I’ll be the first to admit that musical theatre isn’t really my thing and I’d be willing to bet a lot of other Pavement fans might feel similar. Sure, music lovers might seem like prime candidates for one of the greatest forms of American art, but the idea of bursting into song and giant dance numbers has never done much for me. Jukebox musicals in particular can be a hard pill for me to swallow as I don’t think that all great pop and rock songs need to be turned into swelling musical extravaganzas. However, the idea of doing this with Pavement songs just seemed so out of this world and bizarre to me that I just had to grab a ticket to Slanted! Enchanted! The Pavement Musical as soon as it was announced. Not to mention, if you name a weekly newsletter after their best song, it only seems right to see that song turned into an elaborate dance number that includes tap dancing Santas.
In an incredibly limited (two performances) Off-Broadway run, the songs of Pavement were brought to life in an hour-long show that was equally strange as it was hilarious. What made it work is that you could describe the band themselves in a similar fashion. Odd wit, humor, and charm have long been trademarks of the band (something that was recently enhanced for me when I finally saw them live during their remarkable run at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn earlier this year) where you’re not sure if the joke is actually on you for being a fan. They’ve always been a band that never seemed to take themselves too seriously and their slacker enthusiasm has always been a key part of their musical arsenal. Luckily, that all came through in the musical as well.
I’ll do my best here to describe what I think the plot of the show was as there was no dialogue in the performance, this was all through visual storytelling while a cast did their best (seriously) karaoke versions of the band’s best songs. Essem (played by Michael Esper) is an aspiring guitarist looking for fame and his next band. Anne (Zoe Lister-Jones) is an artist who meets Essem and the two fall in love. The couple flies to New York where Essem joins a band and Anne falls for the city’s art scene. Essem’s band signs to Matador and begins to play to adoring fans. His band heads to London where he meets Loretta (Kathryn Gallagher), a fellow musician in the same indie/grunge scene. The two fall for each other and Essem is torn. He cleans up a bit (gets a haircut!) and seems to be hopelessly in love with Loretta. The rest of the show is focused on Essem’s decision on what to do and what woman to choose as his partner and in the end, he seems alone and unsure. The major leagues weren’t all that he expected and happiness never comes the way we expect it.
Throughout the show, we’re treated to campy, yet enjoyable, renditions of Pavement’s greatest hits (beyond Slanted and Enchanted) all backed by outrageous choreography and slapstick humor. It’s a show that never takes itself too seriously, or so it seems, and it just relies on past pleasures and pure nostalgia. Maybe you can, in fact, quarantine the past! Once it ended, I immediately texted a friend to say “it seems like something you’d expect the people at Pitchfork to have created after a week of summer theatre camp and endless bong hits. It was so great!” Everything was equally absurd (a musical medley of a Pavement overture is a wild concept) as it was enjoyable and it could not have been more niche, a true caricature in and of itself. I truly felt like it was a crazy concept dream that my friends and I would’ve conceived in college, but never would’ve been able to actually pull off.
Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry (the same person who recently directed the video for the band’s bizarrely algorithmically-popular b-side “Harness Your Hopes” and curated the Pavement Museum earlier to coincide with the earlier mentioned run of shows in Brooklyn), it almost felt like it was all one inside joke, a thought that was proliferated when his Instagram story later that night had a post with the message “Alex Ross Perry writing and staging a Pavement musical as part of his faux documentary is such high-level commitment to the bit that I have no choice but to respect it, and to attend tonight.” Even now, I’m not sure exactly what the intention of the show was or what could possibly be next for the performances. If it is intended to be part of a mockumentary for the quintessential American indie band of the ‘90s, perhaps the joke is on me for attending and expecting anything else.
Regardless of the intentions, however, the commitment from the cast (and the audience) was fantastic and made it a worthwhile experience even if I may have never needed to hear a Pavement song broken down into a four part harmony complete with square dancing. The performance didn’t do anything to change my mind about musical theatre and if anything proved that if a show based around the songs of one of my favorite bands can’t lure me in, what will? Still, the idea itself got me there and left me with plenty to think about, something art is always supposed to do. That fact alone seems to suggest a success, but I’m doubtful the major leagues would feel the same.