Music streaming services allow kids these days to put together digital playlists for every mood or activity.
Once, not so long ago, it was a more hand-crafted effort to put together a series of heartfelt songs on handmade, personalized cassette tapes, often intended to capture a moment, resonate a mood or woo a potential girlfriend.
The mystique of mixtapes was so strong, the term outlasted its original format — cassette tapes — to be used as a term to described similarly self-burned CDs of handpicked songs.
The deliberately-chosen songs in Flying V Productions’ stage show “Be Awesome: A Theatrical Mixtape of the 90s,” a kind of flashback of a life through representative tunes, are still rendered on a cassette, though. And we hear the essence of one young man’s life, also on tape, as the show begins: An only child, Jonah, grows up raised mostly by his mother, adjusts to high school and college, meets a girl, marries, and is diagnosed with terminal cancer just as his wife is pregnant.
He doesn’t mourn, he makes a tape for his unborn daughter.
Thus the 90-minute show (just as long as a mixtape) is comprised of 14 specifically chosen songs from that decade, that blast out as a cast of 10 reproduce their themes on stage is if they were specifically acting out videos for each one — and each period of Jonah’s life.
Just about every kind of approach is used in animating these songs, from manic puppets re-enacting the opening Mighty Mighty Bostones tune “The Impression That I Get” to dance to juggling to balloon animals.
Jason Schlafstein conceived and directed the extravaganza, and though Ryan Tumulty is listed as choreographer, there’s surprisingly little dance that occurs. More often, the ensemble marches onto the stage and marches off doing that thing that the worst music videos did: literally act out what the lyrics said.
Things went best when there was an occasional live rendition of a song — as with a cello and violin rendering of Radiohead’s “Creep” by Diane Samuelson and Jon Jon Johnson or a ukulele vision of “Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” by Madeline Key and Em Whitworth.
And some recorded tracks work better than others. Beck’s “Loser” and Foo Fighters’ rocking “Everlong” can be expected but it’s a little unsubtle to have Boyz II Men “I’ll Make Love to You” played as Jonah has sex, in a scene undercut by an accompanying gay coupling played for laughs. The result? Ben Folds Five’s “Brick” depicting the abortion clinic.
Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me” is serviceable as a gleeful wedding song; but I didn’t buy Mariah Carey’s “Hero” as illustrating a kid’s love of superheroes. And as good as it was to hear Bjork’s “Hyperballad,” I couldn’t abide the violence it illustrated.
Fugazi’s “Repeater” worked surprisingly well to animate a workplace number — it led to the only effective ensemble dance number.
But it was an outlier song in a show that leaned more to odd acoustic choices such as Neutral Milk Hotel’s concluding “Two-Headed Boy.”
Bob Manzo stars in “Be Awesome” the music-loving Jonah, a shy kid with a beatific smile. Highlights in the cast include Key as his mother (and other roles), Whitworth in many parts including his daughter, and Michelle Polera as his soulmate. Clayton Pelham Jr. seemed to be used in a most stereotypical way as black best friend, playing basketball and lending a rap.
“Be Awesome” has the kind of energy and self-belief you could glean from old MTV videos; audiences of a certain age will fall for the trope of unveiling each song’s single cover as the drama goes on. But that also lends a countdown aspect to the action, the life and the songs.
Care is taken in Katie Sullivan’s set design to use as many cassette tapes as possible; Lauren Joy’s projections add context as does Gordon Nimmo-Smith needle-drop sounds between tunes.
Like actual mixtapes, “Be Awesome” can be mawkish and a touch embarrassing. A message from a deceased parent to a child, delivered years later, can’t help but be poignant. But even she fast forwards through some songs.
“Be Awesome: A Theatrical Mixtape of the ’90s” continues through Oct. 9 at the Writer’s Center, Bethesda, Md.