Written and directed by Lisa Davenport

At the Agassiz Theater

Through this weekend

WRITING, COMPOSING, and directing a musical all by yourself, especially while holding a job and studying at Harvard, must be hard work. In doing exactly that with It's Really Me, Lisa Davenport '88 has clearly bitten off more than she can chew.

The play is supposed to be one of those self-affirming, happy yet meaningful musical, like Pippin or Godspell. It tells the story of several recent college graduates (not from Harvard) trying to decide what to do with their lives.

This premise has plenty of potential, but Davenport has made It's Really Me into little more than a musical version of St. Elmo's Fire. In fact, many of the characters from that movie seem to have found their way into the bar where much of this play is set.

Sweet, innocent Jonny (Philip Brittan) loves Cathy (Julie Scott), who seems as sweet and innocent as her boyfriend, except for some not too casually dropped hints about her suppressed sordid tendencies. The better-defined characters in Jonny and Cathy's large coterie include the disturbed Cider (played with scenerychewing gusto by David Buttaro), who carries a book of Nietzsche in one hand and a bottle in the other; Isaiah (Jason Cogan), who is a first year Harvard Law student and big-brother figure to Jonny; Mare (Jennifer Hodges), a tough whore; and Strawberry (Lena Strayhorn), a flirtatious ditz.

The character try to explain themselves through Davenport's musical soliloquies, which come in two flavors: happy, upbeat, major-key ditties, and sad, brooding, minor-key ballads. All the songs have instantly forgettable melodies and lyrics, although some of the ballad melodies are mildly interesting for their complexity. The manic Cider gets the best of these, but his violent rampage during the song makes the audience laugh, destroying the song's effect.

Cider is also the catalyst for most of the ridiculous things that happen in this play. He pushes the drunken Jonny into the arms of Mare, who seduces him. Guilt-stricken and distraught, Jonny tries to commit suicide in Cider's presence, but accidentally shoots Cathy's roommate dead and is subsequently sent to prison.

The prison/freedom imagery runs throughout the play, with Cider finding in violence freedom from what he calls "the prison" of alcohol, and Mare (and later Cathy) finding in prostitution freedom from economics imprisonment.

There are unsettling messages behind this theme. Female characters suggest that prostitution is the "best of both words" because it combines business and pleasure.

As a director, Davenport seems to have allowed her actors free rein to interpret their character as they choose and only the aforementioned actors and Mark Levine as another friend have the discipline to keep Davenport's flat characters from fading into the background. Like Davenport's direction, Jennifer Bucksbaum's pepless choreography might as well not be there at all. The occasionally good acting and sometimes clever songs cannot fill all the voids the make It's Really Me really unsatisfying.