mis)behavior, Marlow and Moss try for affecting truth. What they fail to do is write a taut or convincing book to elicit that. There’s plenty of dialogue in book scenes but little drama. Nor does it help that the mood keeps switching because the writers are so busy debunking what they’re doing. Playing with comic bathos is a dangerous game when aiming for sincerity.
On a nondescript set of well-lit windows and door-frames, the well-drilled, ten-strong ensemble portray furnishings and props as well as fleshing out exuberant dance numbers, but their work feels forced, as if the sight of an unnecessarily large ensemble will paper over the show’s cracks.
What the show most seriously lacks is a strong dramaturgical eye, which is absent since direction is in the hands of Moss with co-direction by choreographer Kane. A more objective director might have cut not just repetition within songs and scenes but entire numbers in order to let the audience make connections rather than have every possibility spelt out and sung.
Take the second act song “Disco Ball,” which ultimately reveals the dangerous self-loathing created by being queer in a heteronormative society. It’s acute but the impact is dulled because Nancy has been directed to sit to one side and watch with a bored ‘seen-it-all’ expression. She’s right: we have, since the first two-thirds of the song repeat, for the umpteenth time, Oliver’s extravagant need for performance.
“Why Am I So Single?” has arrived in the West End with no tryout in which its major structural problems could have been addressed. It’s a decision likely to prove costly. The show boasts strikingly low ticket prices with a $85 top less than half of the similarly-proportioned “Hadestown.” That may attract the target Gen-Z audience who might decide to go to a West End musical to see their lives reflected. But where “Six” long ago crossed over from the youth market to ticket-buyers of all ages, “Why Am I So Single?” riskily lacks appeal beyond its target audience.
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