Sympathy Jones, Super Secret Agent

Sympathy Jones
9.24.07

The press notes indicate that the inspiration for Sympathy Jones came from the cinematic world; yet rather than adapting an already-existing movie to the stage, Masi Asare -- responsible for the music, lyrics and overall concept -- chose to create a new musical based on an entire cinematic genre. She found great opportunity for musicalization in the spy film genre; Sympathy Jones is largely based on the 1960s spy thriller films. I have to commend her for the concept, because I think she's right -- that particular film genre does open up a lot of opportunity for musical theater writing. In the simplest of terms, musical theater is largely about the suspension of disbelief, which certainly plays a large role in spy thrillers -- as to characters with strong motivations, another vital part to a solid musical.

But it's 2007: we're at a point of historical distance in which if you're going to tackle this, you need to do so either by satirzing it, or by going forth with full commitment to creating that particular world -- neither of which Sympathy Jones quite fully achieves. I'm actually not sure which it was going for. It has a lot of interesting things about it, but I just wish I could've come out of the evening with a more solid feel for its intentions. From reading what Asare says about her project in the press notes, I could infer that she envisioned a cinematic approach -- a musical that would totally delve into this world that is so iconic to American popular culture. But the musical itself has moments so over-the-top that they venture into at least feeling like satire, even if that isn't what they're intended to be. Strangely enough, the show seems to waver between this feeling of being completely over-the-top and taking itself too seriously, which I suspect contributes to the problem. (Similarly, sometimes -- despite the awkward staging -- it nails the style perfectly, and at other times, it's not quite styled enough to really immerse itself completely in a very stylized world.) There's a certain kind of serious nature that pervades these particular films -- it's part of the reason why it's fairly easy to laugh at them now, decades later. They have this way of taking themselves so seriously that they appear a bit ridiculous, and that perception in itself makes a decent case for how easily such a musicalization could appear satirical. I think despite the conflict in deciding what I saw, I knew what I wanted to see. Throughout the show, I felt like I wanted to tell it to go and just totally commit to that world; if this is a cinematic approach, go forth and fully dive in without looking back -- without the spurts of misplaced, updated dialogue and the self-awareness. I think if it would just be what it is without constantly looking over its shoulder, we'd look at it largely the same way we do those films -- we might laugh a little bit, but there's a reason popular culture still loves James Bond.

The show gets off to a slow start, but quickly picks up the pace, and is through to the end fairly fast-moving. There's relatively little dialogue between songs, which works well in this case. There's just enough to string the songs together and alleviate disconnect or seemingly random placement. Too much dialogue could easily slow a show like this down, perhaps due to the simplicity of the plot. Toward the end, though, things end up moving a little bit too quickly. Sympathy works as a secretary for a secret agency, but she wants to do much more than answer phones. She keeps losing out on opportunities for promotion, so when she finds a confidential file accidentally left on her desk one day, she decides to take matters -- both those of her status at work and of the case in the folder -- into her own hands. She wants to show the world what she can do, and prove her capability as a spy, but I didn't feel like the show established high enough stakes. Things move so quickly during the plot escalation that the (rather important, I think) specifics of the case seem to get lost in the whirlwind. Said escalation jumps as opposed to building up. If we are to care about it being solved, we need more to hang onto than our desire to root for Sympathy's success. While Kate Shindle is fantastic -- and easily the highlight of the show (the adorable gawkiness she brings to Sympathy is somewhat reminiscent of Sutton Foster's (Thoroughly Modern) Millie) -- a likeable protagonist is not enough. This, of course, isn't the only thing the show has going for it: it has a handful of really catchy songs, and lots of plot twists. It's best when it gets highly imaginative, but still gets tripped up on its own inclusion of musical theater cliches. It has quite a lot going for it, in fact -- not the least of which is its creative concept.