The characters of “The Burnt Part Boys” walk a long and winding road. This being theater, you may think this is a metaphor — but no, there’s an actual trek involved. And it goes on and on and on.
This new musical, which just opened at Playwrights Horizons, is set in 1962 West Virginia, an area in which coal dictates people’s lives and deaths. When plans are announced to reopen the mountain mine where the father of Pete (Al Calderon) died a decade earlier, the 14-year-old sets off to blow the whole thing up for good.
To get there, Pete, his best friend Dusty (Noah Galvin) and feisty runaway Frances (Molly Ranson) must negotiate ravines and streams, and cross thick woods — while constantly bickering.
Hot on their trail are Pete’s slightly older brother Jake (Charlie Brady) and his buddy Chet (Andrew Durand). Will they catch up before the big ka-boom?
Teenagers on an adventure, a bittersweet coming-of-age lesson, a pudgy friend supplying wisecracks, a rowdy tomboy: This sounds like a musical version of “The Goonies.”
We should be so lucky.
Hard to believe, but most of Mariana Elder’s book is dedicated to the trek, with the adolescents pausing only to break into song and argue about which way to go. At least Dusty and Frances add welcome comic relief, and their exchanges are among the funniest in the play. Director Joe Calarco illustrates all this with just some foldout ladders and chairs. It’s a brave attempt but quickly wears thin.
The heroes of movie-crazy Pete (Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie) sometimes cheer him along in fantasy numbers that alleviate the journey’s monotony — but only up to a point. Composer Chris Miller and lyricist Nathan Tysen have written undistinguished, bland tunes that sound as if they’ve been workshopped to death. The only standout songs are the ones with multipart harmonies — they make it easier to block out Tysen’s flatly earnest words.
When the two parties reunite in the abandoned mine, things do perk up. Calarco stages some moments in the dark, broken only by the glare of isolated flashlights. These scenes have a spooky vibe, but it’s too little, too late.
Everybody involved should have kept one thing in mind: When the song tells you to “climb ev’ry mountain,” you’re not meant to take it literally.