THEATER - FRINGE 2006 ENCORE: "Perfect Harmony"

At last, a show that recognizes a capella for what it is: "a cult of pressure and perfection." Just as The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee took a cute, musical approach to a somewhat geeky field, Perfect Harmony has arrived to make high school a capella cool again. Or at least something that you can laugh with, not at. (Full disclosure: I was a high school a capella-ist.) The fact that this was a workshopped play means that it plays for the laughs, and riddles the characters with superficial problems that make them both easy to identify and full of easy humor. What's surprising are how good so many of those jokes are, and how the confessional monologues actually work their way into the show. What's more, beneath the cheesy songs (actually the weakest part of the show) and riotous humor, there's an actual plot that explores friendship, competition, and whether or not art has any place in music anymore. This is not a perfect play (much as that'd help my tagline) but it's close: a PG-rated, feel-good, semi-musical blast.

Read on at [New Theater Corps]