Hands on a Hardbody

La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, Calif.

(858) 550-1010

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This could well be the test run of a winner, said Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times. Not that the source material of this new musical is inherently promising: Playwright Doug White took the story from a 1997 documentary film about a Texas car dealership’s hokey endurance contest, in which participants stood holding on to a parked pickup truck and the last to collapse was promised the right to drive the new vehicle home. But there’s something winning about White’s genial adaptation. Even this jaded reviewer “got worked up” about which of the economically strapped characters was going to win the prize. “This contest isn’t about a handout. It’s about coping with hard times through resiliency, determination, and a persevering bladder.”

The distinctive premise can’t hide the debts this show owes to various older musicals, said Bob Verini in Variety. The countrified score contains hints of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; the way each character reveals a personal backstory through song makes Hands on a Hardbody a red-state version of A Chorus Line. But the format deftly introduces a “panorama of Plains types,” including an out-of-work roughneck (Keith Carradine), an Iraq War vet (David Larsen), and a pious Latina (Keala Settle). Currently, the show’s main problem is the staging: When contestants “break contact with the truck in order to blast power ballads,” the drama loses its grip as much as they do.

Give it time, said James Hebert in The San Diego Union-Tribune. The play will almost surely evolve after this production. Already, some of the songs—by Amanda Green and Phish’s Trey Anastasio—are spectacular. Larsen’s “Stronger” is “achingly beautiful,” and Settle’s gospel-charged “Joy of the Lord,” is “one of the most rousing musical numbers” I’ve ever heard. Mostly what Hands needs is to “keep its foot on the gas” so that the running time is shortened. Still, this witty and “wholly original” take on American dreamers and hucksters has real horsepower.