Can likability get so high as to be off the scale? “Mystic Pizza,” a newish jukebox musical making its West Coast premiere at La Mirada Theatre certainly strives to do so.
Adapting its source material from the 1988 movie that launched Julia Roberts’ career and interspersed with a dozen or more added pop hits primarily from the ‘80s, it makes for agreeable, if not groundbreaking, live entertainment.
With saucy characters and a storyline that’s thankfully neither cheesy nor gooey, “Mystic Pizza” serves up slices of life. Three young women’s lives, to be exact. Two sisters and a friend, high school behind them, work at a small-town pizzeria while struggling with newly arriving adult complications.
While overtly shaped by the search for love in a couple of wrong places, the story is about young adults wrestling with emotional confusion; their friendship helps them figure out what kind of lives their choices may lead to.
Not that these romances are particularly surprising or unpredictable. One is not a “will they,” but a “when will they.” The second is the predictable first-love train wreck. The third is the time immemorial attraction of opposites.
What the mild storylines have underwriting, but not undercutting, them is a hook-heavy soundtrack paving the way of every plot turn. No theater credits in the program were listed for “licensing agreements,” but a sizable chunk of the creative accomplishment here is how writer Sandy Rustin’s facile tale has been knitted seamlessly through the acquisition of recognizable and spot-on tunes.
Events take place during fall in the tiny coastal seaport of Mystic, Conn. Cue the onstage live band and cast to break into John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” a song that will be reprised throughout the show to function as scenes transition and props slide seamlessly on and off (La Mirada’s reliable staging and tech prowess are well in place).
The show is a weave of episodic scenes punctuated by upbeat, nostalgic numbers, which include “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Addicted to Love,” “The Power of Love” and “Manic Monday.” Quieter, more intense moments, one-on-one interactions or solos, include “When I See You Smile,” “Hold On” and “True Colors.”
It even goes back to 1970 to channel perhaps the most inevitable title choice of all, Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” (You know the show’s creators checked this and a quick search online just now confirmed there’s never been a top hit with “pizza” in the title).
For theatergoers of a certain age who listened to the radio growing up, this is quite pleasant. It does, however, tend to flatten out explorations of character depth and acting at times, since the pacing – and our quality of anticipation in the audience — becomes as much if not more about what the next song is going to be.
It is certainly a well-cast show.
The actresses in the three leads — Krystina Alabado as rough-and-tumble Daisy (the Roberts role), Kyra Kennedy as Daisy’s Yale-bound sister Kat and Gianna Yanelli as their effervescent friend Jojo — are naturally appealing for their respective roles and all three have strong singing chops.
A key adult role is Leona, the pizzeria proprietress. Beyond riding herd, in the most gently supportive way, on her occasionally erratic employees, Leona has the one tangential plotline, about the financial fate of her business. Actress Rayanne Gonzales has winning ways that elevates the confines of only being a cheerful supportive presence and she is a surprising vocal firebrand, leading the ensemble in the show’s showstopper “All I Need Is a Miracle/You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”
The resolution of the pizza store’s fate marvelously uses this number as its one breakout showpiece of what has been capable direction from Casey Hushion and evocative choreography from Connor Gallagher.
The show has moved along so seamlessly to this point that this unexpected fantasia of singing and dance movement, accentuated by tremendous visual dapples from lighting designer Ryan J. O’Gara, is a welcome departure of unbridled exuberance.
Unexpectedly enough, the scene’s dynamite use of that song combo is about the region’s snooty/nerdy TV restaurant critic trying the pizza and rendering a verdict.
This in-passing role, along with a couple other ensemble parts — notably as a suitably intimidating priest officiating the Catholic wedding at the show’s start — is played by a stellar Southern California stage resource, character-actor par excellence, Jeff Skowron.
Building on a legit Broadway career, Skowron has been a notable focal point in La Mirada and other regional theaters: if a small acting turn made you smile and giggle in one of these halls there’s a very good chance that it was the very talented Skowron pushing your buttons.
As for the show, this one isn’t a life-changer or maybe something you remember much about a month from now, but it’s a well-made good time. If stories set in the near past as upbeat musicals are to your taste, take a bite.
‘Mystic Pizza’
Rating: 3 stars out of four possible.
When: Through Feb. 11: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays.
Where: La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada
Tickets: $19-90
Information: 714-994-6310; 562-944-9801; lamiradatheatre.com
