Review: ‘Unexpected Joy’ Is a ‘Me’ Generation Musical

NEW YORK — Alone onstage at a memorial concert for a musician named Jump, the longhaired singer looks like she’s stepped out of a time capsule from the 1970s: bell-bottom jeans, a patchwork blouse, a studded leather vest with fringe that goes on for days.

Her name is Joy, and she’s the remaining half of a longtime musical duo called Jump and Joy. Jump — her partner offstage, too, and the father of their grown child — died about a year ago. Now Joy is headlong in love with a woman named Lou.

The tone-deaf scheme that propels “Unexpected Joy,” a culture-clash “Me” generation musical by Bill Russell (“Side Show”) and Janet Hood, is Joy’s plan to marry Lou the day after the memorial — because, what the heck, her daughter and teenage granddaughter will already be in town. First, though, she has to tell them that Lou exists.

Directed by Amy Anders Corcoran for the York Theater Company, “Unexpected Joy” pits the hippy-dippy Joy (Luba Mason) against her prudish, semi-estranged daughter, Rachel (Courtney Balan), whose parents called her Rainbow. Rebelling against the chaos of her childhood, she married a conservative who became a televangelist.

Rachel’s own daughter, Tamara (Celeste Rose), has inherited her grandparents’ musical passion and seemingly their liberal politics, too. She’s delighted about Lou (Allyson Kaye Daniel), a singer with a big personality who is not thrilled to discover that she was kept a secret in the first place.

Set in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the show had its premiere on Cape Cod two summers ago with a different director and cast. Revised since then, it retains both its primary strengths — Hood’s music and Russell’s lyrics, although their title song is still underwhelming — and its fatal weaknesses: Russell’s strained plot and sitcom-shallow dialogue, and a central character so self-absorbed that you have to wonder what Lou, who is a catch, sees in her.

Mason’s performance, which wasn’t word-perfect at the performance I saw, is the least assured in an otherwise strong cast. Daniel makes a funny, likable Lou — except when Lou tosses down a sudden wedding ultimatum. But that’s a moment that no one could pull off. She heats up the stage when she sings, especially in the bluesy “She’s Got a Mind of Her Own.”

Balan brings restraint and a vital touch of sympathy to Rachel, while Rose makes Tamara’s big song — a furious indie-rock number called “Like a Good Girl” — a high point. But would these two characters, a conservative Christian and a daughter still under her roof, wear clothes as form-fitting as what Matthew Pachtman dresses them in?

James Morgan’s set is handsomely framed, but the heavy furniture makes it clunky. It doesn’t help when a line in the script tries to explain why two wingback chairs sit on a concert stage. It’s an awkward moment and perfectly in keeping with the ungainly spirit of this show.

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‘Unexpected Joy’

Through May 20 at the York Theater Company, Manhattan; 866-811-4111, yorktheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.