Imagine seeing yourself distorted in a reflection and becoming genuinely confused about whether you’re looking at a funhouse mirror or you’ve somehow actually warped.
That’s the weird, wiggly feeling summoned up by “Nobody Loves You,” an inspired musical spoof of reality TV and contemporary courtship now on stage at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theatre.
You’ll feel it along with Jeff (A.J. Holmes), a contestant, and Jenny (Kuhoo Verma), a producer, on the musical’s eponymous television dating game, a derivative mix of “The Bachelor” and “Big Brother.”
Jeff’s a cynical doctoral student of philosophy, only participating on the show because he wants to win back an ex-girlfriend he mistakenly believes will be competing. Jenny’s an aspiring documentarian who tells herself she’s saving up her salary to go indie.
Both are savvy to the TV show’s manipulations, understanding that contestants consciously craft their screen personalities and that character traits can be reshaped or sharpened in the editing room. In a sanctimonious duet, “So Much to Hate,” Jeff and Jenny bond over their disdain for the game.
(Alter’s music is engaging but most effective as a vehicle for lyrics; overall, the show nets out as more comedy than musical).
Reality bites back
While filming the first episode of “Nobody Loves You”’s new season, Jeff refuses to play by the rules. He wants to heroically expose the show’s artifice and assumes he’ll be promptly booted from future installments.
Instead, wily executive producer Nina (Ashley D. Kelley, who plays four different roles with puckish cartoon energy), reframes him as an antihero.
Jeff connects with the TV audience, whose online validation seduces him into sticking around to persevere at his quixotic, now-compromised quest.
Meanwhile, the other contestants aren’t all as naïve to the tricks of mediated romance as Jeff and Jenny imagine them.
For better or worse, needy pseudo-sexpot Megan (Molly Hager, who aces the physical comedy in a standout hot tub scene), and transparently duplicitous Samantha (Ana Yi Puig) have comfortably acclimated to the performative demands of a world in which reality TV, dating apps, and social media have become default modes of daily life.
Jeff and Jenny aren’t ahead of the game. They’ve been left behind in their unaccommodating snobbery.
Playwright Itamar Moses and composer Gaby Alter (They collaborated on the lyrics) have built a compelling complexity into their show that departs from some music theater conventions.
In turning the tables on the protagonists who audience members initially identify with, “Nobody Loves You” leaves us with nobody we particularly love. And props to that.
A pat Jeff-hearts-Jenny rom-com is a far less interesting proposition than the loose stack of musical “New Yorker” cartoons this show turns out to be. Its refreshingly more acerbic than empathetic.
Appealingly sketchy
Pam Mackinnon’s fleet, fizzy direction and with marvelously fluid scene changes (Scenic design by Jason Ardizzone-West; lighting by Russell H. Champa) zip audiences through a series of parodic hot takes and satirical sallies on today’s relationships, mores, and media.
The abrupt scene shifts and brief, hooky snippets of song echo the quick-cut editing and drummed up drama of reality TV.
They also allow “Nobody Loves You” to occupy an appealing middle-ground between book
musical and revue. The dating game narrative provides just enough structure for thematic coherence and the modicum of stakes needed to hold an audience’s attention throughout.
Meanwhile, chop-chop rhythms and broad character types allow for sketch-like comic bits and humorous musical interludes not particularly tied to plotting.
Two contestant characters, thick-skulled Dominic and squeaky clean Christian, serve mainly to fill out the game’s requisite romantic couplings but are played with such brilliant single-dimension specificity by John-Michael Lyles and Seth Hanson, that you can’t wait for their next appearances. They’re as funny and distinctive as your favorite “Saturday Night Live” characters.
Lyles, a remarkable talent who was in the Broadway cast of “A Strange Loop,” nearly steals the show in his second role, Evan, a flibbertigibbet internet influencer.
Jason Veasey, Lyle’s one-time “A Strange Loop” castmate, is also on board here, the production’s stealth MVP.
Nailing the role of vainglorious game show host, Byron, Veasey incongruously pairs rich, soulful singing with deliciously dimwitted characterization.
Regularly on stage from start to finish, he’s a sonic and comic throughline, essential to pulling the whole show together.
