Mess is a new musical about when Rachel finds out her ex is engaged to the person he cheated on her with, believing that her life is always a mess. She decides to visit Adam, her friend, who always has his life together, or seems like he does. The two then converse about how lonely they feel, their mental health and their temptation to just leave their jobs and start a band.
Unfortunately, Mess is aptly named. The structure and character development makes barely any sense at times. The references to mental health were also vague and confusing, like Rachel describing her mental health problems to Adam as if she has a dissociative disorder (or at least that’s what it sounds like from her dialogue) followed by Adam proclaiming he had no idea, when from experience, if someone has been struggling with a dissociative disorder, it would be rather obvious. I thought I would try to give it the benefit of the doubt because maybe the two characters hadn’t seen each other in a while, however the audience is not told anything about when the two last saw each other or how they met, how long they’ve been friends, so we can’t really even decipher how close the two are.
The best part of the production is the three-piece band as they make the piece feel a little more together from how tight they are (this also goes for the two performers when they play bass and cello), the songs provoke some minor toe-tapping, but all of them are forgettable after about a half hour, except Adam’s ballad about his mental health, which is probably the only emotionally impactful number of the show.
Imogen Halsey shows her acting ability, but the character of Rachel is quite frankly unlikeable. The character’s attitude seems quite defeatist although doesn’t really give her much of a backstory to justify it. Michael Dahl Rasmussen plays Adam, a character with more development, and only slightly more likeable.
I always have hope for new musicals and always approach them with an open mind. However, Mess is one that just failed to grab me in basically every area, from its bland characters to its lack of actual mental health awareness for a piece that claims to be about mental health.
