Spinning Tree Theatre’s musical adaptation of Bubble Boy makes for oddly prescient cultural commentary
Joshua Johnson as Jimmy Livingston (the Bubble Boy) and Jordan Rosenwald as Chloe Molinski. // Photo by Micah Thompson/Spinning Tree Theatre
If you caught the 2001 Jake Gyllenhaal film Bubble Boy, there’s a better than non-zero chance you haven’t thought about it since. The cartoonishly over-the-top story about a boy allergic to the air is probably more closely associated with the end of an era of specific lunatic studio filmmaking, or perhaps as the flick that dropped alongside Donnie Darko and could have spelled out a much different career arc for Gyllenhaal as a lead actor. Outside of a kind of lingering remembrance of its existence, it has the “cult film” label attached these days—despite (ironically) a seeming lack of cult followers to be found.
One person who didn’t give up on the film was its co-writer, Cinco Paul. Along with Ken Daurio, the two had crafted a script that had all the heart in the world and a number of unpredictable threads—albeit it something thrown through a Hollywood studio machine and churned into a sort of disconnected substance. The writers (better known now for credits on films like Despicable Me) saw the power in reframing the narrative on their own terms, and that the style of the subject matter was perhaps loftier in a different format. Hence, Bubble Boy: The Musical was premiered as a high school production back in 2008. One creative who saw its potential and comedic prowess was stage musical legend Stephen Schwartz. Schwartz brought the show to a Disney development program, and between ’08 and 2014 it matured into a full length musical with heavy shades of Schwartz’s style (Godspell, Wicked) infused with a bit of early-aughts pop-rock charm. The script, re-oriented and re-imagined decades later, was elevated by Cinco Paul’s own heavily hip songwriting. The end result is a show that’s better than it has any right to be.
Spinning Tree Theatre just mounted a short run of the show that played last weekend, and The Pitch was lucky enough to catch one of the performances. As is to be expected from the young casts populating this stage, the performances were stellar, the music delivered with a studio quality sound balance, and the show itself both welcoming and challenging in unexpected grey spaces—soft weaknesses beneath the presentation of a fairly inviting, wide-appeal story.
Nile Clipner as Slim & Co. perform “Regret.” // Photos by Micah Thompson/Spinning Tree Theatre
Jimmy Livingston (Joshua Johnson) was born without immunities and has spent his entire life confined inside a plastic bubble room. Enter Chloe (Jordan Rosenwald), the girl next door, who becomes his friend and steals his heart. When she leaves town to get married, Jimmy travels cross-country in a homemade bubble suit in order to stop the wedding and finally tell her how he feels. Along the journey, he deals with a crazy cult, a biker gang, a dead cow, and a controlling mother (Frankie Nelson) who will stop at nothing to get him back in the bubble.
Nelson’s portrayal of Mrs. Livingston is a spotlight stealer right out of the gate, as her mix of manic dedication and prodding control becomes a delightful lightning rod of an antagonist. Johnson’s Bubble Boy is given all the innocence and curiosity needed to sell a complete blank slate that you’re still rooting for. Rosenwald’s incongruous approaches to existence are tackled with a powerful range that leads the show, propelling forward with sincerity and clever acceptance.
The show has a strange pacing issue the it straddles at points, including the somewhat subdued first act that gives way to a reveal of a more party-like atmosphere and the rise of a number of side characters—each actor a more impressive vocalist than the one introduced before. It’s a slow rollout of just how high the bar is for the entirety of the show’s small ensemble. The incorporation of the more road trip elements of the story sticks a bit too closely to an overstuffed set of characters—with a song or two dedicated to each. There’s a shorter version of this that doesn’t leave the end feeling rushed, not that a tight 90 minutes with no intermission is a drag. It’s both a pro and con that the story keeps so many ancillary people from the original flick, no matter how one-dimensional. You can feel how each of these was once looped in as a plot point to hit or even tinged with the era’s markings of an offensive stereotype. The years and the revisions have allowed for an updating where, for example, a Hindu ice cream truck operator who accidentally kills a sacred cow has a depth and weight—a place within the messaging of the story—that doesn’t make this repeated hitting of a one-note joke.
Spinning Tree continues by adding yet another musical to its catalog where local actors excel in elevating material that’s both challenging and memorable in equal measure. The tale about what happens when people build their own emotional/intellectual bubble and get lost inside a reality of their own design was, unfortunately, painfully relevant.
