EGN NEWS DESK
Amy’s tour, because it occurs, is on pause; her opening act bailed, and he or she must discover a new one. Sensing expertise in addition to a spark, she enlists Lila and her band, the Lonely Few — which additionally consists of Paul (Thomas Silcott), on drums, and JJ (Helen J Shen), on keyboard — to affix her for the remainder of the tour.
On the street, romance ensues, and so do household issues: Lila’s fretful guilt as Adam spirals with out her, nonetheless grieving their mom’s demise; Amy’s enduring anger that when Paul — the drummer who was her stepdad way back — left her alcoholic mom, again in New Orleans, he left her, too.
With a behavior of chopping individuals out of her life, Amy is extra of a loner than Lila, however every of them has constructed a carapace. The query is whether or not they’re courageous sufficient to shed them for one another.
This intimate, tightly woven musical envelops the viewers: with Sibyl Wickersheimer’s wraparound set, which seats among the crowd within the bar; Adam Honoré’s rock-show lighting, whose beams contact all of us; and the heart beat of the songs, which we really feel in our our bodies — the hard-driving numbers and the quiet ones, too. (Music course is by Myrna Conn, main a principally offstage four-piece band. Sound design, worryingly muddy at first, is by Jonathan Deans and Mike Tracey.)
It may appear for some time that Daunno, a Tony nominee in 2019 for Daniel Fish’s “Oklahoma!” revival, is being squandered in a too-small position. But every of the lads will get a quantity through which he demonstrates the depth of his affection — Dylan and Adam for Lila, Paul for Amy — and every of the actors smashes it. Daunno’s tender reprise of “Waking Up Thirty,” a music about surrendering to dead-end, small-town American life, is devastating.
