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The Lucky Ones by The Bengsons at Ars Nova

Who are The Bengsons?

Look, I know who are they are but why are they continuously given an opportunity to spill their guts and invite us into their personal lives? Who thinks they deserve to have their stories told on stage?

After 100 Days at NYTW in the fall, I couldn't help but think, "who cares?" The story, music, and performances weren't good enough to warrant an 80 minute "musical." But if you wanted to pass it off as a performance piece, so be it. Maybe it just was not for me.

But now The Lucky Ones is running at Ars Nova, and I was convinced this time things would be different. This wasn't going to just be Abigail and Shaun Bengson singing their songs, there was going to be a big cast and a real book! This was going to be a more traditional musical, right? Less of a performance piece?

Well.

The Lucky Ones, like 100 Days, is autobiographical. This time it focuses on the dysfunction and tragedy in Abigail's family during her childhood. And again I couldn't help but ask, "why?" Let's be real here: the Bengsons aren't ubiquitous in any sense in art or pop culture. I can't figure out why they're getting these opportunities to pour their hearts out to audiences who don't really know who they are. But I can put that all aside if the show is done well. If the material is strong. And there in lies the real problem; the Bengsons don't write strong enough music for the theater, Sarah Gancher's book is scattered and all over the place. The show, to not mince words, is a mess.

The real problem is that it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Is it a more traditional book musical? Some of it is. (Although Abigail narrates all of it, which is intrusive.) Part one is at least. There's some sort of narrative.

And then part two begins and instead of building on the momentum created at the end of the first part, it becomes a presentational concert that starts to touch upon the same material covered in 100 Days. Actually, the Bengsons throw everything to the wall to see what sticks, and nothing is developed. We get a sense of Abigail's mother's illness, her father's desire to adopt a polyamorous lifestyle, the tight-knit family falling apart, Kai, Abigail's cousin's psychosis, Abigail's miscarriage. But it's all thrown at us, just so all of this can be covered at least nominally. If there was a little more focus on the events that occur during Abigail's childhood, it would make for a more cohesive evening. This just shows that the Bengsons aren't quite cut out for theatrical conventions. It's okay to be experimental but it still has to work. There still needs to be a through line.

The biggest crime occurs in the third part where the characters deliver their accounts of events directly to the audience. Abigail claims this is all verbatim, based on interviews she conducted with her real family members. So any sense of drama or rising action is stripped away and it all becomes confessional. This comes off as lazy. There's absolutely no reason why actual book scenes couldn't be written to convey everything. If you want to excuse this as a device, it's still poorly executed. Having actors sit in chairs at the front of the stage and talk at the audience is nobody's idea of dynamic theater, especially considering the first part is compelling, and it has some interesting ideas, songs, and bits of staging. Whoever's idea it was to strip all of this away really should've been downvoted.

Another major issue is that the Bengsons don't really write theatrical music. There music doesn't quite move the plot along, and it doesn't quite develop character. They can certainly write strong pop songs but I can't quite figure out why they have their hooks in the theater.

I'm sure there's someone out there who will defend the Bengsons' work and their role in the theater world. Maybe they're simply not for me. But I think, no matter how experimental they want to be, there has to be some respect for theatrical convention and storytelling.

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