‘Fly by Night’ @ Theatre Arlington

—Jan Farrington

Theatre Arlington’s Fly by Night is a surprise gift, a musical about very ordinary people that we find ourselves watching with happy, extraordinary attention. Humans like us, with sorrows and joys, unsure of where we’re going—or even where we want to go. The show is called Fly by Night, but it ought to be subtitled And by the Seat of Our Pants.

It’s startling how quickly and deeply we invest in the lives of this little group onstage. We crack up at their different takes on life, get misty from their memories. and believe that what happens to the least of them really matters.

I saw and wrote about Fly by Night ten years ago, when the Dallas Theater Center ran a terrific workshop production (the show was still developing) that left me grinning and giddy—so glad to find a musical written by and for young folk (by recent Yale Drama grads Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock), with a rock-tinged score, musicians onstage (or, in that first production, in a sound booth next to the action), with a sharp and funny feel-good script. It went on to play on the East Coast, and had a New York run at Playwrights Horizons.

I was terrified to see it again. Would FbN’s oddball magic hold?

In short: Yes.

It’s a piece about love and loss, and the choices we make without knowing they’ll shape our whole lives. Full of self-conscious whimsy and lovely, fuzzy philosophy, it says we’re all made of exploded, universe-traveling stardust (true, actually), and connected to each other and everything in the world from “the grass up to the sky.” It’s a story about life’s coincidences and randomness. It never lets you settle on whether there’s a plan for us (maybe), or only what happens. And I saw it years before politics and pandemics gave me a darker view of humanity and life.

And so, I did go into this TA production, well-directed by company alum (and Broadway Aladdin star) Major Attaway, with different eyes and altered perceptions—but still walked out happy and lighter of heart. Uplifted, even, though the randomness (or fatefulness?) of the ending still leaves me puzzled. But it’s a story worth seeing, and talking about on the drive home—and repeating its very best line, delivered by the wondrous David Coffee as Mr. McClam, who in “Cecily Smith” finally gets to tell the story of how his life was, in one moment, changed forever:

“Life is not the things that we do / It’s who we’re doing them with.”

Fly by Night, set before and during the NYC blackout of 1965, is a rom-com of sorts, though with sad bits and a Narrator (chameleon David Lugo) who almost runs away with the show. Grieving Mr. McClam (Coffee) and son Harold (Landry Beckley) mourn a mother’s death—but it doesn’t bring them closer. Sisters Daphne and Miriam (Sydney Dotson and Donovan Marie Lawson) leave their small Dakota town for New York, one star-struck and the other already homesick. A grumpy sandwich shop owner (bullhorn-voiced Billy Betsill), appropriately named Crabbe, browbeats employee Harold and dreams of his brief glory days during WWII. And a ditzy playwright (Parker Fitzgerald)—who must have family money to burn—wants Daphne to star in a show he never quite finishes.

The Narrator plays everyone else and keeps us clear on the story, even moving us back and forth in time. Lugo is hilarious, snarky, engaging, and makes liberal use of his skills as a standup comedian. (He can do voices, too.) As the story-teller, he’s a bit like the Stage Manager in Our Town (he played one of the fathers in DTC’s recent Our Town/Nuestro Pueblo, in fact), but much funnier. His scenes as the two girls’ Midwestern mom are a stitch (her bosoms play a part), though his best role is as a gypsy-ish lady fortune teller whose very cloudy “clues” drive Miriam crazy. (But the old crone knows her stuff.)

The young folk are, respectively: spunky and a bit self-centered (Dotson’s Daphne)…open-hearted, sunny, and watching for “signs” (Lawson’s Miriam)…and sweet-natured but easily “stuck” (Beckley’s Harold)—writing the same song fragment for months, sticking with his dead-end sandwich job, having a girlfriend but loving someone else. Oh, Harold; he’s a shy, head-down nerd, but we do like him. In fact, we like all three corners of this love triangle. Playwright Joey Storms (Fitzgerald, all nerves and indecision) is New Yawk funny, and shakes things up by trying to change this triangle to a square—in rom-com terms.

If the creatives had asked me 10 years ago, I would have said Fly by Night needed to lose a half-hour of run time. It still does, but it would be hard to know what to cut. Would we want to miss any of the fortune teller’s craziness? Sandwich-maker Crabbe’s sudden moment of blackout glory? Harold’s agonizingly slow fumbles at finding the next chord of his (one) song? Mr. McClam’s sweet moments with Miriam the waitress? (Neither know yet they have Harold in common.) Nope, it all stays.

Behind the action is a lively band led by music director Vicky Nooe on piano, with Aaron Sutton on guitar, Rick Norman on bass, and Michael Ptacin on drums. The music is great, but I would lower the volume to let the good singing (and lyrics) come through more clearly. The scaffolding-and-stairs set design by Bryan Stevenson makes for nice backlit silhouettes, and the “stars” that emerge in the blackout are pretty. Hannah Bell gets the ‘60s clothing vibe right, with bell-bottoms, miniskirts and such—even a guy in an extravagant fur coat. Didn’t John Lennon have one just like it?

Thanks for bringing this one around again, Theatre Arlington. It’s grand.

WHEN: June 16-July 2, 2023

WHERE: Theatre Arlington, 305 West Main Street, Arlington

WEB: theatrearlington.org