THEATER CAMP - Mark Reviews Movies

Theater Camp, Searchlight Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 13, 2023

Theater Camp creates such a believable locale and so many authentically eccentric characters that you wish there was simply more time to experience this place and these people. The time we do get to spend in the world of co-directors/co-screenwriters Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman's film, though, is enough—and more than that, too. This is a very funny and quite lovely little story about a group of outcasts and misfits who have found their place, their people, and their reason among those like them.

That's part of the beauty of the arts and theater in particular. Here's a film that knows that world and its population in its very bones, while not making a big deal about the fact.

It'll help, for example, if one knows that a kid is singing a difficult piece from a fairly child-inappropriate Stephen Sondheim musical to prove his talent at an audition. That moment, though, comes amidst a string of similar audition pieces, filled with in-the-know gags about the song choices, pieces of personal trivia each child has chosen to let the counselors know something about the kid they're watching, one child scolding the accompanying pianist for being off-rhythm, and another refusing to let something as disastrous as a sudden power outage ruin a final powerhouse note.

The show must go on, after all, and one of the subtle insights and sources of humor here is the understanding that, for this group, it's more than a philosophy about putting on a play. The show never ends for performers, whether or not they're on stage, because there's that other bit of wisdom, after all, that all the world's a stage. These people certainly imagine it that way.

Gordon, who also co-stars, and Lieberman establish this material as a faux documentary—a device that never comes into play within the film itself but definitely highlights its sense of authenticity. The first gag involves a couple of layers, introducing us to the camp's founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), as she and camp manager Rita (Caroline Aaron) try to raise enrollment at their struggling but still-kicking establishment, before eliminating her from the plot in what some on-screen text pronounces to be the first Bye Bye Birdie-related injury in the county's history.

Even so, the show of the fake documentary must go on, too, so the story follows a now-comatose Joan's son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) as he temporarily takes over operations of the theater camp, located in upstate New York and punnily called AdirondACTS. What does one say about Troy to communicate what an inherently amusing character he is? Well, he's a social media influencer specializing in business, even though he possesses no special—or, perhaps, simply no—knowledge about business.

For those who might feel lost within the film's deep understanding of this collection of theater people, Troy serves as a sympathetic stand-in for that segment of the audience. For those who are in on at least part of that knowledge, he gets to be a stand-in for a world that just doesn't get it. Tatro is affably dim but well-meaning in the role, which, like so many of the characters here, could have been a cheap punch line but reveals just enough depth that we can't help but quickly warm up to this outsider-among-outsiders.

Some other potentially easy jokes of characters, who aren't simply that, are the pair of Amos (Ben Platt), the camp's self-involved acting instructor, and the New Agey music teacher, who goes by the awkwardly hyphenated mononym Rebecca-Diane (Gordon). The two have been friends since childhood, when they met at the camp (Similarly, Platt and Gordon are longtime pals, so there's some real footage of the two as kids, participating in various theatrical projects, that's just a really nice touch.

These two have done everything together in their creative careers, including not getting into Juilliard and choosing to be "full-time teachers aspiring to be performers." When new counselor/teacher Janet (Ayo Edebiri) plainly states that their relationship is a co-dependent one, they counter that, no, they simply depend on each other on every level of their existence. By the way, Janet, who has replaced multiple teachers at camp as a cost-saving measure, is introduced to us as having "lied on her résumé," cleverly giving us the punch line to a series of scenes before they even start ("What is stage combat?" she rhetorically asks a group of students, before flat-out asking it again and again).

Of course, there are more characters, both instructors—such as dancer Clive (Nathan Lee Graham), costumer Gigi (Owen Thiele), and stage manager Glenn (Noah Galvin), who hides that he's a legitimate triple threat—and students—such as Darla (Kyndra Sanchez), against whom Amos holds what very well could be an envious grudge, and Devon (Donovan Colan), a first-timer who's insecure in a very specific way that isn't fully revealed until the third act. They're all unique in some way or another, and if there is a problem here, it is, again, that too many of them feel shortchanged in terms of screen time. That's a pretty decent "problem" for a film to have, all things considered.

The minimal plot in the screenplay (written by Galvin, Gordon, Lieberman, and Platt, although one imagines at least a notable amount of the dialogue has been improvised to some degree) is twofold. On one side, we have Troy working to save the camp from foreclosure (a word he has to ask his smartphone to define) and being taken over by a nearby rival camp, funded by a business venture represented by Caroline (Patti Harrison). His schemes to raise money include an act of child labor disguised as "immersive theater," which in turn traumatizes members of the local rotary club.

On the other side, there's the effort to write, rehearse, and stage a musical about Joan's life. That's overseen by Amos and Rebecca-Diane, whose relationship is put to the test by the strain and a secret she's too scared to reveal.

It all comes together in a film filled with smart humor and genuine heart, climaxing with a stage show that is subversively funny, features a few solid tunes, and allows us the encouraging sight of all these characters, whom we've come to know and appreciate, showing what they can do. It's a real high note, and just as with everything else it knows about stagecraft, Theater Camp is wise enough to end right then and there.

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