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Though the casualness makes things drag now and then, singer-songwriter Stew and director Annie Dorsen convey the easy pleasure of a show that doesn’t feel the need to explain itself. It plays out on the thrust stage of the Public’s Anspacher Theater (Stew at center stage with the actors, four band members in mini-pits along each side), but you feel it would be just as comfortable downstairs at Joe’s Pub, where it was workshopped. They play straight-ahead rock when it suits them, or traipse off into some other style, like Baptist revival (when the Youth discovers music in church) or punk (when he starts a garage band) or psychedelia (in Amsterdam, obviously) or even Jon Brionish piano soundscaping (pretty much anytime). Put these songs in the hands of a crack cast playing multiple roles, in front of a dazzling backdrop—a wall of multicolored lights by set designer David Korins and genius lighting designer Kevin Adams (of Spring Awakening) that must be how the inside of a pinball machine looks to a flea—and this “little rock show” begins to feel like a mildly big deal. It’s yet another sign that smart theater composers are edging out of the sonic museum and into the world of 21st-century pop, discovering the joys of bright lights and loud music. — Jeremy McCarter

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New York Magazine Reviews

• Jeremy McCarter's Full Review (5/28/07)