Erratic composition mars ACT’s ‘||: GIRLS :||: CHANCE :||: MUSIC :||’
Yeena Sung (left) is Rile, Gianna DiGregorio Rivera (center) is Clementine and Naomi Latta is Margot in the world premiere of Eisa Davis’ ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, performing at ACT’s Strand Theater. Photo by Kevin Berne
Expectations can be a dangerous thing. Last time I saw an Eisa Davis play, I was smitten. The Berkeley native’s lyrical Bulrusher was produced first by Shotgun Players in 2007 and then by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2023 (read my review here). From that point on, I was interested in anything Davis was doing, including her current project, adapting the movie The Warriors into a stage musical with Lin-Manuel Miranda (the concept album is well worth a listen).
So the prospect of a world-premiere Davis play about high school girls at a summer music conservatory in Berkeley filled me with anticipatory glee. Co-produced by American Conservatory Theater and New York’s Vineyard Theatre and directed by ACT’s outgoing artistic director, Pam MacKinnon, the awkwardly titled ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| opened at The Strand this week, and I’m still puzzled.
Hillary Fisher is Fax. Photo by Kevin Berne
My impression of this nearly two-hour, one-act play feels like a lot of different ideas still trying to come together in a way that makes some narrative sense or fully engages us with the characters.
Within this summer music program, we meet four of the girls, all of whom have different musical skills, both instrumental and vocal. But first, Davis and MacKinnon begin the play with 12 volunteers from the audience placing numbered stickers on a piano keyboard to create an original musical composition exclusively for this performance. As the girls enter the conservatory set (by Nina Ball), they interact with that composition, getting to know it, memorizing their section of it with the assumption that there’s going to be some sort of musical payoff later – which there is, kind of.
Then we start getting to know the four girls. Fax (Hillary Fisher) is the most dynamic and engaging. She’s primarily a classical vocalist – smart, disciplined and ambitious. We meet her in a state of annoyance that her fellow student and accompanist, Rile (Yeena Sung), made a mistake during their performance and took the opportunity to do some improvising, thus throwing off the precision-minded Fax.
More enigmatic is Margot (Naomi Latta), a drummer, whose caginess and erratic behavior clearly signals some kind of unrest in her personal life, but none of the other girls seems to clock that. Then, skirting around the periphery, playing a number of instruments (piano, flute, baritone sax) is Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera), whose clear-headed joy in practicing her instruments and her non-dramatic approach to music making is in stark contrast to her compatriots.
The cast of ACT’s world-premiere includes (from left) Gianna DiGregorio Rivera as Clementine, Naomi Latta as Margot, Hillary Fisher as Fax and Yeena Sung as Rile. Photo by Kevin Berne
As long as the play stays in the conservatory and focuses on music making and interactions between the girls, we’re on fairly solid ground. Watching talented teens navigate social, musical and emotional territory is inherently interesting. The play peaks during a dazzling improv music-making section (Davis is also credited as composer of the show’s original music) and grows more wobbly and confusing from there.
A couple of things happen in the wider world that are, to be very honest, pretty hokey, and the way the girls navigate these events is perplexing. Along the way, there are lots of direct address monologues to the audience that have the awkwardness of a lecture and narrative threads that can’t be addressed by showing rather than telling. There are also plot turns that feel rushed and an ending that comes across as more like a stopping point than a conclusion, with one of the most interesting characters disappearing and reemerging in a narrative epilogue that feels cursory and lacks any emotional impact.
All of this is disappointing for many reasons, especially in light of the mostly strong performances by the actors (I did have some issues with some hard-to-hear passages). Everyone gets a chance to shine both dramatically and musically.
In the end, it feels like playwright Davis is on to something here but the composer is still mid-composition.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Eisa Davis’ ||: GIRLS :||: CHANCE :||: MUSIC :|| continues through April 19 at American Conservatory Theater’s Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., San Francisco. Running time: 110 minutes (no intermission) . Tickets are $25-$130 (subject to change). Call 415-749-2228 or visit act-sf.org.
