 "Photo: Karina Jacques; The Daily Texan")
Fear banters with Hope in the lounge area while next door Joe and company belt out their troubled woes to a jazzy number during sound check.
It is just another weekday dress rehearsal before Friday’s opening performance of “The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners,” a musical directed by Bonnie Cullum of VORTEX Repertory Company.
The story chronicles the dilemmas of a struggling artist and related characters as they decide what ultimately makes them happy. The personified forms of fear and hope delve into the characters’ deepest thoughts and anxieties, exploring “the mind of the urban hipster,” said Aaron Brown, playwright and composer.
“This is something totally new,” he said. “VORTEX usually puts on darker plays, and here is a light comedy with funny songs.”
It has been 15 years since his last musical, but Brown made his return to musical theater after writing a 10-song composition, feeling it would be a waste to throw away the songs. The score for the musical reflects influences Steven Sondheim and Cole Porter.
Jonathan Itchon plays Joe, an amateur playwright-director trying to catch his first break. As Fear, hovering nearby with a sneer, digs into Joe’s shaky self-esteem and insecurities about failure, Joe must also face echoing criticism from his overbearing mother.
“She’s ruthless, but not in a bitchy way,” said Jen Coy, who portrays the mother. “I can relate to that with my own mother, that feeling of second-guessing yourself and constantly having to defend your choices.”
The mother, interestingly enough, only appears in the musical as a shadow, and her entrances are marked by a billow of smoke. Brown was inspired by the idea of shadow play 20 years ago at Southern Methodist University after seeing “The Tempest” performed in shadows.
Joe is also the only character to interact with his mother, raising the question of whether she exists in reality or is a delusion of Joe’s mind.
“[Joe] is the starving artist trying to validate who he is in a world where money is the barometer for success,” Itchon said.
“The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners” runs through March 7 at The Vortex.
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