Photo by David Sprague
Joel Russell’s Heavenly Country, receiving its World Premiere currently at Two Roads Theatre in Studio City, is billed as “a jukebox musical in the country, gospel, spiritual & related genres”. If that sounds like too much for a two-act, six-character show to encompass, it is also heralded as “a musical where famous country, gospel, blues, rockabilly, spiritual and bluegrass songs tell a love story!”. At times it also feels like an intervention turned into an AA meeting. It is Russell’s first produced play, and he has bitten off way more than he can comfortably chew, and his audience can attempt to digest in the two-hour running time. He manages to shoehorn 22 songs that mostly have little relation to the scene preceding them. The transitions are abrupt or just plain absent.
Nehemiah “Nemo” Slavikozlowski (Michael Reese Shald) is a transplant from Minneapolis who works as a moving man and wants to be a cowboy. He immediately falls in love with his latest client Lily (Jennifer Anne Grimes) and decides she would be perfect to tutor him in the cowboy lifestyle. She would rather be courted by a non-drinking Southern Gentleman and enlists her pastor (Ashton Jordaa’n Ruiz) and his wife (Felicia Taylor E.) to help her get Nemo off the bottle. Nemo’s boss “Boss” Ross (Ray Buffer) and co-worker “Danny” (Isabella Urdaneta) are drinkers and bad influences. After trashing Lily’s most prized possession, Nemo disappears for six months to clean up his act.
It doesn’t seem likely that this act will get cleaned up without a lot of re-writing, re-thinking and re-casting. L. Flint Esquerra’s direction is virtually non-existent. Entrances and exits are haphazard, and scenes often meander from one to another with a song thrown in between. The songs are either performed presentational style–out-front and center-stage or else there is a flurry of forced activity from minor characters going on in the background. The acting on display is negligible. Shald has a good voice he displays in such solos as “Should’ve Been a Cowboy”. Buffer possesses the strongest voice and best stage presence and his comedy numbers– ”All My Ex’s Live in Texas” and “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” are the show’s highlights. The others’ voices are often too soft to be heard over the pre-recorded music or else Bobby Benjamin’s sound design is unbalanced. Paul Cady’s musical direction gives the songs the oomph the singers often don’t. A country-western jukebox musical is not a totally bad idea, but Heavenly Country is.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/heavenly-country-tickets-440764718137?aff=ebdssbdestsearch